Ash VS Evil Dead would be able to become a masterpiece, but...




After watched the Season Finale and the alternate ending story, I realize that Season 3 can finally be the occasion to make a masterpiece.






I want to thank:

  • Leonardo Chironi and Fagiolino Bean for helping me to translate just a part of this analysis during their limited time on christmas vacations. Sorry for my english.
  • Emanuele Crivello (editor at nonapritequestoblog.it and owner of Evil Dead Italia), for approving this and for helping me during the publication of this article.

== SPOILER ALERT:

 STOP READING IF YOU DON'T HAVE WATCHED EPISODE 2X10===

Please, before reading, throw away all the paradox theories: you can write a fresh new time travel story even without paradoxes. I want to try to explain why this show needs to fix some little points for become a truly amazing experience and not Troma's American Horror story.
Just for the record: I love Troma and Lloyd Kaufman, I consider Kaufman one of the best indipendent artist af all times, a mentor for James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, Super) and Matt Stone & Trey Parker (South Park). So knowing that he's also a very kindly person, I have asked to him about the series (And yes, the Morgue scene was awesome if considered that is a reference to Troma movies)



But Ash Vs Evil Dead got the finest qualities to become elegant like FX’s Fargo without lose adrenaline, fear, thrilling moments and slapstick.

 

Evil Dead hybrid structure is what makes big this Franchise


===10 Hours ago===


 Season 1 was just what the fans wanted to see. And it was awesome.



  • Ash is still alive after 30 years. His character is still charming and intense. Bruce Campbell is magnetic like never before.
  • 5 hours of new materials for fans written by an amazing writing crew
  • 5 excellent directors (including two episodes directed by Iolaus) with the hard mission to expand the visual art of the original trilogy style 
  • Joseph Lo Duca's score and Jason Smith's mighty musical selection to listen in everyday life, pure finest musical culture. The music department have done an excellent job.  This soundtrack is one of the best in television history, near to Fargo, Twin Peaks and Westworld Soundtracks.
  • Lucy Lawless , the most greatest TV heroin of all times, inside one of the best Saga of alla times.
  • New material for expand the Fantasy universe connected to the Necronomicon: Ex Mortis - The greatest DIY book of all times
  • Bad CGI effects that becomes the best CGI effects ever seen during Eligos's apparition





Season 2 was just what the fans wanted to see... again... and it was just a more excessive frenetic gruesome reunion party with good intentions to expand their possibilities that missed the point.


About the good intentions, IGN wrote a full review with all the good things happened in season 2. And there's a lot.

But this long and detailed article want to analyze why people lost interest in the show. Look guys, I don't want to teach anything to anybody. I believe in cast and crew decisions and I respect them... If you don't like an old Evil Dead fan point of view it's ok, you're not forced to read this post and you can stop to read it in any moment.


=== Ash VS Frankenstein ===

In Season 1 Ash was scared, because Ash knew that he was old and when he found Pablo and Kelly he finally started thinking to a legacy. Bruce Campbell can finally interpretate something more dramatic... and we missed FEAR in this season.



There’s nothing scarier than become completely mad and die alone. That’s why Ash is human. That's why fans seen themself inside him. In Season 2 seems like he's actually a sort of Frankenstein monster, hated by people and by his own father. We have finally understood what happened after his escape from the cabin 30 years ago, and why he ran away from his town.  And something like that can fuck your mind completely.

But at the end of the Season 2 he seems to redeems himself... or not?


“I know what you’re all saying: Ash Williams saved everybody. Yep, probably going to have a statue made and a parade in my honor.”

"Wow, it’s just that... all of this It’s so perfect... I mean I never expected any of this..."

After departure of Craig DiGregorio, the show have change completely road... and this can be a good thing. In the managing of the Finale a lot of things was confusing. Also this is a good thing: production can finally starts the Bruce Campbell full Experience.

=== BRUCE CAMPBELL’S DELUSION ===

In the asylum episode (2X07), people don't even think for one second about the possibility of Ash being possessed by Baal. As I said, fear were missing.

But people also watch Bruce Campbell interpretation of the episode, when he surrenders.


People reaction was: Shit, he really collapsing to Baal?

Bruce Campbell that plays Ash that plays Bruce Campbell it’s one of the best things of the season... really. More than a time paradox.
Every movie is a different Ash's growth. People hope to see Ash's evolution in the series.


We know that he can do that, just think at his interpretation of Reagan in Fargo Season 2.

In the Pilot, we see the real scared Ash, with nightmares in his mind. He is a man that wants to stay alone, he don't want to lose more friends. 
In season 2:

his father dies and 30 minutes later all he can think is about to get laid with Linda. Also, we don't see him bury his father (But in episode 1X02 he buries Kelly's parents).

