“Ash vs. Evil Dead” Episode 1 El Hefe

30 years after Army of Darkness, we catch up with Ashley “Ash” J. Williams (Bruce Campbell). He’s older, but he has lost NONE of his boyish erm…charms?

His chainsaw hand has been replaced with a carved wooden rosewood one that screws on. He still drives the old beat up car he’s always had. He still picks up the girls at the bar with cheesy lines.

What has changed? His waistline and his teeth. Poor bastard.

Hey baby, check out my wood.

At the bar, he gets the attention of a woman and says he rescued an 8-year-old boy from the train tracks and a speeding train took his hand. That’s all he needs to say to hook up with her in the bathroom. When they are almost done having sex, she turns around and reveals the face of a hideous deadite. Totally killing the mood. He isn’t sure if he’s hallucinating or if the Deadite is real, but he can’t refuse the lady so he finishes the deed and then leaves, driving and looking in his rear-view mirror the entire time.

Everything is fine. I’m fine, you’re fine. We’re all fine. Yup. No monsters here.

But, the Necronomicon is safe. In an unlocked trunk in his silver bullet trailer. With a bonus baggie of weed! (Which he does not remember hiding in it.)

Wait a second. How did that get there?

Then, it all rushes back to him. He brought a blonde chick back to his place, and they got high, she asks him to read her French poetry because it drives her wild.

He spots the Necronomicon, out in the open (suspiciously so) and cracks it open, “Try this poetry, it’ll blow your mind” he says and then reads an incantation that she repeats. They are laughing hysterically…until the Deadites return.

Ash has reopened the portal. Evil has once again been unleashed onto the world! Noooo!!!

We enjoy a bit of monster-cam as the Deadites arrive at a quaint two-story house, where a detective, Amanda Fisher ( Jill Marie Jones) and her partner Carson (Mike Edward) are investigating reports of a woman screaming for her life. There are more screams as they approach the building.

The lights are out, but that doesn’t stop our plucky Michigan State Trooper. She has a flashlight! And a gun!

She finds a dead woman, her face frozen in fear, and attempts to contact her partner but there is no answer. Strange noises in the house draw her further in, where she finds her partner, Carson, aiming a shotgun at a rocking chair. Everything is covered in plastic, and a figure of a person draped in a white sheet slowly stands. It is a crying woman. Upon approach, they discover a girl, totes freaking out. Streaked maschera, trendy clothes. It’s the same woman who summoned the Deadites with Ash! Ruh Roh Raggy!

She twists her head completely around and gives them the typical spiel, then runs at them, backwards, with her head still twisted around the wrong way. The Tattoo Girl Deadite attacks the detectives, stabs her with scissors, before she pumps her full of lead. It doesn’t stop her.

Die bitch! Die!

Her partner blows off the side of her head with the shotgun, and she gets back up and shoves him onto a rack of deer antlers, killing him.
Amanda shoots off the rest of her head. The window shutters slam closed. Carson’s body is gone…he has turned into a Deadite.

She spots him crawling on the ceiling. He attacks, they struggle, she successfully fights him off, gets her gun, and he pulls the “Please shoot me Amanda, before I turn evil again” routine by temporarily returning to normal.

She can’t do it.

“I need you…I, need you.”
“You need me?”
“I need you to die.”
He laughs.

She blows his brains out.

Ash leaves his trailer the next morning. Looks around suspiciously, as he calls Books from Beyond, trying to get someone to translate the Necronomicon for him.

He asks his elderly neighbor to fix up his trailer, and clean it all up. Like, all of it, while he’s gone. Because he’s a dick like that. lol

An ominous wind blows. His neighbor disappears. Then reappears, after Ash finds her hiding behind a hanging bedsheet.

Do not underestimate your friendly little old lady neighbor. She could turn into a Deadite at any time!

She has a warning for him:

 “We are near, your time comes again.”

Ash books it out of there. Heads to his job at Value Stop, get his check and plans to run to Saginaw before nightfall.

But his insufferable boss Mr. Roper hates him, and won’t let him leave early. “You get your pay at the end of the day. Store policy.” Damn Mr. Roper.

Ash picks up light bulbs box, and they all fall out and break. Oopsie! He sweeps them under the pallet, until Pablo Bolivar (Ray Santiago) helps him out with the dustpan and a garbage bag. He invites him to watch some WWF Raw, which he politely declines.

You think she needs help with her rack?

Pablo, offers to help him out with his “problem.” And points out a fellow employee, Kelly Maxwell (Dana DeLorenzo), that can help out too. Ash, being the stud he is, has to go flirt with her. Hilarity ensues. She exchanges quip for quip with him. It’s impressive.

