Ash vs Evil Dead S01E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

I had a funny feeling that business was going to pick up once the Michael Hurst episodes popped up. Ash takes a little trip, and boom we end up back at the cabin... and there is no doubt that shit is about to get insane. How they introduce Kelly and Pablo into that setting will be interesting to see, and how and/or if Ruby and Amanda gets involved will be too. It would be nice to see them get that out of the way so they can use the last three episodes to tie up loose ends with the book and the Dark Ones, and make a strong build up for the second season.
 
RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

Joem1k said:
MaidOfKandar said:
MIDDLE PARTS

* Dana was good as a Demon during the exorcism scenes, but that was the only place she was good.  She was pretty atrocious as a seductress, and I feel like Ray is acting rings around her out there.

* how did Ash's memory of his vision result in his victory over Eligos?  HE ALWAYS DOES THIS STUFF.  There was nothing NEW there.


BAD PARTS


* "Yeah, I liked you better that way too."  So you'd rather the woman you love, and are almost literally obsessed with, have her immortal soul indemnified so you could get some nookie is what I hear you saying there, Pablo.  What the fuck?   He thinks of this woman nonstop and literally just fought a demon for her ffs.

* Everyone basically hugged and learned a lesson at the end, and everything reset.  Pablo is still panting after Kelly and she's still oblivious.  Kelly trusts Ash a little more, maybe, but no more than she did when he had to kill her mom.  Ash is still determined to bury the book.  Pablo's confidence is literally washed down the toilet in less than a moment.  The entire excursion meant nothing beyond confirming Pablo's faith in the supernatural, which, y'know, kinda already got confirmed when they killed Kelly's Deadite mom two episodes ago.

I'd like to point out that eligos was a demon, not a deadite they both might have came from the same book but they are separate entity's altogether .

1. i thought dana did really well at being the manipulating demon especially during the seductress part and the ritual, you could obliviously tell eligos was getting quite annoyed with pablo's gentlemen like manner's, and it finally accumulated to that line "JUST SUCK IT YOU B*TCH" just priceless, yea the seductress part came off as cheesy but ray's overall performance during it made it better in my eyes. 

2. I had trouble getting the "Shoot first, think never" Epiphany scene as well but it hit me, Eligos is a demon who preys on the mind, so ash figured out if he didn't think at all in that moment in time it would probably work in his favor, and it obviously did  give him the window of opportunity to blow his head.

3. The line delivery came off as more being a smartass then actually being serious about loving her more as a demon.

4. I actually thought there was a lot of beating around the bush in this scene, yes it might have come off as a sitcom'ish and it does feel like they got over it too quickly, but they were also very adament on changing subjects fairly quickly during this scene aswell.

@Hurley

Oh god, micheal hurst looks like he knocked it out of the park for the next episode, plus pablo and kelly look like there going to be more involved in  the fighting as well and it not just being ash doing all the fighting. Another interesting thing to take note from that trailer is kelly and pablo fighting over the book very aggressively, wonder what's happening there with that. and if i remember correctly isn't ash supposed to have a awakening  in this episode ? ....oh shit, here comes evil ash, the mirror scene is probably gonna be were he shows up.  :s

I also wanna bring up something as well mainly about ash overall development as a character in this episode. 

Ash really matured and grew up abit in this episode, he was alot more quiet and wasn't much of a smartass this time around, he felt sort of like ED 2 ash mixed with a bit of AoD ash. His scenes with kelly and pablo were my favorite of the episode, especially with kelly, he really came off as a caring father  at the end when he was talking with her about what happen and asking if she was alright to travel plus offering up his dentures for the missing teeth she spat out, and it was also quite surprising to see him just come out like  that and apologize to both of them and basically admitting to his own mistakes. I hope we see more of this ash in the last half of this season cause it was really nice seeing this part of ash again.

Let's see if the block quotes will let me type this time!  Replying!

1: Even though Elligos is a demon versus a Deadite, Ash still dispatched him in the same way he would a Deadite.  Thus: he only really learned how to listen to his inner voice - something that he didn't really need to do because it changed nothing in his kill-or-be-killed methodology.  

3: I'd agree with that point but considering how nakedly sincere Pablo's been throughout the show, I think it comes off as a genuine wish.

I liked a lot of Ash actually admitting he messed up, but the way that scene was handled was all over the place.


KingRob said:
New thought - in this day and age, should we be upset about how the character of Kelly has been treated in the last few episodes? She went from a potentially interesting, self-reliant female character in the pilot to what basically boils down to "sexy girl to titillate male fans and give the male characters someone to save and/or desire" in this one. Even when we get to meet her parents, we never really get a lot of character building out of that - just the knowledge that she has parents.

I really hope we get to see a return to her original character (plus the emotional baggage of the show's events) sooner rather than later.

To me the stuff with Kelly is the same stuff that's infecting what they're trying to do with Amanda: each of them are allowed to be tough and take a step forward and Do Stuff, but when the show needs a victim of some sort one or the other is immediately thrown to the wolves.  Compare this to Pablo's development; he's pretty much constantly been on a learning curve since the pilot, moving from flatting Liil' Lori with a shovel to knocking out cops to offering up his body as a sacrifice to Elligos. 

Kain said:
@kingrob I think you're overly nitpicking just to nitpick. Weed and sex have been themes of the show since the beginning. Heck weed and sex is why Ash got into this mess in the first place and now trying to fix it. It doesn't matter if Eligos wasn't portrayed as the demon of weed and sex. It would be really cheesy if the writers did that. He was simply using Pablo's ultimate desire for Kelly to trick him into shooting himself with the shotgun. Pretty straight forward. If Kelly injured herself she would be bogging the group down the rest of the season. Ash vs Evil Dead doesn't need Walking Dead style storytelling. Now that show has some seriously awful writers.

I'm actually willing to contest that one a little bit.  Weed is in TED, but it's only in a deleted scene; so the question is "are deleted scenes canonical"?  I'm willing to say no.  

As for the sexual content, it was never...I guess the word I'm looking for is uncomfortable?  Or uncomfortable in a non-horror way?  The grand total of the sexual content in the entire trilogy consists of Shelly's boobs and the vine rape in the first movie, the latter of which apparently wasn't initially included to be titillating according to Campbell and Raimi.  There's Ash and Sheila's love scene in AOD, but it doesn't count because of director-dictated edits.  We went from that to doggystyle Ash sex and 
whatever the mess with Ruby and Ash and Ruby and that ten year old is supposed to be.

Joem1k said:
Gut0nez said:
Joem1k said:
Don't wanna get Anyone's hopes up but...

looks like ash will be heading up to the cabin by himself judging from this promo package from virgin media. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EIL7blrDs54

I think it's just the editing in the promo that makes it seem like he's there by himself. I really doubt they would just leave all of the side characters out of the finale. But if it is what it seems to be and he really goes to the cabin all alone, I would lose my s**t. That would be awesome.

I'm thinking this is when they first arrive  at the cabin for the first episode of the cabin ARC,(we got three episodes for eligos, i think we will be getting three for the cabin judging by the last three episode descriptions) and i bet he tell's them to stay back and basically says "i don't want you getting killed" or something along those lines and heads up to the cabin by himself and that would be the episode of him at the cabin and probably a couple scenes of them getting worried about him being up there alone doing it. And i bet for the final two will be the sidekicks and ruby at the cabin with him. Plus if you look closely he has a duffle bag with him full of his weapons and no one is there with him or around him.

I'm willing to bet that Joe's right:
My guess is that he makes Kelly and Pablo stay back and Amanda follows him, judging from the spoiler in 8.  The spoiler in 9 suggests something happening RE Ash and Amanda and Pablo and Kelly discover Ash is possessed.  Ruby comes on the scene between 9 and 10, and judging from the clip we get in that time Mysterious Blonde Woman Who Is Possibly Linda Is There as well.  I have an out there prediction but it's not solid and is probably too out there to actually be concrete, so I'll sit on it 'til we hit episode 8.

eViL DeAdiTe - I hope you stick with the show!  


Kain said:
If season 2 is the last season, do you guys think they'll all going to hell?

I'm...kinda iffy on that idea.  Basically I like the idea of everyone earning a bit of redemption and the Evil being out there but Ash coping with it/learning how to adapt to it.  Which we already went through, but yes.

Kain said:

They haven't been hiding that fact, sadly (they were literally shooting promos with Lucy and Bruce next to the cabin set for pre-show promo).  There's even more footage of that in This trailer for the show from Virgin Media that Elise got (and that Joe also linked to), I wanted to throw the link under here because I wanted to specifically throw in that in again you can see the deer head on the floor and there's a quick shot of the reel to reel tape recorder.  I have no idea how the whole thing is still standing after Ash was sucked through the whirlpool at the end of ED2.
 
RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

MaidOfKandar said:
I'm actually willing to contest that one a little bit.  Weed is in TED, but it's only in a deleted scene; so the question is "are deleted scenes canonical"?  I'm willing to say no.  

As for the sexual content, it was never...I guess the word I'm looking for is uncomfortable?  Or uncomfortable in a non-horror way?  The grand total of the sexual content in the entire trilogy consists of Shelly's boobs and the vine rape in the first movie, the latter of which apparently wasn't initially included to be titillating according to Campbell and Raimi.  There's Ash and Sheila's love scene in AOD, but it doesn't count because of director-dictated edits.  We went from that to doggystyle Ash sex and 
whatever the mess with Ruby and Ash and Ruby and that ten year old is supposed to be.

Uh, I was talking 100% about Ash vs Evil Dead. Nowhere did I mention the trilogy. Try again  :D
 
RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed they can bring it back around with MH directing the last few eps.

Now that I think about it, I do recall Bruce saying in a few of the press junkets that they spent some of this season finding their go-to directors for future seasons, and weeding out the not-so-great ones. I wonder if that was his veiled way of conceding that some eps were gonna be stinkers this season?

In any event, I hope season two is an improvement. Pablo and Kelly are fine enough characters, but Ray and Dana as actors don't seem totally comfortable in this world yet, and a little lost in eps 1-5 so far. I hope they find their footing, and the writers learn to write dialogue/scenes better suited to their acting abilities.

As for Amanda, there doesn't seem to be room for her arc so I hope they use her as Deadite fodder sooner rather than later and give us more Ruby.

I'm also holding out for a 40min format. That extra 10mins could help some of the pacing and screen time issues, and maybe they could use a few of those minutes to have people react in a more relatable way to the death of someone they care about, or to death in general. That part of the show still bugs me. 

Also, and maybe this is just me, but I really wish they would stop constantly overusing Ash's name in every scene. Not sure why this sticks out in my mind so much. Maybe I'm just not used to hearing his name spoken aloud quite so often, as it was rarely ever used in the movies.
 
RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

MaidOfKandar said:
Kain said:
@kingrob I think you're overly nitpicking just to nitpick. Weed and sex have been themes of the show since the beginning. Heck weed and sex is why Ash got into this mess in the first place and now trying to fix it. It doesn't matter if Eligos wasn't portrayed as the demon of weed and sex. It would be really cheesy if the writers did that. He was simply using Pablo's ultimate desire for Kelly to trick him into shooting himself with the shotgun. Pretty straight forward. If Kelly injured herself she would be bogging the group down the rest of the season. Ash vs Evil Dead doesn't need Walking Dead style storytelling. Now that show has some seriously awful writers.

I'm actually willing to contest that one a little bit.  Weed is in TED, but it's only in a deleted scene; so the question is "are deleted scenes canonical"?  I'm willing to say no.  

As for the sexual content, it was never...I guess the word I'm looking for is uncomfortable?  Or uncomfortable in a non-horror way?  The grand total of the sexual content in the entire trilogy consists of Shelly's boobs and the vine rape in the first movie, the latter of which apparently wasn't initially included to be titillating according to Campbell and Raimi.  There's Ash and Sheila's love scene in AOD, but it doesn't count because of director-dictated edits.  We went from that to doggystyle Ash sex and 
whatever the mess with Ruby and Ash and Ruby and that ten year old is supposed to be.

The love scene and the "sexual content" in AoD was not on the U.S. cut only.  I just want to point out that the love scene is there on the international cut for most everyone on the globe except U.S.  Apparently they got this version in theater.  ;).  I watched the European french version a few weeks ago and I was surprised to realize the cut was different from the American french version.  The love scene is there and Evil Ash tearing Sheila's dress too.
 
RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

eViL DeAdiTe said:
I'm keeping my fingers crossed they can bring it back around with MH directing the last few eps.

Now that I think about it, I do recall Bruce saying in a few of the press junkets that they spent some of this season finding their go-to directors for future seasons, and weeding out the not-so-great ones. I wonder if that was his veiled way of conceding that some eps were gonna be stinkers this season?

In any event, I hope season two is an improvement. Pablo and Kelly are fine enough characters, but Ray and Dana as actors don't seem totally comfortable in this world yet, and a little lost in eps 1-5 so far. I hope they find their footing, and the writers learn to write dialogue/scenes better suited to their acting abilities.

As for Amanda, there doesn't seem to be room for her arc so I hope they use her as Deadite fodder sooner rather than later and give us more Ruby.

I'm also holding out for a 40min format. That extra 10mins could help some of the pacing and screen time issues, and maybe they could use a few of those minutes to have people react in a more relatable way to the death of someone they care about, or to death in general. That part of the show still bugs me. 

Also, and maybe this is just me, but I really wish they would stop constantly overusing Ash's name in every scene. Not sure why this sticks out in my mind so much. Maybe I'm just not used to hearing his name spoken aloud quite so often, as it was rarely ever used in the movies.


Michael Hurst is directing two episodes with Tony Tilse (Farscape) getting two, and Rick Jacobson who directed a number of episodes of Xena directing the last episode. I agree with you on the hour long run time, but unless Bruce and company change their minds it likely won't happen. At least not for next season. Kelly and Pablo will come into their own in the next two episodes, and I think Dana who started a little rough around the edges has really stepped it up... and Pablo has always been fine to me.
 
RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

Kain said:
MaidOfKandar said:
I'm actually willing to contest that one a little bit.  Weed is in TED, but it's only in a deleted scene; so the question is "are deleted scenes canonical"?  I'm willing to say no.  

As for the sexual content, it was never...I guess the word I'm looking for is uncomfortable?  Or uncomfortable in a non-horror way?  The grand total of the sexual content in the entire trilogy consists of Shelly's boobs and the vine rape in the first movie, the latter of which apparently wasn't initially included to be titillating according to Campbell and Raimi.  There's Ash and Sheila's love scene in AOD, but it doesn't count because of director-dictated edits.  We went from that to doggystyle Ash sex and 
whatever the mess with Ruby and Ash and Ruby and that ten year old is supposed to be.

Uh, I was talking 100% about Ash vs Evil Dead. Nowhere did I mention the trilogy. Try again  :D

:P  Point taken.  I'm working on three hours of sleep, my brain is half dead.


eViL DeAdiTe said:
I'm keeping my fingers crossed they can bring it back around with MH directing the last few eps.

Now that I think about it, I do recall Bruce saying in a few of the press junkets that they spent some of this season finding their go-to directors for future seasons, and weeding out the not-so-great ones. I wonder if that was his veiled way of conceding that some eps were gonna be stinkers this season?

In any event, I hope season two is an improvement. Pablo and Kelly are fine enough characters, but Ray and Dana as actors don't seem totally comfortable in this world yet, and a little lost in eps 1-5 so far. I hope they find their footing, and the writers learn to write dialogue/scenes better suited to their acting abilities.

As for Amanda, there doesn't seem to be room for her arc so I hope they use her as Deadite fodder sooner rather than later and give us more Ruby.

I'm also holding out for a 40min format. That extra 10mins could help some of the pacing and screen time issues, and maybe they could use a few of those minutes to have people react in a more relatable way to the death of someone they care about, or to death in general. That part of the show still bugs me. 

Also, and maybe this is just me, but I really wish they would stop constantly overusing Ash's name in every scene. Not sure why this sticks out in my mind so much. Maybe I'm just not used to hearing his name spoken aloud quite so often, as it was rarely ever used in the movies.

Quick note - Michael Hurst is only handling the next two eps, the first two cabin eps are directed by Tony Tilse, the season finale by Rick Jacobsen.  

The weird thing is that the output of the chosen directors has been so uneven.  David Frazee's first outing was innovative, the second was blah. Basset had an identifiable style but that style is meh.  

I think Dana's the weaker link in particular, which is a shame.  She does Okay to decent as a demon but when she's a human she just comes off cardboard.

"ASH HELP US!"

Sutter Cane said:
MaidOfKandar said:
Kain said:
@kingrob I think you're overly nitpicking just to nitpick. Weed and sex have been themes of the show since the beginning. Heck weed and sex is why Ash got into this mess in the first place and now trying to fix it. It doesn't matter if Eligos wasn't portrayed as the demon of weed and sex. It would be really cheesy if the writers did that. He was simply using Pablo's ultimate desire for Kelly to trick him into shooting himself with the shotgun. Pretty straight forward. If Kelly injured herself she would be bogging the group down the rest of the season. Ash vs Evil Dead doesn't need Walking Dead style storytelling. Now that show has some seriously awful writers.

I'm actually willing to contest that one a little bit.  Weed is in TED, but it's only in a deleted scene; so the question is "are deleted scenes canonical"?  I'm willing to say no.  

As for the sexual content, it was never...I guess the word I'm looking for is uncomfortable?  Or uncomfortable in a non-horror way?  The grand total of the sexual content in the entire trilogy consists of Shelly's boobs and the vine rape in the first movie, the latter of which apparently wasn't initially included to be titillating according to Campbell and Raimi.  There's Ash and Sheila's love scene in AOD, but it doesn't count because of director-dictated edits.  We went from that to doggystyle Ash sex and 
whatever the mess with Ruby and Ash and Ruby and that ten year old is supposed to be.

The love scene and the "sexual content" in AoD was not on the U.S. cut only.  I just want to point out that the love scene is there on the international cut for most everyone on the globe except U.S.  Apparently they got this version in theater.  ;).  I watched the European french version a few weeks ago and I was surprised to realize the cut was different from the American french version.  The love scene is there and Evil Ash tearing Sheila's dress too.

Annd I should have remembered that.  I wonder how weird it must be for overseas people to have to deal with an entirely new ending for Ash.
 
RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

Roborider:
 He mentions that he took only his girlfriend to a cabin last episode. A few episodes before he took a bunch of his friends to the cabin.

That kind of struck me too. To be fair though there isn't an inconsistency. He said he brought his girlfriend to the cabin, not ONLY his girlfriend.  But the fact he did not mention his other friends is a bit odd, but I suppose it makes sense in context. I.e. he had planned to go to Florida, but he decided to go to the cabin with his friends and girlfriend because he thought that spending time there with her would be more romantic. I.e she was the main deciding factor, although his friends were there too.


MaidofKandar:
"Yeah, I liked you better that way too." So you'd rather the woman you love, and are almost literally obsessed with, have her immortal soul indemnified so you could get some nookie is what I hear you saying there, Pablo.

He obviously found her a bit of a turn-on like that. (I noticed he seemed rather hypnotised by her breast heaving right before the Demon departed.) But I think he was half joking with that comment.

It says something that when he thought she was really coming on to him, he decided to take it slow, causing the demon to lose patience with him and give up it's ruse.

Another episode I found very enjoyable, although I was a bit confused by the demon's agenda. I.e. why did it try to trick Ash into killing it's host body? So it could take over completely, (which would not have been much help if she'd been shot in the head)? Or just to mess with Ash?

I did find some of the stuff with the exorcism scene a bit too nasty. Credit that in the urination scene the liquid just looked like water, which I guess it was, i.e the demon just used Kelly to expell the holy water. But still, that was a bit too nasty.

I'm getting to the stage where I'm a bit fed up with the guest characters keep getting killed off. I think there could have been more mileage with Pablo's uncle, although I don't think he should have left with them as Pablo hoped. But he could have turned up again in some capacity.

I thought the effect of the demon crawling out of Kelly's mouth was actually rather good. And I didn't mind Ash's method of killing the demon, i.e. shoot first. Sure it's not exactly a new thing but Ash isn't quite he man he used to be. And fear has always been a big part of his personality until he gets pissed off and kicks butt. His vision showed him that part of his personality he should most focus on. With a foe like Eligos with these extra powers, he figured he had to think more (and he did utilise a trick by swiping at him with the chainsaw first) but in the end his instincts were still key.

A bit of a cliche maybe. And I'm not entirely sure that would work in the real world, but it did not seem out of place in this one.

I liked his new hand, although I didn't think Pablo had time to finish it before he got electrocuted. I had an idea him flipping the bird (that is the expression, right?) was ad-libbed by Bruce. I thought, "you shouldn't be able to have that amount of control". Apart from the real scientific and medical reasons (i.e,. being disconnected from his nervous system) Pablo said "You can make a fist" suggesting that the control was limited. (Sure he shouldn't be able to do that either, with that hand alone, but he could adjust the mechanism with his other hand.) But, I think I'm overthinking it. It was a gag: simple as that.

I hope the hand gets augmented later, but I hope that he still plugs in the chainsaw from time to time. One thing that bugged me concerning Army of Darkness, was that he gave up the saw once he had his gauntlet hand...

So now I'm up to date with the rest of you. And I've enjoyed the ride so far. I will still be a bit behind as the next episode comes out on the 9th over here, but at least I won't need to wait so long to read your posts and join in the discussion.
 
RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

He obviously found her a bit of a turn-on like that. (I noticed he seemed rather hypnotised by her breast heaving right before the Demon departed.) But I think he was half joking with that comment.

See, on one hand the joking would work if he weren't so obsessed with her.   He knows how terrible Deadite possession is and even offered up his body as a host, it felt strange for him to yearn for her to be like that again.
 
RE: Ash vs Evil Dead S01 E05: The Host Discussion [SPOILERS]

I'm sure it was just the sexuality (albeit acted out) that he missed. I don't think he'd wish the whole thing on her again.

And I think he might have been a bit of a smart-ass, as someone else said above.
 
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