Oh man. Somehow, I let two years pass between finishing the second season of "Ash vs. Evil Dead" and watching the third and final run. What's really odd about that is that I loved the first two seasons and, though I do think the third is rehitting some of the same beats again, so perhaps it was the right time to end the show, this third season was a lot of fun too.
Having established himself in Elk Grove, it is sadly not long before evil comes to find Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) again. Ruby (Lucy Lawless) gets control of the Necronomicon and uses it to fashion a new child, this one a clone of Earth's unlikeliest hero himself. Ash though has his own parenting issues, when an old flame tells him that he has a daughter, Brandy (Arielle Carver-O'Neill) and that she is in trouble.
I mean, largely it's more of the same ultra-gory slapstick violence as our heroes trying to win back the book and overthrow the evil in the town. The effects are generally physical, so practical make up, puppets and dummies - this can make them generally unsettling - but there is some CGI blending, one such scene is perhaps the shows standout moment. In the second episode, Ash fights a pin up model who attacks him from within the pornographic magazine he's looking at. Some of the blending of special effects in that sequence are truly magnificent.
But, as I say, the show is remixing its plotlines already. Ruby has another offspring, this time Kelly is killed, and must be rescued from the underworld and Pablo "goes bad". This is as well as one more trip to the series classic idea of Ash facing another version of himself.
It's an excellent time, both this season and the series overall, but I do think this was the right time to end this incarnation and allow the story to move on in other mediums.