Recap of Ash vs. Evil Dead
Season 3, Episode 10:
The Mettle of Man
- Brandy: Enough! I don't know much about this Evil Dead crap, and I know even less about why it chose you, but it did! You're the savior of humanity, so get on your damn feet and own up to who you are! In the short time that I've known you, I've seen things that I never thought existed, seen you things that I never thought possible. You taught to trust you, you taught me to believe in you, and I do. So please, don't let me down now.
Ash tells Pablo to take Kelly's body from the car while Brandy retrieves the dagger. She gets attacked by a Deadite who starts pursuing the Ghost Beaters, but she kills him by shoving the dagger through his mouth. Pablo explains that the demon is Kandar the Destroyer who's come to test the mettle of man. Ash refuses to fight it on the account of its size, and a police officer accuses him of cowardice and decides to call the demon to him, but gets possessed. More people start turning into Deadites as the group tries to get to the Williams house, and they barricade themselves in. Pablo shows the news report that the evil started spreading all over the world, and the power disappears. Ash becomes embroiled in despair and refuses to go and fight Kandar, lamenting that all his efforts are pointless. Brandy manages to raise his spirits with her speech, and Ash makes up his mind about it, but before going to battle, he takes some time to smoke some weed. He tells Brandy to leave the town, but she convinces him to let her stay. Pablo takes Kelly's body to the hardware store on the surface as his abilities make him invisible to Deadites, while Ash and Brandy head into the sewers. While there, Ash gives her Linda's magnifying glass necklace as a good luck charm. They get ambushed by numerous Deadites and get into a pipe to escape and get to the rift.
Pablo sees the military fight Kandar, but their weapons only give him more strength. He gets to the rift just as Ash and Brandy emerge from the pipe, and Pablo decides to go in alive. Ash sends him in while he and Brandy fight the Deadites. Pablo manages to escape from the rift before it closes, but Kelly still remains dead. Suddenly, she comes back to life and kisses Pablo. She apologizes for trying to take Ruby all alone, and the group barely manages to escape from the cellar before it collapses.
They walk outside the story and see the military fighting Kandar. Pablo takes his time to carry a little girl to safety, just as a soldier gets possessed and shoots up the rest of the platoon. Kelly kills him and saves a wounded soldier, while the military commander takes them to safety. Ash and Pablo overhear that a nuke is going to be used on the demon. Kelly, Pablo and Brandy get into an APC while Ash stays behind, saying his goodbyes to his friends. The military leaves the area, and only Ash stays in the burning town.
He gets inside of an abandoned tank and tapes the dagger to a shell. As he attempts to fire it, the mechanism jams, and Kandar picks the tank up. Ash pushes the override button and fires the shell into the demon's mouth, and it releases the tank, making it fall to the ground. He falls on top of it and knocks Ash out.
Ash wakes up somewhere, and Knights of Sumeria put him into a container. He gets released out of it and notices he has a bionic right hand. He gets out of the vault, and a cyborg greets him, kneeling like a Knight. She tells Ash to follow her and takes him outside, to a ruined post-apocalyptic world. Just as he becomes despaired, the Knight shows him an armored vehicle made in the shape of his Delta and gives him the keys, saying the Dark Ones are on the move. As he gets behind the wheel and gets to hear the purr, he describes his mood with just one word...
Tropes:
- And the Adventure Continues: The series ends with Ash and his new companion embarking on a journey to fight the Dark Ones once again.
- Back from the Dead: Pablo manages to bring Kelly back to life, this time permanently.
- Bittersweet Ending: Ash defeats Kandar and stops the demon, but he will never get a chance to meet his friends and daughter again, and his quest to finally defeat evil is far from over.
- Book Ends: While "El Jefe" starts with "Space Truckin', the track finishes the episode. And the final word, as usual, is "Groovy".
- Blood Knight: Kelly's bloodlust awakens in her once again as she takes a carbine and starts shooting up Deadites.
- Brick Joke: Ash and Pablo make a quick joke about Kane from WWE, and they've used to watch WWE Raw together, just like Pablo said in "El Jefe".
- Call-Back: The Deadite from the episode's beginning shouts "Dead by dawn!" at the Ghost Beaters, much like Deadite Ed Getley did in Evil Dead 2.
- Flipping the Bird: Ash defiantly flips Kandar off, trying to get his attention.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Brandy gives a Rousing Speech to a despairing Ash, slapping a beer can out of his hand in the process.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: As he gets into the tank, Ash compares controlling it to playing Battlezone (1980).
- It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Ash has spent 30 years living in a trailer park and trolling bars, trying to ignore his true calling as a slayer of all things evil. He even goes off on a rant to this effect:Ash: Pablo, how may times you heard me say this, huh? Why me?! Who am I?! Nobody. Nobody! Guy from Elk Grove, Michigan. Where the fuck is that? In the middle of jack-shit nowhere, that's where! You know what? I got news for you. I didn't ask for this! You think I want this horse shit? Be covered in blood 24/7? Who the fuck would want that?! Savior my ass! I'm a god-damn failure!
- Kaiju: Kandar is a humongous demon that is about the size of Godzilla,
- Parental Hypocrisy: Ash takes a hit off of a bong before going to fight Kandar, but refuses to let Brandy have any on the grounds that Drugs Are Bad. When Brandy calls him on it, Ash informs her he doesn't want her to pick up his bad habits.
- Shout-Out: Pablo and Ash compare the former's brujo abilities and his link to demons to Kane, much to Brandy's confusion.
- You Are in Command Now: As the APC is about to take the rest of the team away, Ash tells Pablo that he's the Jefe now.