Fortunately he seems to start reacting after Pablo's death (thanks to Baal for this)...

Michelle Hurd's character, unexpectly for fans, seems a reason for Ash to defeat evil... maybe an evolved Ash in Season 3 can explain only to her what's going on inside his tormented mind... or maybe he can hardly try to avoid a face to face with her... a lot of things are possibles with a lot of interesting consequences. But this new Linda firstly need to be accepted by fans, this is the hard part.


This series is the occasion to write a full story that can be the real ENDING for Ash, and could close this saga. And there's three (or one if Starz starts to lose TV Ratings) more season to make this possible.

And then fandom will keep it going it for maybe 2500 years! Seriously... people love this saga and I'm one of these guys.

=== People who love the original saga stopped to watch Ash VS Evil Dead ===


Just watch the faces in this compilation video. You can see all the humans feelings of this world: joy, astonishment, anxiety, confusion (in a good way), fear, laughs. Who have watched the first trailer after waiting years know this sensation. So what happened? Why people stopped to watch the series? I've tried to make an analysis, involving also cast and crew of the show where possible (you can see in this post my twitter conversations with some of them)

Source: Tvseriesfinale.com



 The following are just my thoughts and my personal suggestions as a fan that see a lot of potential in the series' future.

 

===  WAITING TIME ===



Every good story needs time for a good evolution. David Lynch's new Twin Peaks is an example. If people waited 30 years for a sequel, they can also wait 2 or more years for an epic ending.


During the Collider's Podcast "After Ash", Perri Nemiroff and Dana De Lorenzo talk about the possibility of making Webisodes (Min. 21:17).




Webisode will be interesting...
Do you know what is also interesting? Webcomics or a series plot extension or an official Alternate Reality Game in the way of Find 815 (Lost) , Utopia: The Lost game, The Fall: Spector's Journal.

This is a good occasion for take the time, and give to fans something. Really guys: if production stop for one year, people just goes crazy. Obsession will possess them.



If you want to discuss insane and funny theories just check the reddit community of Ash VS Evil Dead



=== THERE'S A LOT OF GOOD POINTS IN THIS FINALE ===


Yes, this ending has plot-holes but this can be a real possibility to shuffle the cards on the table.

But it needs time and he also needs the rights for Army of Darkness. Because without these rights, people will talk about this lack forever, also, it's hard to keep calling back two horror movies forever. Also, is cast's favorite movie. The series needs S-mart shop again, it needs Joseph Lo Duca's original score and, mostly, it needs Ash's memories.

But Campbell and Tapert affirmed "we don't need them". Then Bruce Campbell has explain the situation (here at minute 2:11 and here). So I'm started a research but I found just the comic franchise and this trademark logo. As far as I know, MGM owns Army of Darkness license of Comic Books  published by Dark Horse Comics and later by Dynamite Entertainment.
Now, I don't know the situation from the inside,  I've also thinked, (with my competence in finding solutions for companies) to write some contractual agreement to propose at the Production, an agreement with a lot of benefits for both Starz and Mgm, if Production is interested, just contact me via mail or social.

I suggest to insist on this important matter because if production don't got these rights, a piece of audience (The ones who love just Evil Dead 3) seems not to much interested on AVED, blood can't fill everything alone.

=== Reinassance Picture / Ghost House Pictures / Special Guests ===


I always admire how three young friends follow their dreams and create a family business. Not an empire... a family business, a company with an heart and a personal artistic touch. And this company have produced our childhood's best TV Show, we have grown with the shows maded by these "three stooges". But not only TV Show, they launched director's like Fede Alvarez, a guy that have made a short movie with CGI Robots and the "28 days later" soundtrack. 

This short movie convinced Sam Raimi to pick up Fede Alvarez to direct the Evil Dead Remake. And, speaking about direction, the remake is awesome. Really guys, when I need to talk about an example of visual good remake, I always choose to talk about to this movie. And I hate remakes and reboots from the deep of my heart.

Lastly, Sam Raimi has worked with great stars of hollywood. And half of the people have worked with him, have seen the Evil Dead Saga and was shocked by that movie.

This show is the occasion for enter in the Evil Dead Universe, there's a lot of directors and stars
that citing Evil Dead, have become professionals and creative geniuses.



Edgar Wright's "Spaced"
with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost




== Evil Dead is not the Walking Dead ==

During Walking Dead 7x01 I know some characters will die (I know it because internet is full of spoilers). But when I saw Ash reconciliating with his father and then lost him, I cried.... because this is the life: when you finally fix your relationships, bad things happened.

I know that the series is not focalized on drama moments because don't have the time, and also I don't want to see in an horror comedy, characters crying for death friends for two episodes. But for one single episode for season (if is true that  Starz gives creativity freedom), production need to make an exception. One 40 minute for better exalt the feelings when it's the right moment.

This episode have two time lapse sequences... but you need to watch it again for understand how much time Ash has spent in the asylum. And spending 50 minutes of your life anyway.
Allanah Bazzard and Tony Tilse careful RECAP editing of 2x08 "Ashy Slashy" focuses on little details for summarise David Frazee's previously episode. Rewatch it. This happens because this particular episode have too much points for just 25 minutes.
I really hope to watch a director's cut of the full show in a future. 

Anyway (and i repeat Anyway), I want to remember that is possible create full emotional breakdown also in 20 minutes episodes, the trick is to start a song 60-120 seconds before the credits.


If you start a song 10-30 seconds before the credits, you also have an interesting and satysfing cliffhanger sequence.


In my opinion The real Ash is trapped in his own character, he can hides to Kelly and Pablo his feelings (Is what he have done at the end of Season 1, he have chosen a truce for save them and for not stay alone again). But Ash is full of fear. His life was devastated by evil and this evil haves his own face.




== The Dark ones ===


Nothing about dark ones have been told in season 2. We just know that Ruby betrays Baal, but why?
 Who’s at the top of Dark Ones' council? In my opinion, just one person be at the top of the evil (I don’t want to tell you, figure it out). And in Season 3 something will finally be explained.





=== S3E01: Home Alone (an exercise)  ===



i wrote an hypothetical 3x01 intro script with notes, just to keep practicing as writer, an exercise that I named (for a couple of reasons) "301 - Home Alone"



EXT. WOODS - DAY
Ash is in the woods, with a beard and a black eye-patch, alone walking (or perhaps riding a white horse) in the snow...  maybe Evil Forces destroyed the world in the present, maybe he flew somewhere in the past because the world is over, maybe he's in a frozen hell.... a sort of strange place, an Ash's own mind prison...

With a guessed score (like the one during the Army of Darkness Alternate original ending when Ash sleeps for years) the public follows him in this strange place. Audience, (helped by specific shoots from Director's episode) starts to understand where Ash is and why is there.

He's searching for something in the woods, under the rocks, he finds some mushrooms. He has a wooden hand (as seen in Season 1). He first smells them and then he picks and collects them into a small brown bag.

 After that, the sky becomes completely dark. Music score becomes darker. A voice from above starts to speak. A very dark voice into a red-lighted cloud. The only light in the obscured clouded sky.


The voice, with a very deep tone, says: 


VOICE OVER - JOIN US...


Ash is scared and tries to run in the woods followed by the force. A  40-120 seconds  running sequence. He finds the lighthouse, his new home for the whole time he spent in this strange place. 

Something in the building reconnects the place to the cabin and the windmill.  


We see Ash getting inside and this stops the evil force rush. 


Ash puts some woods in the fireplace. A disassembled chainsaw is on the table.


He starts to cough. He spits blood from his mouth.  He is sick, he is weak and he is alone. He’s dying. Why?


When he sees the blood, he starts to be angry and very scared. 


He starts to speak alone:



 ASH: What have I done... what have I done...

 
He screams:

 
ASH: WHAT HAVE I DOOONE!

He takes off his wooden hand stained with his spitted blood and throws it in the fireplace.



Main Title Opening

After this sequence, the rest of the episode will be like every episode of AVED, a mix of good direction, sense of humor, good quality writing... When I wrote this dark flash-forward, I've thinked:

Finally people can be scared by the possibility of losing their hero and can get involved in a real plot. With this flash-forward intro you get 10 episodes of time to explain what's going... because at the end of this series (hoping episode 5X10), Ash needs to die and carry on his legacy, and production needs time and a good plane to do this.



=== Kelly, the chosen dark one ===


Kelly can be still connected to Ash in a way, not necessary as a daughter....  she can becoming a dark one and continues to be the best badass amazing character of the last ten years. I have some ideas about it because Kelly was the first person in the series really devastate by evil.


She watched their parents die in the most horrible way possible. Like Ash (from Evil Dead 1) she was totally scared. Audience understand that because Ash don't say a word. No stupid jokes or overreacted sense of humor. He understand that evil is seriously back. Director Michael J. Bassett gives to the episode a sense of pure horror. And the episode is also fun, in right dose, never excessive.


Her evolution is one of the better thing in season 1.
In Season 2, she starts to speak with the evil forces. There's a reason that writers of the show can be use: She is the only that can save Ash from his own frozen hell.


But before that, she needs a lonely journey into the abyss of evil.

When Ash fell in the abyss


Dana De Lorenzo interpretation in 2x07 was marvelous and insane. The actress is like a kaleidoscope.


=== Pablo needs to become El Brujo ===



Pablo is actually the book, and he's also connected with the dark ones. But now that Ruby is evil, he just needs a training to use this powers. Maybe El Brujo’s ghost... maybe a long bearded medieval wizard... There's a lot of options but Pablo needs to evolve his powers and he needs a training.

Why?
Because he can be the only one that can contrast Dark Kelly's powers and save her from evil.
With this:

Oopps... wrong photo....
Exactly


=== Ruby Knowby/ Dark Ruby: Restart point ===



We can finally have the occasion for study in deep the Evil Dead.. this strange evil force that flies between the woods, and is also the occasion for understand why Ruby choose to become a Dark One. I don't want to tell any theory about her (but yes, I have a good one). I believe in Lucy Lawless's interpretation, anything will be good because she knows and feels her own characters. This year mortal (and human) Ruby was just a mother that have lost her opportunity to create a legacy (something still never happened in the actual Ash evolution) and, after lose everything, surrender to evil. Amazing.


=== Balance of Sense of humor ===

A superlative Ted Raimi in his most WTF sequence of the show
One of the most frequent questions during the Q&A of Season 1 was: Is Ted Raimi involved in this?
When finally his partecipation as "an old Ash's friend" was confirmed, a big "YES!" echoed in the whole world. One thought cross my mind in that moment:

What if Ted, from Ash's best friend, turns into a serious evil son of a bitch villain?

 For the occasion i have rewatched some odd episodes of Xena set on alternate realities and i have seen how much is good Ted Raimi in different characters with different moods.

Then I watched him in Season 2 and something was wrong:

Yes the character is fun because is Ted Raimi in the part of an old stoned friend of a stoned hero, but, sincerely is an overreacted character. He have no empathy for Ash (But Ash still believes in his last legacy from his past) and after he knew that is father is dead, he stealthily enters in his home for masturbate on Cheryl's dress... why? It's not fun like the colon parassite scene, is just weird. Even Ash tries to not think about that for don't lose his friendship...

But Chet's redemption occurs in the season finale when he cuts Ash's hand for the second time. There's a sort of evil symbolism in this. I really enjoy this kind of things. But unfortunately, the last episode is too fast and intense to focalize on this deep moment. You need to watch two times.

I hope that Chet Kaminsky was just the first step for a regular acting of Ted Raimi during next seasons, because we saw just a 35% of his real acting capacities this year (Badass Henrietta included).


=== RAIMI PARTECIPATION ===


Ted and Ivan Raimi's work was complex. Ivan wrote the most complex episode title of the series (DUI) and he's still a brilliant writer. Is important to see also Sam Raimi directly involved, not only as a producer but in writing or directing (or also acting as a character!). I only imagine how busy can't be Sam Raimi, but even after Spiderman, this saga is the creation that people will remember forever as the masterpiece of the director. We need to see his hand on the show.


(Sam Raimi's hand)


=== Craig DiGregorio===

We missed Eli in this season, the emotional impact of a pet is something not to underestimate 

He made a wonderful job in season 1 and in Season 2 beginning. When I saw the fantasy element (like Ruby as a witch or the Book bound in Pablo's flesh) and Brock Williams inside the show I thought that this Season would been better than the first. But DiGregorio also mades mistakes in Season 2 (after 2x06 every episodes was so confusing, not just the finale and push the accelerator on too much unnecessary overreaction moments).
I hope it will come back as a writer in Season 3, but not as a Showrunner.

The episode Home Again (2x09) have plot-holes and incongruence with the Professor Knowby stuff but only if you consider the time travel theory. His evil intentions will be more plausible if reference from the original movies fits on his backround story.


Writers need time to better discuss ideas and work on it because DiGregorio is a smart guy, that give to the show new good elements and amazing moments but he missed the point this year.


==== Crtical situation, new Showrunner, References ===

One of the best moment of season 2. Baal explains how he was just waiting the right moment for strike again, surprising and (finally) shocking the audience. If you put in the main plot all the Necronomicon's immortal writers, only good things can happen.


Writers (Luke Kalteux from Netflix's Daredevil credited for the last episode) and the producers have managed a critical situation in a very short time. A Season finale into the cabin is not repeating itself, it's what fans want. We saw Baal again (and this make sense) but he's defeat is just... weird... The only thing that can kill dark ones is the kandarian dagger...