Amanda shows up at the local diner. Hand bandaged, moping over a cup of coffee, upset that she has been suspended over the Deadite incident and “killing” her partner. She hears something strange. One of the girls in the diner looks at her like a Deadite, but then her face changes back to normal and the girl looks over and smiles at her. D’awwww so cute!

A mysterious, and ominous woman–Ruby Knowby (Lucy Lawless)– peers around the corner of the booth. She tells Amanda that she isn’t hallucinating at all and leaves.

Dun dun duuun!

Meanwhile, in the back storeroom of Value Stop, Ash is yelled at about the light bulbs (he is picking up a box to replace the broken ones and manages yet again to drop them on the floor and break them). The lights suddenly go out. Deadite laughter spooks him. We get the classic Ash Williams eyeball stare (aka the Clint Eastwood Western eye shot) in this scene. It’s perfect.

Ash notices that the shelves of dolls have something wrong with them. He is then attacked by a cutesy princess doll, she bites his nose, he tries to knock her off with a clay pot– repeatedly. She calls herself “Little I hate You.”

So deadly! So cute!

The slapstick comedy of Army of Darkness is in full swing in this scene.

Ash is beaten up by a vicious doll, until he manages to toss her off of his face.  The Little I Hate You doll picks up a box knife She runs screaming at him, and Pablo squashes her dead with a shovel.

“What the hell was that?”

Ash asks him if he believes in evil. Pablo tells him that his uncle is a shaman, they call him a brujo, and he says;

“Pablito, fear the evil. The devil is always waiting in the shadows.”

Ash tells him how he found the Necronomicon in the cabin in the woods. We see fun stock footage from the first two films as he narrates. He admits that he messed up and read from the book and unleashed the evil.

“My uncle said something else. That only one man would rise against it. He called him el Hefe. I think that’s you Ash.”

“You got the wrong guy.”

Ash denies that he is the hero that can stop evil. He tries to run away, a storm picks up. He squeals out of the parking lot.

Kelly’s dad calls her from home. Her mother has come home. Her dead mother… The video calls shows her mother walking in through the front door. But she died 6 months ago.

Kelly needs to go home.  Her dad is in trouble. Pablo offers to take her there on his motorbike. Kelly can’t start it, something is coming right for them (more monster-cam!) and they drive off as their boss is attacked.

Amanda returns to the house where she killed her partner dead (the second time). She wants answers. When she sees a torn of strip of Carson’s shirt on the deer rack, it confirms that it is real, that she wasn’t hallucinating. That did happen.

Pablo takes Kelly to the trailer park where Ash is living before they go save her dad. He knows that Ash is the only guy that can help them.

Pablo is still trying to convince Ash to get involved and to stop the evil that he “accidentally” unleashed. While they are chatting, another Deadite rushes up to Ash’s trailer. They all hear it. Ash knows that they are in trouble.

Something is pounding on the roof of his trailer.

There is no more running. He has been found.

Kelly is attacked when she stands by a window. Ash does nothing, Pablo tries to save her, begs Ash to help them. Unable to not help a beautiful girl (they are his weakness) Ash tosses an axe and cuts off the Deadite’s hand, freeing Kelly from its grasp.

The trailer is repeatedly bashed by some unseen force. Kelly screams at them to leave them alone. It gets ominously quiet.

Getting back to business, Ash rips off his work shirt, reveals his trademark blue shirt/brown pants combo, twirls and entranced Kelly towards him, takes her belt, and uses it to put his shotgun holster on. He grabs his trusty Boomstick and fights off a Deadite: one shot, one kill.

Ash  tells them that they will go rescue Kelly’s father, but first he needs to find the spell to stop the evil he’s unleashed.

As he goes to get his chainsaw from where it is mounted on the wall, he is attacked by the Deadite old neighbor lady, whom proceeds to kick their asses. She’s the toughest one yet.

She stabs Pablo, knocks Kelly to the ground, tosses Ash’s chainsaw aside. Kelly fights her, but the old lady is too strong. Ash removes his wooden hand, Pablo tosses the chainsaw, and Ash leaps for it, the chainsaw clicks onto his arm.

He’s back in business.

He cuts off her head in one fell swoop and she falls to the ground, bleeding profusely from the neck-stump.

“You were right. No more running.”

“It’s good to see you hefe.”

“It’s good to be back.”

“How does it feel?”

“Groovy”

This is a seriously strong first episode to a fantastic Evil Dead TV series. The witty quips between characters, the slapstick humor, the gore, the gallons of blood, it’s all there. Fans of “The Evil Dead” and “Army of Darkness” will LOVE “Ash vs. Evil Dead.” I guarantee it.

Will Amanda uncover the truth about the Deadites? Who is that mysterious woman who told her that she wasn’t crazy in the diner? Will Ash undo his latest catastrophic mistake? Or will it kill him? Will Kelly save her dad? Will Pablo be Scooby to Ash’s Shaggy?

Find out in the next episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead!