Ash vs. Evil Dead - Tales from the Rift

Ash is feeling too old for interdimensional rifts and time travel.

The third season of the Starz television series Ash vs. Evil Dead is turning out to be a rough time for the sidekicks of Evil Dead franchise hero Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell). Just when Ash's loyal pal Pablo Simon Bolivar (Ray Santiago) has come out of a demonic possession ordeal that stretched over a few episodes and ended with a near-death experience that has granted him with new supernatural abilities, Ash's other sidekick / Pablo's love interest Kelly Maxwell (Dana DeLorenzo) has taken it upon herself to track down the demonic Ruby (Lucy Lawless) and take on this ancient evil by herself... And as you might imagine, this turns out to have been a terrible idea on Kelly's part.

Back in the second episode of this season, a now deceased character provided some history on the Necronomic Ex Mortis, the Book of the Dead, that we had never heard before - not in the previous seasons of Ash vs. Evil Dead, or in the films that preceded the show. In that episode, it was revealed that the Dark Ones, the master demons who crafted the book, were betrayed by Ruby, who cast her fellow Dark Ones from our world. It was at this time that the heroic Knights of Sumeria stole the Necronomicon from Ruby. Unfortunately, a Sumerian sorceress named Kaya was seduced by the power of the book and tried to use it - losing her soul in the process. Kaya's soul was bound within the book... and as soon as I heard that story in the episode 'Booth Three', I knew Kaya was going to play a role in this season. Because why else would she have been given a specific name within the story, when she could have just been described as "a sorceress"?

As a result of Kelly's disastrous solo raid on Ruby's lair, Kaya does fully enter the picture by the end of this episode, and I am not happy about the circumstances. I'd be full-on bummed if it weren't for the fact that Pablo has bounced back from similarly dire situations. A couple times. So I'm holding on to hope that this Kaya situation is going to work out for Kelly in the end.

Kelly's confrontation with Ruby is the primary focus on this episode, but while they're dealing with the Kaya side of things, Ash and Pablo are off getting mixed up with some modern Knights of Sumeria, who inform our heroes that Ruby cast her fellow Dark Ones into a realm called the Deadlands. If the Dark Ones were to escape into our world from the Deadlands, it would be an apocalyptic event - and the Knights want Ash to lead them into the Deadlands to wage war on the Dark Ones. That's a plan Ash isn't so keen on, especially now that he's in his fifties, and since he has had a bad time with rifts before (see the ending of Evil Dead II, leading into Ash being trapped centuries in the past in Army of Darkness).

But the key to opening a rift into the Deadlands just happens to be located in the basement of the hardware store Ash inherited from his father, and that rift does indeed start to open here, with Ash dragging his feet about it every step of the way.

Ash is more enthusiastic about developing a bond with his recently discovered teenage daughter Brandy Barr (Arielle Carver-O'Neill), who has turned out to be an excellent chef - which, in Ash speak, means she knows how to toast Pop Tarts just right.

Brandy is starting to accept Ash as her father, but Ruby and Kaya are plotting to turn her against him... and have her murder him.

Written by Aaron Lam, who previously co-wrote the season two episode 'Ashy Slashy', and directed by Regan Hall, who before this only had a short and a 2012 feature titled Fast Girls on his filmography, 'Tales from the Rift' brings in the expected - the addition of Kaya into the story - but does it in a way that was unexpected and a little shocking. It's a twist I'm not feeling great about at the moment, but I am looking forward to seeing how it will be resolved.

The Kelly vs. Ruby fight is pretty awesome overall, Ash has a great demon fighting moment in the basement of the hardware store, and before that he gets to enjoy a breakfast of champions - beer and a toasted Pop Tart - so 'Tales from the Rift' ranks as another really fun episode of this series, even if it does do something I didn't like to a character I love.