Ash vs Evil Dead S03E07: Twist and Shout Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Henrietta Knowby]

I realize these episodes are probably filmed months before they air, so this one was probably filmed before the latest school shooting in florida, but did anyone else find the whole slaughtering-kids-in-school scene kind of hard to watch in view of that? I just kept thinking "ok, enough, I get it, I don't need to see ANOTHER child murdered and MORE blood splattering the walls!"

 

[Guy]

There'd never be any teenage horror series if the US had to wait until a gap in school shootings to air one.

 

[Nick el Ass]

could have gone my whole life without seeing bruce's naked, slime-covered butt. Hollywood is so in love with man-ass.

Au contraire mon frere as there are many of us outside of Hollywood who are big fans of man ass, and many who are even more envious of Lucy Lawless who got to view Bruce in all his slimy glory, heh.

I realize these episodes are probably filmed months before they air, so this one was probably filmed before the latest school shooting in florida, but did anyone else find the whole slaughtering-kids-in-school scene kind of hard to watch in view of that? I just kept thinking "ok, enough, I get it, I don't need to see ANOTHER child murdered and MORE blood splattering the walls!"

In all fairness a lot of people are commenting on the timing of "Twist and Shout" which comes less than 3 months after what happened on Valentine's Day, but if I'm not mistaken this episode was shot sometime in mid to late 2017. I'm sure if it was being filmed now, or due to air in the same week it would have been stopped from airing... but it isn't much worse than Carrie burning her classmates alive. Also as the AV Club article above mentions the show Riverdale (based on Archie) is going to do an episode based on Carrie which will air 2 days prior to the 19th anniversary of Columbine, but it will be a dreaded musical episode which is scary to imagine in a setting like AvED.

 

[Muzzlehatch]

Cool episode indeed. Things I liked:
- for the first time (since Amanda’s death) the stakes felt real
- characters really progress and don‘t bounce back to their status quo (Brandy still beeing sceptical towards Ruby, Pablo beeing wise enough to distrust possessed Kelly)
- the nuanced differences between Ash and his evil but kinda childish, innocent clone

One thing I would have done differently:
- Beside the fact that the overall design of the underworld is to similar to ST, I would prefer dead souls to be in a different mental and physical state, for example like Prof. Knowby‘s tortured ghost in ED2. It feels a little bit silly when dead Kelly looks and talks just like her living self while chatting with Pablo through a portal like it was a skype connection.

 

[DyD]

One thing I would have done differently:
- Beside the fact that the overall design of the underworld is to similar to ST, I would prefer dead souls to be in a different mental and physical state, for example like Prof. Knowby‘s tortured ghost in ED2. It feels a little bit silly when dead Kelly looks and talks just like her living self while chatting with Pablo through a portal like it was a skype connection.

The thing that pulled me out of it was that not only it looked like he was talking to her through Skype, Kelly's image kept changing from a close up to a wide shot at key moments during the conversation. It really felt like Pablo was just watching an edited video. This is a minor nitpick and it certainly wasn't as bad as what they did when Brock was talking to Ash from the beyond in season 2, but yeah, it could've been handled better or at least more creatively.

 

[Surtur]

I haven't watched Stranger Things, but from the sounds of it, what they're doing isn't all that original. One could point to Insidious in 2011 with "the further". The only difference is they weren't technically dead, but still, demons and darkness and their house with a filter thrown on.

 

[Muzzlehatch]

They probably should have explore the HP Lovecraft mythos even more. This kind of flavor is clearly missing and I kind of realized it when I saw your post. Now It's just : "There it is, right in your face!". Not showing s often more powerful than just show everything.

As a huge HPL fan I would love that so much. But not only regarding world building. The show has a problem with its bad guys. Ruby, Baal, Kaya ... their arcs not only lack interesting motivations, goals (and often logic), but also the wickedness I want from deadites and demons. A human madman like the necromancer Joseph Curwen could fit quite well into the franchise.

 

[waifugenerator]

I think the most similar thing to ST is the lurking monster and insect like sound effects. I'll be pleasantly surprised if they do something original like having it be the Reaper like someone else had said. (Maybe this episodes ending song could be foreshadowing that scenario?)

 

[Guy]

As a huge HPL fan I would love that so much. But not only regarding world building. The show has a problem with its bad guys. Ruby, Baal, Kaya ... their arcs not only lack interesting motivations, goals (and often logic), but also the wickedness I want from deadites and demons. A human madman like the necromancer Joseph Curwen could fit quite well into the franchise.

