He’ll be back. They always come back. And when this show comes back next year, I’ll also be back! But in the meantime, let’s see where the final episode lands.
The season builds to an ending that doesn’t feel like one, leaning more into the prospects of an even bigger and badder second season with our now fully developed characters and a large-scale threat. Rather than giving us everything tied up in a neat bow and moving on from one contained story to the next, it presents the prospects of problems to come from the army of Chucky’s while giving viewers a compelling story about abuse, family, and growing up.
This episode knocks it out of the park on a technical and pacing level. The action and humor go through the roof as we progress, starting with Kyle’s gnarly headshot and progressing to a house being blown up with a suitcase bomb (quick aside: Tiffany did imply that Glen/da somehow has an explosives connect, right? Cause now I REALLY want to see that person’s origin). The bizarre Chucky family unit that formed with Junior’s addition is so funny that part of me had hoped it would carry into the second season, but the tragedy of Junior had to end with a bang somehow. His death protecting Lexy felt sad without being schmaltzy and felt earned with the sheer complexity of his character arc.
While I enjoyed it, this closer had some faults that held it back from achieving the greatness of the previous episodes. The theatre setting of the climax is creative and leads to some wonderful, cinematic moments. It demonstrates Mancini & Peyton’s expertise in directing. We get a lot of kills and gags, but I can’t help but feel like it was a bit too reeled in and not chaotic enough. “Twice the Grieving, Double the Loss” had set up the stakes for a town full of Chucky’s turning Hackensack into a meat grinder with their coordinated strike in the theater, but this climax is much quieter. The plot to ship the Chucky’s across the country is interesting in the long term as I’m excited for Season 2, but I wish this season had a stronger set piece to end on in the short term.
Nica’s sad fate as Tiffany’s captive was one of the few things that rubbed me the wrong way about this season and in a serious way. It’s a storytelling choice that feels in character for the deranged Tiff, but it isn’t in line with the tone of the show just because of how mean-spirited it is. While the series is undoubtedly dark at times, it never presented those moments in as heavy a light. It’s such a morbid potential ending for a character we’ve been rooting for over the course of two movies and a season of television that I have to question what compelled Mancini to give her such a brutality-filled ending other than shock value.
With what looks like Kyle’s survival of the explosion, it seems we’ll be returning to Hackensack or at least its trio of heroes in this coming season. Here’s to them recapturing the energy that made this series work well so far and going even further beyond.
PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS: Even though I dislike the scene in which it happens, Fiona Dourif’s harrowing screams of terror at the end are haunting and won’t be forgotten anytime soon. But for me, it’s Brad Dourif who really steals the show with the amount of screentime he gets voicing Chucky. The “speaking to the troops” scene, the exchange with Tiffany that leads to another doll death, his last-ditch effort to convince Jake to show mercy, and every other moment just have such good comedic timing.
VISUAL HIGHLIGHTS: Putting two horror greats like Don Mancini and Harley Peyton together makes this episode stand out compared to the guest director’s work, with too many great shots to count. And I don’t want to be rude and say it looks like the budget kicked in, but all the SFX here just looks better than ever. All the Chucky dolls have so much detail and care put into them, especially with moments like the doll decapitation, so a sincere thank you to every other person who worked on the effects and makeup in this show.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“Why didn’t you kill him?”
“He had a gun! I hate guns! They’re like, my Achilles heel. Along with axes, fire…and those big industrial-sized fans!”
RATING: 7.5 (High-Speed Instant Kill Theater Seat Butt Stabbings)/10. Suffering the same problems the earlier episodes had with not taking certain things far enough, this was still a very interesting episode with some hilarious moments and good kills. I just hope that the second season lives up to the shadow cast by the first’s tremendous build-up.