“Ash vs Evil Dead’s” second episode was loaded with awesome scenes,not the least of which was, in my humble opinion, the single most over-the-top moment in Evil Dead history which will double as the most epic of Halloween costumes should anyone be able to pull it off.

It goes without saying that if you have yet to watch Episode 2, you’ll want to refrain from reading any further. That said. we’re all adults here, so I can’t tell you what to do.

The portion of the program in question dealt with Ash (Bruce Campbell) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) heading back to the hospital morgue to recover the Necronomicon that Ruby (Lucy Lawless) stuffed inside a corpse to avoid detection by her insolent children from the season premiere.

Kelly questioned the decision but Ruby simply pointed out that dead flesh throw Deadites off the scent, which will be a point we’ll want to keep in mind as the season wears on, I’m sure.

As we all could have guessed, the corpse didn’t want to part with the Book of the Dead without a fight and the payoff boiled down to the fact that while I’m certain Ash would never turn down anal action, this was most definitely not what he had in mind. However, he did recover the book, but not before stumbling around the room piggybacking a dead body in the least recommended way imaginable.

It’s absurd, but completely in keeping with the the universe we all know and love, and something that The King will never live down.

Kelly is convinced the pair are going to get arrested for their efforts, but what begins as a fight with a soda dispenser over a pop (ahhh the Chicago emerges in DeLorenzo) comes to a close with Kelly knocking out the town constable with a single shot to the skull. But like Ms. Maxwell said, it’s not her fault the dude had a glass jaw.

The real drama comes in Ash’s childhood bedroom, however, where Pablo (Ray Santiago) wields the Kandarian Dagger in an effort to extract the lowdown on his waking nightmare visions from Ruby. Of course, for as bad-ass as Pablito is, he still isn’t much of a match for Ruby and ends up relinquishing the upper hand relatively quickly. Ash’s wing-man has another vision, only this time there’s no ripping off of a gelatinous face, but rather Ruby having him tied up like a pig about to be drained of its blood and slitting his throat with a claw-like fingernail.

Of course he comes to after Ash and Kelly return, and when pressed he finally reveals what he saw. Ruby is clearly worried because she understood that particular vision represented the ominous Baal.

Now, we haven’t seen him yet, but  we all know he’s coming and DeLorenzo already revealed to iHorror that Baal is hands down the single most formidable foe the Evil Dead universe has ever produced.

Not gonna lie, this is intriguing stuff. I mean, yes Ruby had been fretting over losing control of her powerful children, but she’s never actually looked worried at the mere mention of a demon before, least of all the father of the naked nasties which appeared in “Home.”

Along the way, we saw Brock (Lee Majors) prepping for a visit from a little lovely in the same fashion his son did in the pilot episode of the series (further demonstrating how alike father and son truly are) and got a glimpse of Cheryl’s room at the end of the hall. A few recognizable clips from The Evil Dead played out on the door but, of course, the memories of that fateful night 30 years prior were only visible to Ash.

The show concluded with a couple of kids that Ash nearly hit on the ride back to his old stomping grounds stealing the Delta, but the show continues to grow beyond splatstick to a deeper understanding of who and why Ash is, Kelly and Pablo are growing tougher and more complex and there’s a new batch of Deadites that need to be dealt with. All of which leads to questions moving forward.

• How deeply will the loss of the franchise’s unattached symbol effect Ash? Yes, the Necronomicon is somewhere in the vehicle, but it’s also the man’s pride and joy, his most prized possession. We’re not allowed to forget that just twelve more payments and that baby’s all his.
• Two shows in, Pablo’s visions have already gone from sketches, ghostly visions of Ruby and the aforementioned Mason Verger moment to absolutely horrific. How much worse will they get, and what will they represent? In our Q&A with DeLorenzo, she did offer a reminder that everyone who gets close to Ash checks out, so will everyone survive the season — and what’s worse — will Pablo make it through to the recently announced third set of episodes?
• We’ve been assured that players from the original Evil Dead films were going to make appearances throughout Season 2, and now that we’ve been teased with glimpses of Cheryl, when will she and some of the others begin to appear? Will they be cameos as new characters or will they serve as Griffin Dunnes to Ash’s David Naughton?
• We’re already down to eight episodes remaining, so when will the curtain go up on Baal’s much anticipated arrival? We all remember how difficult it was for the Ghostbeaters to dispense of “minor” demon Eligos, so how in the living hell are they going to deal with Baal, who will most likely make Eligos look like Paul Reubens’ Amilyn?

The plot continues to thicken, so until next week, remember that you are welcome to hang in Ash’s room, but don’t touch anything. Unless it’s to tidy up.