I actually agree with this but also I never anticipated the author of the necronomicon to look human, I certainly didn't expect The Dark Ones to be Lucy Lawless and Joel Tobeck. I expected hideous beings, monsters, demons and indescribable terror. As much as I like Lucy and as much as I can appreciate her throwing herself into this role, she was definitely not what I had in mind as the greatest threat posed by The Evil Dead.

At least Evil Ash rose an army..

 

[Muzzlehatch]

I certainly didn't expect The Dark Ones to be Lucy Lawless and Joel Tobeck. I expected hideous beings, monsters, demons and indescribable terror. As much as I like Lucy and as much as I can appreciate her throwing herself into this role, she was definitely not what I had in mind as the greatest threat posed by The Evil Dead.

Yeah, going from the scary and mysterious necronomicon exposition in ED2 to the 80s rock couple of Baal and Ruby feels quite anti-climatic ...

 

[Guy]

A flashback to the two of them commanding demons, sacrificing humans, entrapping the rest of the deadites/demons/monsters in hell or even fighting the original Knights of Sumeria would go a long way to fixing this.

 

[waifugenerator]

Was Baal even a dark one? I'm pretty sure he was just a high ranking demon who seduced Ruby. The rest of the dark ones are in the rift.

I agree about wanting more Lovecraftian content in the series. Lucy Lawless definitely isn't what I had in mind as the big bad either but she plays the character so cool that I've been rooting for her since S1

 

[MaidOfKandar]

Interestingly AV Club rates this one of their lowest so far and claims it to be "further from Evil Dead than we've ever been".

Just to further show the huge gap in expectation between those on an Evil Dead forum and media critics.

https://tv.avclub.com/ash-vs-evil-dead-flips-upside-down-at-the-school-dance-1825096176

That's very interesting to me, because the AV Club has been incredibly positive about even the show's worst episodes. In fact, they praised almost all of the stuff they've put out, except for the season 2 finale, which was pretty fairly widely panned by everyone. I don't quite agree with many of his assessments (specifically that the Brandy makeover is a big deal - you don't see it being a huge central part of her arc nor is it lingered upon.

@Henrietta Knowby , to reply to your comments (and please condense them next time, spamming the board with multiple comments within a minute's time is a bad idea, please use the edit feature).

* The reason why they don't kill off Brandy immediately is because they need her to kill Ash, because they established in the first episode that only the blood of the chosen can (perma) kill the Promised One.

Spoiler: Spoiler For Next Week

And no, I don't know how Pablo can kill Ash after heavily establishing that fact, but it's possible brujos have special clearance in these matters.

* After weeks of looking at undead shamaness tits, what's good for the goose is good for the gander On the other hand, I have no idea if that's Bruce buffalo shot we're looking at; might be a body double.

* RE Parkland and this episode; I felt rather more squirrely when they showed students mourning outside the highschool in episode two, which aired right after Parkland happened. AS @Guy and @Nick el Ass said, it's not the show's fault in either instance (these episodes were filmed almost a year ago at this point, with the plan to air them this past fall instead of this winter), and three months in I think it's fair for pop culture to move along. Proper warnings and previews were posted (God, were they posted) for those who might want to skip seeing such images.

Also as the AV Club article above mentions the show Riverdale (based on Archie) is going to do an episode based on Carrie which will air 2 days prior to the 19th anniversary of Columbine, but it will be a dreaded musical episode which is scary to imagine in a setting like AvED.

I feel like I should warn you that Bruce has jokingly threatened to do a musical episode next season if we get it.

I haven't watched Stranger Things, but from the sounds of it, what they're doing isn't all that original. One could point to Insidious in 2011 with "the further". The only difference is they weren't technically dead, but still, demons and darkness and their house with a filter thrown on.

Also, wasn't there a movie about Kiefer Sutherland dealing with an evil alternate upside down like world that existed through a mirror? I think a lot of the problems people have with this chosen path is that ST is so culturally omnipresent at his moment and because there isn't much of a visual difference going on yet.

Was Baal even a dark one? I'm pretty sure he was just a high ranking demon who seduced Ruby. The rest of the dark ones are in the rift.

There's a LOT of mixed-up info within canon about this, but I think it was stated a couple of times that Ruby and Baal helped co-write the book and were allegedly the 'original' DOs.

 

[Nick el Ass]

* RE Parkland and this episode; I felt rather more squirrely when they showed students mourning outside the highschool in episode two, which aired right after Parkland happened. AS @Guy and @Nick el Ass said, it's not the show's fault in either instance (these episodes were filmed almost a year ago at this point, with the plan to air them this past fall instead of this winter), and three months in I think it's fair for pop culture to move along. Proper warnings and previews were posted (God, were they posted) for those who might want to skip seeing such images.

