5 out of 5

Developed by: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, Tom Spezialy

covers season 1

Walking Dead too violent?  Pfft, doesn’t come close.  Z Nation has pushed the barriers in enjoyable directions, but while I enjoy the cast, when the show isn’t being crazy, it tends to drag a bit.  Ash vs Evil Dead is entertaining at every goddamn moment – almost annoyingly so, that it can be so much fun for its 30 or 45 minute episodes – even when it’s not throwing blood and guts at the camera, and when it does do that… well jesus, the easily offended need not apply.  For every overkill moment that didn’t quite over-kill it enough for your tastes, AvED does it a little bit more and then a little bit more.  And it’s designed for the modern gorehound: this is bloody blood and gorey gore, not the bright greens and reds of Evil Dead 2.  To top it all off, the various directors have 100% owned the zeitgeist of papa Raimi (who directs episode 1): this series knows what Evil Dead is supposed to look and feel like and revels in it with every loop-de-loop camera shot and zoom.

So the look is there, and the blood is there.  But what of the plot?  How does this work?  Well, doubts that the Evil Dead universe could be expanded could be dispelled by the comic book world, that has consistently churned out additions, but personally, I still wondered what exactly this series was going to be, and how the almost 60 Bruce Campbell could feasibly exist in it.  The answer was obvious, of course: just pick up on Ash’s life in modern day, where he still acts like the cocky know-it-all persona that Campbell solidified in Army of Darkness while working at a convenience store and tries to pick up younger chicks which stories about his wooden hand and denials that he dies his hair.  (And a drunken and stoned poetry reading that results in reading a choice verse from a particular book.)  It’s not enough to live and breathe off of Campbell’s carisma, though, so workmates Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) get dragged along for the Deadite fight, and bless our producers for finding castmates just as likeable as Bruce, and writers who know how to push and pull the chains of sarcasm and romantic tension and heroism and cowardice at just the right times to keep the, eh, gears (…sigh, extended metaphors) of the show churning at blazing speeds.  This isn’t even touching how the series digs into the Necronomicon’s mythology excitingly.

Yes, things get way indulgent at times (like Ash’s drug trip), but it’s all earned but how the show keeps itself in check with meta-awareness of its own indulgences.  Like, it can do no wrong?

It’s ridiculous.  It’s ridiculously good.  This is a show I never knew I wanted, and now I can’t imagine the Evil Dead world without it.