When we last left Ash and the Ghostbeaters, they were being celebrated in Elk Grove after successfully vanquishing the deadite threat. Season 3 picks up a short while later and finds Ash using his chainsaw not to carve up the dead but to slash prices at the hardware store he inherited from his dad. The opening local TV commercial, with its plentiful jokes about nuts and long screws, is perfectly ridiculous and very amusing.

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Ash vs Evil Dead: Season 3 Photos 4 IMAGES

Pablo now works for Ash at the store (for no money, of course) but Kelly is off on her own working as an excessive force-using bouncer. Curiously -- though perhaps not, knowing Ash -- Linda is nowhere to be found, but everyone else seems to be at peace. Just like the beginning of Season 2, this lull in their crazy lives can't last long.Sure enough the Necronomicon quickly turns up on an Antiques Roadshow-type TV show, with evil Ruby on its tail. The business of resetting the struggle against the dead out of the way, the real arc begins with the introduction of Ash’s daughter Brandy Barr (Arielle Carver-O’Neill). Her first scene sees her and a friend being chased by an undead school mascot named Cougie. New blood was needed and a long-lost daughter is as good an addition as any. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Kelly now that Ash’s real daughter is in the mix to usurp some aspects of her dynamic with Ash.The other new character is Dalton (Lindsay Farris), a member of a brand new ancient order dedicated to battling evil, dubbed the Knights of Sumeria. (Google tells me the ancient Mesopotamian city-state is actually just called Sumer but whatever.) We don’t see much of him, his biggest jobs being looking tough in biker gear that matches Kelly, with whom he has somehow teamed up, and dropping to one knee before Ash, whom he describes as “the prophesied one." It seems Ash’s destiny as the Chosen One has yet to be fulfilled, but then that was never really in doubt. I was hoping to see some hint of what the show would be doing with the dangling plot thread about Ash’s lineage, but alas there was none.The returning episode is paced very well and delivers plenty of gory fun. While Ash vs. Evil Dead is generally a pretty funny show, the jokes in this episode seem to land particularly well. Bruce Campbell is in top form, both when slaying the undead and delivering lines like, “You can call me dad. Unless you’re a deadite. In that case, you can go f**k yourself!”If anything is a bit lacking it’s the episode’s take on the series' patented ludicrous fight scene. In most episodes, there’s at least one fight where Ash takes on unconventional enemies using bizarre weapons, many of which end up in some orifice of his or theirs. In this one, it’s a neatly introduced scene with a deadite playing musical instruments in a high school band room. Coming as close as it did to the climax it felt a little too silly, but it’s redeemed by one of the grossest kill effects the show has seen. Who knew a harp could double as a bread slicer?Ash vs. Evil Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on Starz. For more on Ash and the Deadites, check out our Evil Dead history lesson with co-creator Sam Raimi, and catch up on everything you need to know about the show so far.