"El Jefe" is the first episode of the first season of Ash vs Evil Dead, and the first episode overall in the series. It was written by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, and Tom Spezialy, and was directed by Sam Raimi. It premiered on October 31, 2015.
Plot Synopsis[]
As night falls across the Mossy Haven Trailer Park, the shadow of a figure moves within a beat-up silver Airstream parked at the edge of the lot. Inside the trailer, Ash Williams hypes himself up to the tune of Space Truckin' by Deep Purple as he gets ready for a night on the town. Ash continues to rock out as the Oldsmobile cruises through the night until finally arriving at a dive bar known as The Woodsman. Inside, Ash spots a distraught woman sitting at the counter, striking up a conversation with her after grabbing her attention with his wooden prosthetic hand. After feeding her a story in which he lost his hand while rescuing a child stuck on railroad tracks, the two disappear into the women's bathroom for sex. As Ash stops to catch his breath, the woman quickly turns around, revealing the shrunken white eyes and wrinkled visage of a Deadite, telling him "we're coming for you!" The demonic face vanishes as quickly as it appeared, startling Ash enough where he tells the woman that he has to leave (although he ultimately stays to finish having sex with her).
Ash's cocky attitude vanishes by the time he leaves the bar, and is visibly nervous and shaken during the drive back to the trailer park. Running into his Airstream mobile home, Williams opens an old wooden trunk, pulling out the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. Relieved that the book has not fallen into someone else's hands, his attitude once again shifts as he finds a small plastic bag of weed between the pages, and Ash is suddenly hit with a flashback. In this memory, Ash recalls getting stoned with a woman named Lucy, who had a line from a french poem tattooed on her wrist, telling him that she's really into poetry. The high Williams retrieves the Ex-Mortis from the trunk, telling the Lucy that he's got something more impressive than her french poem. Together, the two read a phonetic translation of the book's demon-resurrection passage from an old note tucked inside the pages. The flashback ends, and Ash realizes the monumental mistake he's made.
Elsewhere, the Kandarian Demon roars through a hazy forest, watching from afar as a Michigan State Police cruiser rolls up to a mansion. Officer Amanda Fisher and her partner John Carson have arrived at the behest of the neighbors, who reported a woman screaming inside the house. Heading inside the dark abode, Fisher finds the corpse of a woman frozen with fear inside the dining room, while Carson finds a rocking chair moving on its own in the living room. Suddenly, the attention of the two officers is drawn to the quiet cries of Lucy, who slowly raises from the floor on the other side of the room. As they tell Lucy to slowly put her hands up, she instead twists her head completely around her neck, revealing she is a Deadite. The glass windows shatter and a strong wind swirls about the parlor, allowing the Deadite enough time to stagger towards Carson and smack him across the room. Knocking the gun out of Amanda's hands, Lucy then grabs a pair of scissors, stabbing Fisher directly in the palm her left hand. Just as Lucy goes in for another attack, Carson recovers his shotgun and blows a chuck off the monster's head, causing her to collapse.
For a moment, the two officers are stunned by the sight which they had just encountered, only for Lucy to spring back up and toss Carson against the wall, where he's impaled by a set of mounted deer antlers. As Lucy staggers back over to Fisher, Amanda quickly reaches down for a snub-nose pistol hidden between her shin and ankle, destroying the Deadite with a clean shot to the head. Suddenly, the shutters of the room slam shut on their own, making the room even darker than before. Amanda reaches for her nearby flashlight, shocked to see that Carson is no longer pinned to the antlers on the wall. Hearing strange noises around her, Amanda swings the light above her, watching as Carson scurries on the ceiling like an insect before he jumps off and attacks her. After briefly turning normal again when Amanda holds him at gunpoint, Carson reveals his possessed nature once, forcing Fisher to shoot him directly in the head.
It's the following morning as Ash hesitantly steps out of his trailer, examining a business card for "Books From Beyond", and dials the number on the back, asking if they can help translate an incantation in the Ex-Mortis. Surprised they can and will help with his request, Ash hangs up and approaches his neighbor Vivian Johnson, asking if she would clean up his trailer while he heads out to take care of some business. As he begins to walk away, Williams feels the air shift around him, and suddenly sees a Deadite Vivian behind a curtain, warning him that his time has come again, only for the demonic vision to quickly end and Vivian appear normal once more.
Hoping in the Delta, Ash arrives to his place of work: ValueStop, where he asks his boss to get his check early, though Mr. Roper is quick to tell him he'll get his check at the end of his shift. It is then that Ash is approached by his friend and co-worker Pablo Simon Bolivar, a trusted confidant whom Ash tells that he's quitting and skipping town following this shift. Pablo laments his friend's departure, he tells Ash that he just got his upstairs neighbor, the attractive Kelly Maxwell, hired as a cashier. Ash quickly leaves Pablo to go introduce himself/say goodbye/flirt with Kelly, though he quickly discovers that she's a lot tougher than she looks when she pins him to the checkout counter in a heartbeat.
Across town, a bandaged crestfallen Amanda Fisher sits alone in the Blue Lake Diner, startled to see a child across the room with ghastly shrunken white eyes and shriveled skin staring back at her, though the vision disappears as soon as she looks away. The woman in the booth in front of her asks if she's alright, though Amanda replies that she can't trust her eyes these days. The woman responds that maybe what Amanda saw was exactly what she saw, and proceeds to exit the diner.