I feel like I should warn you that Bruce has jokingly threatened to do a musical episode next season if we get it.

I was never a fan of the show myself, but do remember there being an episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer called "Earshot" due to air right after Columbine which was pulled because it featured a kid in school with a gun. It was a clear cut case of bad timing. Then you fast forward to a couple of years latter when Sam Raimi had to edit scenes involving the WTC out of Spider-Man after 9/11 happened despite it being a big part of the movie as well as most of the posters and promotional stuff that came out early on. I know it can be a bit of a tough subject, but it is one that I'm kind of glad to see come up for discussion both here and elsewhere. No matter what the show (as they say) must go on, and hopefully one day we will only have to see such horrible events occur on our televisions and/or computer screens where they belong.


/Now as far as musical episodes go they have done them for virtually every show to come out in the last 20 years, and I wouldn't be surprised if they did an Ash vs Evil Dead the musical.

 

[Guy]

This!

 

[Joem1k]

Something i noticed again when watching this episode again that's opened my eyes up to the journey our characters have been on this season.

it's the stark contrast between both of the main pairs when both pablo and ash are confronting both of their loved ones. they both have very different approaches to the situation, it's subtle but there.

One's trying to earn their loved ones trust while the other is grieving/distraught/confused/desperate and quite pissed off at the revelation the girl his been chasing and has finally gotten close with has just died and he wasn't there to stop it from happening and now his confronted with the reality of someone else taking her form.

Pablo has a very ED1 ash moment when held his gun towards kaya's head and almost pulling the trigger before kaya stops him, you can tell his anger/grief was overclouding his better sense of judgement in that situation, he was lucky his hesitation/nervous nature got the better of him or we probably would have put a bullet in her.

Now with ash's situation i'm going to quote evil ash and ash's conversation in the hallway as it's very foretelling of how ash has been for this current season.

Ash, i'm so disappointed in you. You've gone soft ! - Rash

Soft, i can hold my own pal... - Ash

You are your own worst enemy. - Rash

Rash was dead center on this as this line holds some weight towards how ash has been acting up to this point in this current season with his daughter and he has gone soft and he gotten very close with her slowly but this always comes back to bite him, always.

Now let's get to the confrontation between him and his daughter.

This scene and how it played out was the tipping point in their relationship and it's the culmination of brandy's arc for trusting her father 100%, even when everything but the kitchen has been thrown her way for making her fall over the edge and kill her father that Williams gut feeling and loving bond his tried his best to connect with her holds strong as those memories really meant something to her and that deciding factor in her dropping the dagger.

What i found great about this scene/revelation is that it's foreshadowed by kaya about ruby's plan not working out and her trying to manipulate brandy to go over the edge.

"I'm not so sure you have the ability to shake her faith in her father..." - Kaya

Now after all of this and brandy finally trusting her father, ash dispatches of rash quite quickly and then ruby has her meltdown with the both of them.

And this is where rash's last comment comes into play, ash now having ruby right where he wants her and his going to save the day like he usually does, ruby pulls out the clutch maneuver and uses that trust ash just earned against him and throws the dagger at him and brandy dives in front of him not wanting to see the father she's come to love die right in front like her mother did just a few days ago.

Here we are again repeating history of a family member/lover/close friend dieing in his arms, but this one was the straw that finally broke the camels back.

I've noticed with this season especially in this last half there have been two major pair focuses/journey's in this season : Pablo/Kelly and Brandy/Ash

Now going into episode 8 we have two grieving/distraught individuals who have nothing to lose and are extremely desperate, that's going to be quite something to see play out.

 

[Kain]

 

[waifugenerator]

Spoiler: Spoiler for the remaining episodes in the season

According to IMDB, the female KoS (Zoe) will appear in every remaining episode. So either she'll survive the season or be killed in the finale

 

[Surtur]

I’m probably echoing a lot of people here but this episode really cemented my little crush on Brandy

Also it has to be said that Arielle is in fact 25 years old, not 17 like the show.

 

[MaidOfKandar]

@Joem1k I've so missed your analysis

ETA: Just a general note to folks Please post spoilers related to the next episode (or next three episodes) into the general spoiler discussion thread IF they don't relate to discussion about the episode at hand - it's fine to have discussion pertaining to future episodes in here if you want to talk about them in relation to this one, but to make sure everyone sees the new news post it into that thread, since this one will be unpinned within 48 hours and replaced with episode 8's discussion thread.