Ash vs Evil Dead - Second Coming - Review: "Pablo's back!"

Season Two has come to an end. It, for me, at least, better than Season One. Unfortunately, I found myself wishing the finale had been just a little bit better.

The episode picks up where it left off with Ash, trapped in the cellar, watching the crazy professor take off with The Book. Ash escapes the cellar just in time to witness Ruby’s arrival. Except it’s not our Ruby. Before Ash can figure out what’s different about Ruby, the Deadite drags him back into the cellar for a fight to the death
This was one of the few Deadite fights that just did nothing for me. I was bored.

Ash emerges from the cellar, victorious and realizes that he’s looking at two Rubys. 80s Ruby and the Pink Hair Rocking Ruby. Pink Ruby tries to talk 80s Ruby down, but gets stabbed with the demon blade instead. Pink Ruby gives Kelly The Book and reminds her to forge her own path as a badass.

Ash’s mission to rescue Pablo by changing the past seems to have been a huge success. Ash gets his hand back. He can’t really enjoy the moment because Pablo isn’t there to share it. But then…he is! They pull a very much alive Pablo from the trunk of the Delta.

It’s a happy reunion for our three heroes until Baal reveals himself. Did anyone else want to throw things at their TV at that moment? That little twist earned my forgiveness for the boring Deadite fight. Apparently Baal jumped into Pablo’s body just after he died.

The shock of the situation makes it pretty easy for Baal and 80s Ruby to capture Ash. (Sadly Pink Ruby is dead.) When Ash wakes, Ruby is birthin’ her babies. From The Necronomicon instead of Pablo this time, which was much easier for me to watch.

Ash challenges Baal to a fist fight to determine whether or not Baal gets to stay on Earth. Ash even tossed Kelly into the bargain. (I was surprised Kelly didn’t punch Ash for that one.)

While Ash and Baal fight, Ruby once again talks to Kelly about standing in Ash’s shadow. Ruby points out that both men threw the women’s well being/lives into the bargain with out a second thought. Ruby’s reaction to that insult is to find a spell in The Necronomicon to alter the deal Ash and Baal made with each other.

Ruby wants to know how Kelly reacts to Ash tossing her into the bargain with Baal. Kelly and Ruby have been having this conversation for quite a while now, except this time it’s coming from 80s Ruby. Instead of encouraging Kelly to forge her own path in the world, 80s Ruby wants Kelly to join her. Kelly sticks with forging her own path.

Kelly tries to grab the demon blade, but instead ends up getting beaten up by the Demon Babies. It was short but pretty cool fight. Loved the look of the black smoke tendrils tossing Kelly around like a rag doll.

I’m beginning to hope that all of this talk of Kelly stepping out from behind Ash means good things for her character next season.

Baal, not surprisingly, cheats in his fight against Ash. He cuts off Ash’s brand new hand! Ash uses Baal’s finger claw to kill Baal. Apparently, Baal was intending to renege on this part of the deal as well. He’s surprised when the ‘summoning back to hell’ starts. Baal demands to know what Ruby has done. Ruby says she “honored the deal.” Ball, his demon babies, Ruby and The Book are all being sucked back to Hell. Baal probably shouldn’t have bargained with Ruby’s existence like she was a piece of furniture.

Once the cabin and everything are sucked back into Hell, Pablo emerges, as promised. Ash greets Pablo by punching him in the face. Not sure I can blame him. But, it’s over. Ash has saved the world and is hailed as the Town Hero and everyone can live happily ever after.

Except that, for this show, I don’t believe ‘happily ever after’ exists. When Linda and Ash started talking about perfection and relaxing, I was expecting some type of ‘this is a vision we’re forcing on a captured Ash’ type of scene. I was glad they didn’t do that.

What they did do only added to my list of logic questions for the episode.

We hit the town hero scene and I was completely confused. How did they get back to 2016? Did it happen when Ruby’s spell sucked all to Hell? It wasn’t part of the bargain. (I replayed it.) Ash referred to 30 years ago and Linda was there so they made it back somehow, right? (unless that scene was a vision scene.)

What was Brock’s secret? This is the second episode that mentioned this secret, and we still don’t know what it was. One of my pet peeves is scenes where a character has an extremely important thing to say and they say everything but the extremely important thing. If it’s that important, dispense with phrases like “listen to me”: just say it!

Then it seemed there was an extra Necronomicon in the final scene. Where the heck did that come from? But I can give them that one. If I was The Necronomicon, I wouldn’t count myself in the bargain either.

All together I thought Season Two was a lot better than Season One. Several of the elements I found lacking here I wouldn’t have mentioned for Season One because I just didn’t expect it to be that good. However, the writers set the bar higher this season, and I expected the season finale to hit that bar or better it. I felt let down on that score.

But Pablo is back, and Kelly seems poised to kick butt in her own right. Ash is still one handed, and we already have a go ahead for Season Three. I’m looking forward to it.

What did you guys think of the finale? What did you think about Season Two in general? Any guesses or hopes for Season Three?