A punny title about that terrible Gal Gadot movie? Sutton Stracke, Real Housewife of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills? The long-awaited return of Glen/Glenda to the Chucky franchise? This episode really IS for the shes, gays, and theys!
This is an episode for all the Jennifer Tilly fans considering it’s another big meta-humor episode. In particular, “Death on Denial” calls back to the simpler times when John Waters was photographing a perverted doll, with its farcical fourth wall breaking, focused on jokes about Tiffany pretending to be Tilly.
We begin with Chucky announcing that this episode is in fact, the season’s B-Plot and that the Hackensack gang will be absent this week. At Chez Tilly, Glen and Glenda return home for their birthday bash to their mother cleaning up a suspicious blood lake that’s been left by a dead detective (still annoyed Michael Therriault didn’t play him!).
As Tiffany tries to act natural, conflict arises when the children address their mother’s rampant spending and deteriorating mental state. On top of their mothers’ issues, the existential crisis of Glen and Glenda as an entity comes into frame. Glenda addresses never having felt whole following their voodoo separation from their original doll body and mentions that their dreams are haunted by visions of the former doll’s own secret origins; we get a return to Seed of Chucky, complete with the makeshift flamethrower flashback.
Color me impressed that this episode has a genuine textual richness to it despite the silliness, with Glen and Glenda finally having their day in the sun to explore the more nuanced aspects of being a non-binary person (people, technically). The whole dialogue is a very subtle and very well-meshed metaphor for dysphoria, and the fact that it gets visualized in the incredible split-screen performance of Lachlan Watson is just the icing on the cake. Only Mancini and company could pull something like this off.
But this is supposed to be a party, isn’t it? And soon, those party guests flood in, including:
- Jeeves, the obnoxious and bigoted butler who’s only here for a check
- Honorary uncle and aunt Joe Pantoliano & Gina Gershon in a Bound reunion with their co-star (and secret lover)
- Sutton Stracke, slightly embittered poker buddy and real housewife from down the block in her first scripted acting role
- And The Big Chill star Meg Tilly, Jennifer Tilly’s actual sister!
Everybody present is close to sussing out Tiffany’s masquerade, but it’s hard for them to focus on the cracks in the facade when Jeeves gets into a tiff with Joe, who he keeps insulting with slurs and The Sopranos callbacks. Gina and Sutton catch strays from his crass comments, and after some blatant hatred for Glen and Glenda’s identity, everybody teams up against Jeeves in a wonderful moment of anti-asshole solidarity that forces him to head out of the room and back to guarding Nica’s quarters.
When the power goes out, Tiffany finds a dead Jeeves on the ground and Nica’s now empty bedroom prison opened before everyone else stumbles across the body. In a surprising stroke of genius, Tiffany gets everybody to believe a poisoned Jeeves is playing dead as part of a murder mystery game. Tiffany retreats to try and find Nica after an alarm goes off and gets cornered by a tipsy and handsy Gina, and an equally drunk and nasty Joe. Elsewhere, it’s revealed Glen is in cahoots with Nica in a secret basement room hideaway.
Flashing back to three months ago, a drunk Tiffany brags about “her” performance in Liar, Liar before passing out and leaving Nica unprotected from the prying eyes of her kids. Though both meet Nica and agree to help her, Glenda ends up meeting the Chucky inside of Pierce after accidentally triggering the victim’s blood aversion. Chucky emotionally manipulates Glenda into siding with him, preying on the youth’s violent tendencies; the two plan to arm Nica-Chucky, literally, with swanky new robotic limbs.
Back in the present day, Nica bonds with Glen momentarily over phantom limb itches, but transforms into Nica-Chucky after stumbling upon a dead Joe in the elevator. Glenda knocks out Glen to secure her opportunity to strike back at Tiffany, and Glenda along with Chucky, make a grand entrance to kill their mark… And stumble right before the finish line with an empty gun. You see, neither of the twins took out Joe and dumped his body in the elevator, but rather Gina, shot him in a fit of murderous passion. Nica comes to after a slap from Tiff and escapes out the front gate. Glenda sprints like an olympian to try and catch Nica (side note, Lachlan Watson’s athleticism is scary, CRAZY strong form), and the two escape in a step van driven by none other than, plot twist, a still very much alive Kyle, in a brunette post-explosion wig! But now an unconscious Glen is stuck back at the house with a mother mourning the loss of her hostage, and Meg Tilly.
Back in the studio wraparound segment we opened the episode on, WWE superstar and fellow Child’s Play super-fan Liv Morgan arrives. Just when I thought we couldn’t get any more cameos! Although this is cut short when Liv dies by Chucky’s hand to even out the kills for the episode. Oh, and Chucky fills us in on the solution to the murder mystery. Glenda killed Jeeves with the pocket arsenic in the study.
Tale as old as time.
VISUAL HIGHLIGHTS: Honestly, I couldn’t think of anything in the directing that stood out to me outside of those fun shots of Nica escaping in her wheelchair. But I do get to talk about how great the costuming was this episode. Tiffany’s dress, or even just Glen and Glenda’s outfits speak volumes to the complexities of the characters. Solid work all around.
Also…that pinky swear gag. Genius.
PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS: This episode soars because everyone is bringing their A-Game. Jennifer Tilly gets to just cut loose and inhabit Tiffany’s sad and slightly pathetic side, all of our guest stars have perfect comedic timing, and Fiona Dourif continues to prove that she is the only person who can hold a candle to her father’s performance. But above all else, Lachlan Watson got thrust into a double role almost instantly and expertly, magically, somehow made the return work. With such a tall order, it’s beyond impressive.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“Who would commit murder over pronouns?”
“EACH. AND EVERY. ONE OF YOU. […] And that is why I love you.”
– Joe Pantoliano & Tiffany Valentine, on reasonable reactions to misgendering
RATING: 10 (Network Television Allotted Uses of the word F**k)/10. I’m genuinely convinced that this season may not have an episode with a score under 8. This really is a super condensed spiritual successor to Seed of Chucky, in the best of ways. It is over too soon for how fantastic it is.