Episode 5 was like a Hellraiser rip-off like the last two episodes were a Christine rip-off.
OVERVIEW:
Problem is that instead of summoning chains and traveling through spooky walls, we get Baal wearing skins (my least believable/likable feature from Hellraiser). Hopefully this will not open up other human characters to wearing skin and tricking Baal like Hellraiser (because you need the flesh under the skin, not just the skin to look like someone, also it won't fit you if you're not the exact size of someone without the skin).
Which I guess is why they used two heavy-set police actresses so that a normal sized person could wear the flesh costumes VS someone really thin like in Hellraiser. BUT ON THE PLUS SIDE THE SKINNED DEADITES LOOKED REALLY COOL.
BAAL:
So far Baal is a wussier villain than the creepy kids as adults (which I kinda liked). I mean WE ALL KNEW he was the blonde officer and he has Ash locked up in jail--and then he just let's him out acting completely normal to magically give him a stupid phone call. Most other deadites try to get you alone and then kill you, that's like the entire point.
I mean I was expecting him to at least just pull a gun and shoot him when he went to the cell. This is too much of the, 'Mwuahaha, I'm such a cool villain I'm going to taunt you in a really lame way that we all know you'll escape.'
WEIRDNESS:
Makeout scene with Lucy felt pretty weird--she went all in so why not use a really hot girl in an attempt to at least entice the audience--unless maybe this is playing more twards her lesbian-Xena fanbase so they could more feel like the overweight officer???(clueless here).
Also the hairstyle of the blonde police officer really bugged me. I've never seen an officer with a cut like that--and this is a horror movie (ie more serious atmosphere), it should have been in a bun which is really simple/cheap to do.
STORY:
All the paranoia stuff didn't matter, neither did Ash getting arrested. And the way the sheriff gets dumped is so lame. Ash is such a d-bag no one can care about anyone he likes other than maybe a possible relationship with Ruby (who has her own probs as a character). The way Ash acts his relationships should be like a girl stumbling out of his room or found laying on his bed with a blanket over the face-half when he wakes (why haven't we had this--def better than the granny sex in S01).
So even though this appears to be a mandatory bottle-episode it would have been better if Ash lost his gear but ran off and escaped the cops until he surprised everyone and showed up at the end, scaring Baal off at the station (where the rest were trapped).
But no one cares about Ash getting treated like crap because of his D-bagness, which means no one cares about Ash's team since they are all just a bunch of Ash wannabes (thus even though I want to, I CAN'T care at all about what is happening to Pablo or Kelly's random fits). D-bag Ash can't even connect connect with a good actor playing his father.
ACTING:
ASH:
By Ash being a dumb D-bag all the time, Lucy makes Ash look like her Pablo and constantly out-acts him in every scene. AND SHE'S DOING THIS JUST BY BASICALLY BEING XENA. So we basically have one actor who can't forget being Xena and another who can't remember how to be Ash. But I mean D-Bag Ash and his wannabes VS Xena: No-contest Xena is going to win.
I'd rather have Ash be AoD Ash (don't care about so-called 'development' at all at this point).
RUBY:
Ruby in my mind should play more of like a mature advisor/witch (like the end of S01) instead of Demon-Xena with guns.
KELLY:
Kelly's has an annoying voice so every time she gets emotional it comes off as, well, annoying. She's meant for comedy or romance not horror or action. It would be much better for her to play the role of trying to leave the group and transition into a normal life (ie actually enjoying Florida and being a barista) but constantly getting pulled back into calamity.
PABLO:
Pablo as a stereotypical Mexican is pretty lame. He doesn't even look like a Mexican, especially with that goofy hair. I thought he looked more middle eastern, like perhaps a Turkish guy. I typed 'turkish man' into google images and this was one of the top images (I shit you not):
I mean they would have to cast a really stereotypical looking Mexican for these jokes they are using to work. They are like the jokes that would have been better if they cast Pablo as an Asian guy and everyone was calling him Chinese/using such stereotypes even though he was really Korean, Vietnamese, etc.
But anyways, instead of Pablo being this goofy Shaman-Necronomicon thing that always gives D-bag Ash the most common-sense advice, it would be much better if he were instead like a hardcore/OCD Robin, obsessed with training to kill Deadites every minute of the day (ie, what happened to wanting to be a Ghost Beater?). So I'd have Pabs constantly doing pull/push/situps, doing stupid stuff with weights, asking for/trying weird training exercises, and of course be the first one to jump the gun when it came to thinking someone (or their dog, or their house, or their purse) was a deadite.
For instance-PABLO SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE TO DO THE BRAIN GAG WITH ASH'S DAD. It was complete crap Ash did that.
Anyways, it would really make him more endearing and charming and you'd actually sort of root for him when he finally found a deadite and had an action sequence. This would also make him the polar opposite of my ideal Kelly who just wanted a normal life and give them a lot better/really cool interactions/dynamics (ie Pablo being blindly loyal to Ash, "That sounds like traitor-talk, you know like something a deadite would say. And you're too pretty to be a deadite right...right?"
CHET:
Chet is alright, but he should be more funny. I think it's hard when everything you do is surrounded by stupidity and you're known for being the stupid one. It just kinda deadens you to the humor. I'd actually like Chet to play a more tragic role being a vet and drunk. He could really add a sense of grounded/soberness that suddenly explodes, ie when he was betraying Ash and trying to leave the prison and Ash blocks him, he could have brought up how Ash left and never wrote him or sent him shit when he was overseas or in the hospital. How he was laying there staring up at the ceiling, chewing through the pain, imagining how great it would be to see his first crush Cheryl before he died, but all he could think of was all the pieces Ash cut her into.
HUMOR:
Some stuff was actually kinda funny like the last episode.
I actually laughed when Linda smacked into the bars, and when the transsexual prostitute spoke with the dubbed voice. I guess you can still make fun of transsexuals without constantly apologizing/being PC in this show (kinda surprised considering how weird/soft the race jokes are but I'm not complaining).
TL;DR
I feel like the last two episodes with the cheezy car effects, pink ghost cloud, and throwing the book in the back of the trunk has firmly placed AVED into the category of Buffy/Charmed and it's more like a fan-spoof of Evil Dead than actual Evil Dead. The constant call-backs and outrageous comedy/gore/acting just make everything either tedious or eyerolling.
I think Buffy/Charmed worked because the characters are all young and attractive so when they have pointless relationships/drama it appeals to the young girl demographic--I don't think this is going to work for AVED's demo and why both Walking Deads, American Horror Story, etc, is kicking its ass.
They literally could have just stolen/recast Rick from TWD, stuck him into the town as their local sheriff investigating suspicious murders, and then just have zombies/deadites killing random townsfolk and this season would have been amazing.
