The adventures of Ash Williams, humanity’s only hope, continued last night on Starz.  The third episode of Ash Vs. Evil Dead found Ash going to an occult book store and essentially screwing things up and getting at least one person killed.

That’s not really a big shock.  That’s pretty much what Ash Williams does.  He’s been fighting the Evil Dead for longer than I’ve been alive and he still doesn’t quite seem to know what he’s doing.  I mean, let’s be honest — if Ash would stop reading aloud from that book, the entire world would have been saved a lot of trouble.  Really, we should all hate Ash but how can you hate Bruce Campbell?

It’s undeniably true that for many of us, Ash and Bruce Campbell pretty much are interchangeable.  That’s a bit unfair to Bruce, who seems to be a much more intelligent person than Ash and I also assume that Bruce is probably less likely to indulge in as much casual racism as Ash.  That said, I have a feeling that if I ever meet Groovy Bruce in person, I will be disappointed to discover that he actually has two hands.

And really, Bruce-as-Ash is the main appeal of a show like Ash vs. Evil Dead.  Don’t get me wrong.  I think Dana DeLorenzo is great as Kelly and Ray Santiago has his moments as Pablo.  So does Jill Maries Jones, even if the character of Detective Jones feels a bit underwritten.  Lucy Lawless was in last night’s episode, playing the mysterious Ruby Knowby and I can’t wait until she and Bruce actually get to share some scenes together because I think the Ruby/Ash confrontation is going to be amazing.

But, ultimately, we’re all watching for Bruce-as-Ash.  There’s a reason why Ash gets his name in the title.

As for last night’s episode, Ash took his copy of The Necronomicon to Books from Beyond, so he could get the store’s owner, Lionel Hawkins (Kelson Henderson), to read from it and hopefully find a way to send the Deadites back to Hell.  There was something really endearing about how excited Lionel was to see The Necronomicon and discover that he hadn’t been wasting his life.  Of course, unfortunately, Lionel ended up getting killed but not before he got the best line of the night: “The book is harmless except when wielded by someone very evil or very stupid.”

Ash’s bright idea, of course, was to summon another demon that would presumably then defeat the Deadites.  (Somehow, Ash got it into his head that this was actually Pablo’s idea.)  From the minute the demon showed up and Lionel warned Ash not to break the circle, I knew that Ash was going to break the circle.

As a result of Ash being Ash, Lionel was killed.  Fortunately, Kelly was there to somehow vanquish the demon by hitting it over the head with The Necronomicon.  Also there was Detective Fisher, who was still investigating her partner’s mysterious death.  Ash ended up handcuffing her to a shelf and apparently forgot about her.  Either that or Ash seriously didn’t realize that Lionel would come back as a Deadite and that the handcuffed Fisher would apparently have no way to escape him.

So, will Fisher escape?  Things didn’t look good for her at the end of last night’s episode but I have a feeling Lucy Lawless will show up and save her.

As for Ash — well, as he put it last night: “At heart, I’m an alone wolf.”

You certainly are, Ash.  You certainly are.