Back at ValueStop, Ash is in the back room of the store when a strange feminine giggle catches his ear. Examining his surroundings, Williams soon finds the source to be a Little Lori doll, who leaps from her cardboard box and attacks him. While Ash manages to shake the demonic toy away from him, Little Lori proceeds to pick up a nearby boxcutter and charge at Ash, only to be smashed by a shocked shovel-wielding Pablo. It is then that Ash confesses to Pablo about his gore-filled past: how he found the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis at a cabin in the woods 30 years prior, and how his friends had fallen to this evil which he just recently awakened once more. Pablo then tells Ash that his shaman uncle would tell him stories of a man who was destined to stand against the forces of evil called "El Jefe", and believes Ash to be that savior. As the two walk out of the back room, Ash catches a glimpse of a news report on the televisions in the store's electronics department, where a massive sinkhole has opened up just outside The Woodsman bar. Pablo watches as Ash runs out of the store and through the strong winds, hopping into the Delta and driving away. At that moment, Kelly receives a video call from her father, who tells Kelly that her mother (who had died six months ago in a car crash) was back home. Believing this to be some kind of trick by the evil forces, Pablo offers to give Kelly a ride back to her father's house. As Kelly races outside to start Pablo's bike, the Kandarian Demon roars through the parking lot, drawing closer and closer until Pablo comes out at starts the motorcycle just in the nick of time. Though Pablo and Kelly are gone, the demon continues it's charge, plowing directly into the angry Mr. Roper.
At the other side of town, Amanda Fisher returns to the creepy house in the woods from the previous night, now roped off in yellow police tape. As she examines the living room where the attack happened, she spots a ripped portion of Carson's shirt hanging from the chandelier, confirming for her that the demonic assault really did happen.
Night has fallen as Pablo and Kelly pull up to Ash's trailer at Mossy Haven, unknowingly followed by the Kandarian Demon. Pablo tells Ash that there's no more running, and he needs to own up to who he truly is. As Kelly backs towards a corner of the trailer, a Deadite's arm smashes through the window and grabs her by the throat. Kelly begs through her gasps for breath for Ash to help her, prompting Williams to grab an axe hanging from the wall and throw it across the room. The axe head slices the Deadite's arm clean off, and the Kandarian Demon's attack of the trailer's exterior intensifies. When the banging stops, Ash rips off his ValueStop shirt, revealing his signature blue workshirt underneath. Using Kelly's belt, Ash begins to put on his leather shotgun holster, just as one of his trailer park neighbors (now a Deadite) barges in. Stomping on a trap-door trigger on the floor, Ash's shotgun flies up from the floor and into his hand, eventually shoving the demon's head into a cabinet before blowing it completely off.
Bewildered by this sudden change in Ash, Kelly asks if they can hurry up and get to her fathers, though he tells her that they must get the Necronomicon to Books From Beyond first and undo all this. As Ash goes to retrieve his chainsaw, he discovers the Deadite Vivian hiding behind a curtain. She tells him that it is "time to test the mettle of man", and proceeds to toss Williams about the room. When Vivian turns her attention to Kelly, Pablo kicks the chainsaw to Ash as he leaps across the room. Taking a run at Williams, Vivian falls for Ash's ploy as the chainsaw swipes her head cleanly off her neck, sending a spray of blood onto Ash and Pablo's faces.
As the triumphant "Jefe" catches his breath, he says there's no more running. Pablo asks him how it feels to be back, to which Ash simply replies "Groovy."
Cast[]
Starring |
Guest Starring
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Gallery[]
Episode Stills[]
Behind The Scenes[]
Soundtrack[]
- Space Truckin' - Deep Purple (Machine Head; 1972) (Heard during episode's opening)
- End of The Line - Frijid Pink (Frijid Pink; 1970) (Heard during Ash's flashback)
- Elevator Music - Franck Sarkissian & Yannick Kalfayan (2010) (Heard inside ValueStop during Ash and Mr. Roper's conversation)
- Angel Romance - Franck Sarkissian (2010) (Heard inside ValueStop during Ash's conversation with Kelly)
- Journey To The Center of The Mind - The Amboy Dukes (Journey To The Center of The Mind; 1968) (Heard during Ash's fight with Deadite Vivian and during end credits)
Trivia[]
- References to The Evil Dead:
- The incantation Ash and Lucy read from the Necronomicon is a mixture of the incantations heard in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II.
- Amanda and Carson's police cruiser is parked at such an angle which makes Amanda appear to be standing sideways upon getting out, while it is the car itself which is parked at an angle. This mirrors the scene in The Evil Dead in which the Oldsmobile was positioned in a similar manner when Ash and Cheryl arrive at the destroyed bridge.
- Footage from The Evil Dead is used during the scene in ValueStop, when Ash tells Pablo of his previous encounters with evil.
- References to Evil Dead II:
- The transition to Ash's "flashback" early in the episode uses a red variation of the swirling blue vortex effect seen in the opening of Evil Dead II.
- The incantation Ash and Lucy read from the Necronomicon is a mixture of the incantations heard in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II.
- Footage from Evil Dead II is used during the scene in ValueStop, when Ash tells Pablo of his previous encounters with evil.
- References to Army of Darkness:
- Ash's fight with the first Deadite to break into his trailer is identical to his fight with the Deadite witch inside the castle chamber in Army of Darkness.
- Ash's "flying leap" to catch his chainsaw in mid-air is a direct homage to "The Pit" scene in Army of Darkness, in which he also catches his saw directly on his stump.
- Due to the split ownership of the film between Universal Pictures and MGM, footage from Army of Darkness could not be used during the scene in which Ash tells Pablo of his previous encounters with evil.
- The address of Books From Beyond is listed on the card as "1973 Olds Road", a reference to Ash's car: a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royal.
- The American flag outside of ValueStop has 48 stars.
- Producer Rob Tapert makes a cameo as the man running outside of ValueStop as the storm clouds approach.
- Though this episode officially premiered on STARZ on October 31st, 2015, it's first public screening was at the Ash vs Evil Dead panel at the 2015 New York Comic-Con on October 10th.