Ash vs Evil Dead
Episode 3.1 “Family”
Directed by Mark Beesley
Written by Mark Verheiden
Created by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, Tom Spezialy
Starring Bruce Campbell, Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo, Lucy Lawless, Joel Tobeck, Katrina Hobbs, Lindsay Farris, Arielle Carver-O’Neill
Starz
Air date: Sunday, February 25, 2018

Warning: Ash vs Evil Dead spoilers below…

After what felt like forever to Evil Dead fans, Ash is back! It took more than a year but Sunday night marked the return of everyone’s favorite chainsaw armed, boomstick blasting lothario, Ashley J. Williams (Bruce Campbell). I got to interview the cast during NYCC back in October, and they were all very excited about the twists and turns that this season will feature. Season 3 of the hit STARZ series picks up right from where season 2 ended, with Ash and the Ghost Beaters victorious over evil, and rewriting Ash’s legacy in his hometown of Elk’s Grove, Michigan. But c’mon, this is Ash and evil never stays dead for long.

Finally! After over a year-long wait, Ash vs Evil Dead returns to Starz tomorrow night for the premiere of its third season. Fans of the series were left worrisome when Starz failed to promote the series ahead of its usual Halloween-timed premiere dates. At NYCC in October, the cast assured fans we would get the third season and we found out then that February 25th, 2018 was the date. Now it’s Ash vs Evil Dead Eve and we cannot be more excited for the best combination of gore, slapstick, and one-liners to hit our screens once again!

Check out the trailer for Season 3 here below, along with a behind-the-scenes preview featurette for the new season.

This past weekend Ash vs Evil Dead took over New York Comic-Con. The Starz series, which will be heading into its third season in February, had a fan experience that was set up outside the Javits Center the entire 4 days, allowing fans to walk through a replica set and create GIFs of themselves fighting deadites. On Saturday, the show’s stars Bruce Campbell, Dana DeLorenzo, Ray Santiago, Arielle Carver-O’Neill, and Lindsay Farris treated fans to a special sneak peek of the season 3 premiere, and conducted a panel discussion and Q&A, before heading back to the main convention center to sign autographs and taking photos with fans. During the convention, I got to speak to the cast members of the series about their experiences on the upcoming season.

Arielle Carver-O’Neill and Lindsay Farris are the two “newbies” on the show. Both native Aussies, Carver-O’Neill plays Brandy Barr, daughter of Candy Barr (Yep) and Ash (yes, she’s Ash’s daughter!), while Farris is Dalton, a descendant of the Knights of Sumeria who joins the Ghost Beaters and holds Ash in hero-worship. Check out what they had to say during the press event.

Saturday marked Day 3 for New York Comic-Con and was the dead I had circled. It was Ash vs Evil Dead Day! Having attended this panel the previous two years, I knew I was in for a treat with this crew. I arrived to the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC at 9:15am for the Ash vs Evil Dead panel, which was to start at 12:30pm, and the streets were already packed with fans, many in cosplay as Ash and others showing off their Evil Dead tattoos. The place had fans overflowing and by the time 12:30pm rolled around, the theater on 34th and 8th Avenue in Manhattan was near capacity. There had been much tension amongst fans of the Starz series, as the network at that point had failed to announce a premiere date for the third season, especially since seasons 1 & 2 both debuted around Halloween. Thankfully, crisis was averted, and right in time for NYCC, Starz announced a February 2018 airdate.

Star Bruce Campbell came out onto the stage first, dressed in a typically spiffy smoking jacket and thanked the fans for putting his kids through college. As a reward, we were given a full screening of the Season 3 premiere (see info about the episode at the end of this post).