Some inevitable spoilers for previous episodes.

Is Chucky really dead? Well, duh…

After last week’s slice of nuclear charged Chucky-crazed perfection, I was, naturally enough, concerned as to where on earth this fabulous show could go next. Surely we were heading for a major anti-climax.

Of course we weren’t!

While the penultimate episode of what has been by far the best of the three Chucky seasons doesn’t have the structural elegance of last week’s Panic Room, I shouldn’t have doubted for a second that Mancini and co had more in the tank. Although as the title suggests, it’s blood not gasoline. A lot of blood.

Being a soul with unfinished business (i.e. still lots of people he wants to murder) Charles Lee Ray, returned to the corporeal form of Brad Dourif (hooray!!) faces one of the strangest HR interviews in horror history… or should that be IR – Inhuman Resources? He is given one last chance to prove that he is up to the task of being truly evil.

Meanwhile, the delightfully, tastelessly enthusiastic Randall Jenkins (Devon Sawa) realises that being the double for a president who is supposed to be dead has its disadvantages, a situation which is unlikely to end well.

However, Agent Pryce (Gil Bellows) has other concerns. He has brought in the psychic investigators, charged with cleansing the White House of all its accumulated ghostly baggage. This naturally enough will require a séance, which, also, unsurprisingly, doesn’t go quite to plan.

By the end of this literally blood-sodden episode (The Shining, eat your heart out) there is only one course of action left. Jake will have to risk everything to destroy Chucky once and for all. However, just as he embarks on this somewhat high-risk strategy, Jennifer Tilly is finally facing lethal injection.

While the multiple strands and set-ups make There Will Be Blood a little ungainly at times, it is still hugely enjoyable with several superbly conceived set pieces.

Verdict: This is the Chucky franchise at its darkest, although it still has room for a particularly brilliant Taylor Swift joke. It will not surprise you to learn that I am extremely excited for next week’s season finale. 9/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com