I hope to see Baal again, Joel Tobeck has shaped a charming character. Click here for see Baal's Mythology. 

Now the new Showrunner will be Mark Verheiden, the man that helps Bruce to realize “My name is Bruce”, a sort of Ash Vs Evil Dead Prototype.

But Mark Verheiden is also the writer of "The Evil Dead" a comic series published by Dark Horse Comics. In this comic series he expands the main plot of the first movie adding interesting points like: Ash's thoughts and a Scotty/Ash brief prologue, how deadites currupt their victims and a new unexpected connection between Evil Dead & Evil Dead 2.


I think that is a good and invaluable friend of the crew and I hope that he listening to writes and people’s visual ideas and suggest the better solutions.

From the Movie "My Name is Bruce". Yep, references on your left.

Ellen Sandweiss was outstanding. Watch her again in 2x06 and 2x10 was wonderful.

An hint for all the writers: No more reference of Lost, Futurama, Back to the Future, Star Wars or Jumanji. They're fun but they can compromise an episode and, sometimes, references are just inserted for lack of ideas. This show is a carnival of ideas, just calibrate them. Again I respect writers, this is just a suggestion from outside.

=== Cold openings and Recaps ===


Series like Fargo and The Young Pope have teached that a good story starts with a good beginning and need to consider variable openings and recaps (like in 1x02, 1x10 and 2x10). In Episode 1x02 (The Bait) is possible to see a variation of the opening, with Highway Star by Deep Purple in backround. Production can variate this opening (sometime, not every episode) also in visual effects: blood, flames, chainsaws and everything they're imagination can find!

An example?
Rewatch again cold opening of episode 2x09 and reimagine when they passed the portal, the opening was a blue vortex in the Army of Darkness style. 

 This show is what young new directors will study in university and film college in the next years. Directors like Tony Tilse, Rick Jackobson, Micheal J. Bassett, Mark Beesley, David Frazee, Micheal Hurst have written a piece of TV History guided by Sam Raimi experience and creativity.


===In conclusion===

Sian Davis is the best Deadite from Season 1 and hide an easter egg from the Franchise. The Social Department (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr)  mades everyday a wonderful job. But the trend is lower than the last year. People lost interest.

“Emotional feedback
on timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price,
almost free”
(Rush - Spirit of the radio)

To me Evil Dead is not just an horror/fantasy/funny Franchise. It's the story of a friendship and a family (Initially Robert Tapert, Bruce Campbell, Ivan, Sam and Ted Raimi, Joseph Lo Duca,  then Lucy Lawless and then all the amazing cast & crew that work on Hercules, Xena, the 2013 remake and this series). A group of friends that built something together... and continue to be friends.

Business change people. 

When I watch Evil Dead, I watch a story of a friendship. This is the reason why I'm a 30-years-old fan of this thing.


I'm thinking that, in a future final episode, this will be the most heart-breaking emotionally scene in the series... just ask me why and how...



If the series forget this point, there's no more to talk about in this (sort of) revival.


The meaning of friendship 
and also partnership. In my family I've seen brothers split their company, but these guys seems to be bond like brothers.

I'm just a little writer that works on different things to get a living and, after work at the family company, watch his favorite show with his old friends, when we have the time, not in contemporary with the US or ITALIAN calendar, because we have busy lifes. I wrote this article during the Christmas Holidays because only in this period I have found some time to analyze this series. Some months ago, I've realized a Pilot for Infinity TV (the Italian channel that transmits Ash VS Evil Dead in Italy) and then the pilot was in competition at the Infinity Film Festival with just a budget of 10 € and the free collaboration of MatthewCatCap, a youtuber animator that believed in my project (In the Cabin in the woods style). This is just for saying that before writing a post like this, I've thinking a lot about what can be good to the series (obviously, just in my opinion). Unfortunately for me, I'm not involved in the production of AVED but, also without earn money on it, I just want try to help.

This saga is the glue that bond all of my best friendships. For years (since 2006), during Christmas, we organized an "Evil Dead Trilogy" marathon at home. Now that we have families, enterprises and responsabilities, we have less time but continues to met just for see this saga, in italian adaptation or in english language. This analysis is my way to say "Thank you" to all the cast and crew of the movies and the series.

My 2014 Drink Oppio Comic drawned by Alessio Trepiccione and written by me, also contains reference to Evil Dead. I'm learning from my mistakes that references and paradoxes are fun but you need to think how to fix them and you can waste a lot of time doing that.




Happy new groovy year. I still believe that Season 3 will be the best. And with me a lot people think to that: