Ash Vs. Evil Dead recap: The Host

It’s a rare thing in the Evil Dead universe to truly recover from a demonic possession — Ash is one of the few who’s played host to a malevolent spirit and lived to tell the tale, and to be fair, that was a couple of movies ago. Meaning that, at the outset of tonight’s installment of Ash Vs. Evil Dead, Kelly’s future wasn’t looking too bright, what with Eligos still inhabiting her body. Of course, when the episode opens, it’s actually Ash who’s being bound and gagged and accused of being controlled by the demon. Because that’s just his sort luck. Sometimes (ok, a lot of time), the hero from the sky just can’t seem to catch a break.

Kelly tells Pablo and his uncle that Ash began speaking in tongues before grabbing her by the throat and saying, “I am Eligos,” black eyes and all. Ash does his best to register his objections to her version of events, but Pablo and the Brujo fall for the story, with Pablo believing that the demon must have entered Ash’s boy at Books From Beyond. Apparently, there’s nothing that boiling water, a chicken and a 10-inch Ginsu knife can’t fix, though, and at his uncle’s behest, Pablo goes to fetch just that in the hopes of freeing Ash from Eligos’ clutches, grousing, “I feel like I’m the sous chef of his exorcism kitchen.” And the award for best one-liner of the evening goes to Pablo.

As Amanda and Ruby use Ash’s severed hand to guide them toward its former owner (that’s some kind of unpleasant compass), Eligos is using Kelly’s feminine charms to lure her poor, oblivious friend to his death. Inside the trailer, Kelly unearths Ash’s weed stash and suggests to Pablo that getting stoned might help them relax—and who needs a bong when you have a shotgun close by? Pablo realizes Kelly isn’t exactly behaving like her usual self, but he sits down beside her anyway and awkwardly attempts to confess his feelings. “You wanna be with me, right? Boyfriend, girlfriend—same milkshake, different straws?” When he tells her what he sees in her he finds beautiful, her response should maybe set off some warnings: “What’s inside of me cannot wait to tear you up.” Oh boy.

Kelly hands him the weapon, and he asks her if she remembers when they met — a story involving a very messy cold and him wanting to kiss her — not noticing that she’s loading a bullet into the chamber of the shotgun. She goads him again and again to take a hit and he almost does, but at the very last minute, he says he’s not sure if he’s ready. At which point, the frustrated demon finally loses its patience, distorting Kelly’s features into a devilish mask with a pretty intimidating set of teeth. At the same time, Ash twists loose of the makeshift gag and explains to the Brujo that he’s not the one who’s possessed, Kelly is and she just so happens to be alone and unsupervised with his nephew. Cue the sound of gunfire.

Pablo has the gun trained on Kelly, and somehow they get her back to the shaman shed to try to perform an exorcism, but that doesn’t exactly go all that well. Eligos spits out a couple of Kelly’s teeth, and when the Brujo feeds her leeches, those come back up, too, in a yellow projectile spray that lands at Ash’s feet. Pablo’s uncle explains that the demon is just taunting them by slowing killing its host, and Pablo resolves he will take her place. (Meanwhile, Kelly seems to return to her senses briefly, asking Ash to kill her as an act of mercy, and he starts to consider it as a viable option—until she requests he place a cross on her grave and Ash catches on that he’s being had. Kelly’s Jewish, which Ash learned only after he’d fashioned wildly inappropriate markers for her parents’ graves in episode 2.)

Summoning all his resolve, Pablo commands Eligos leave Kelly’s body and enter his own, and moments later, up comes a hand from out of Kelly’s throat. The hand is followed in short order by the rest of the demon, who climbs out of Kelly’s mouth and goes straight for the Brujo, tossing him through the air and directly onto an exposed beam, where he’s impaled. Ash takes a few shots, but Eligos’ ability to vanish and randomly reappear doesn’t make him an easy target. And then Ash recalls the insight he gained from his recent head trip: shoot first, think never. It does the trick. He tosses the shotgun in the air, fires, seemingly at nothing, and ends up taking off Eligos’ head. Groovy.

They burn the Brujo’s body on a funeral pyre, and Pablo apologies aloud to his uncle for not following his guidance sooner. A charm drops from the flames, which Pablo takes as a sign. Here’s hoping it will offer some protection — heaven knows they’re gonna need it. Ash apologizes, too, to Pablo and Kelly, for all the destruction he’s caused and for the fact that he still doesn’t know how to stop the evil. The “ghostbeaters” bond for a moment, with Kelly saying she has no memory of her time possessed by the demon, and Pablo presents Ash with the new mechanized hand he fashioned. “I’m going to shove this up some Deadite’s a—,” Ash says by way of thanks. And we’re on the road again until next week.