Chucky #2.5: The Coming Of Rage

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a The Ticketmaster

So, I just found out that the Chucky fandom is incredibly toxic. Why am I surprised? Because the internet is a horror movie and I'm the dumbass who decided to have an opinion in a virtual roomful of venomous, under-educated slasher villains whose twisted code is to only murder people with opinions they don't like. Even worse, I expressed my opinion based on false information. And dumbasses with bad ideas are always surprised when they get murdered.

I could go on a rant about how technology is making people dumber, more isolated in their togetherness, angrier, etc. But I'd be repeating myself and not getting to why this post I'm writing right now is even a thing.

I could also waste time trashing those who called me pretentious, egotistical, a bad writer, and a minority voice spreading falsehoods from his high horse...so I will because I enjoy what I do, I've been doing it for more than half of their miserable lives, and a high horse is the best place to get a clear view of all the people with literal horseshit on their minds. Because my high horse took a shit on all of their heads, get it? And they have shit for brains, get it? I just wanted to be clear because they don't seem to understand how formal writing works. Did any of them take high school English classes? Or has technology made those into houses of incompetence as well?

Deep breath....

Okay; moving on.... When I was watching the second episode of Chucky at its premiere time, I wrongly thought there was some kind of bug or worm protruding from the apple that young Charles Lee Ray had found in his bag of candy during the opening flashback. I then proceeded to form an argument around that false attribution, and got utterly destroyed for it. Which brings me to three points:

1. I apologize for inadvertently speaking to something that wasn't true. I stand by many of the critical opinions that I formed around it (the Chucky series doing the on-screen character analysis thing that has historically ruined many beloved franchises for their respective fanbases, using sympathy for the devil writing to endear audiences to a character that they already love for more powerful, indefinable reasons). The logic behind my arguments is sound, even if the concrete detail supporting that logic is false, which brings me to my next point.

2. For all of the vicious personal attacks that came in response to my review of Episode Two, and for my own knee-jerk response to them that was just as vicious, if not more so, I suppose some thanks are in order. To be living in a world where Trump was elected as President, QAnon exists, January 6th happened, COVID is real, anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are applying their...mental faculties???...to becoming a "rational" presence in the sociopolitical landscape, grocery stores can sell semi-automatic weapons, and the state of Texas used to be able to legally issue citizen's arrest bounties on pro-choicers, it's a relief to know there are people who can spot an argument based on falsehoods and point it out, rather than just going, "seems legit. I like it." Maybe those people aren't so good at recognizing the logic itself because "ain't nobody got time for that" in this instant response, instant gratification space that is the internet. But yeah, there's no supposition about it. They saw that I said something factually wrong and they called me on it, and the world hasn't been so sane about that lately. So thank you. I really needed that.

3. If I'm going to keep considering myself a writer of articles, a retraction is in order. So here's a little re-write for you all.

One of the things that tends to ruin a beloved franchise is the creators' eventual "need" to explore (and in due course, explain--often over-explain) previously mysterious aspects of their main character(s), such as retconning plot mechanics or delving into a villain's origins. The outcome is usually disastrous, as in the case of the joint Alien/Predator franchise, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the original six Halloween films, which provided underwhelming prequels, contradictory continuities, pseudoscientific "explainium" reasons for uninteresting minutiae, and contrived and/or convoluted and/or downright insane character origins. Which is how we got Xenomorphs being genetically engineered by a mentally unstable android with too much time on his hands, Predators injecting themselves with the spinal fluid of their prey and hunting an autistic super-genuis, and Michael Meyers being an unstoppable slasher villain because of a corporate, pagan incest cult.

As of the first episode's framing device, the Chucky TV series appears to also be doing this. In flashback, we will be getting glimpses of Charles Lee Ray's formative years as the series progresses, and we have already been told, through young Devon Evans' "HackenSlash" crime podcast, that Hackensack, New Jersey (the setting of the series) is the contrived convenience where Chucky grew up and began his murderous career. Not only that, but Chucky's dialogue seems to be painting him as kind of a morally grey, uninhibited version of Dexter Morgan, that Chucky has some kind of twisted code behind his killing, thus potentially ruining the tried-and-true formula of just having a mindless killing machine who happens to be on a collision course with a stock group of blatantly unlikable, optionally promiscuous idiots in need of a collective bludgeoning with whatever weapon-shaped Darwin Award is close at hand. The randomness and archetypal simplicity of horror movies is what makes them scary, not some ass-backwards psychoanalysis that could be better left to the average YouTube therapist. Young Charles Lee Ray, in this episode's opening flashback, finds an apple with a razor blade in it that was included in his bag of Halloween candy. Which would suck even without that because the rest consists of popcorn balls, ten-cent suckers, and those little fruit-shaped bottles of lemon and lime juice that you can pick up in the produce section of your local grocery store before shelling out a thousand dollars for a military grade shotgun to accidentally remove the top halves of unwitting trick-or-treaters with. "Give Me Something Good to Eat," indeed! But back to the apple with the razor blade (which is not a bug or a worm, and I am blind). Charles curiously runs his finger over the protruding blade, drawing blood from his finger (not smashing the creature, which I just said, is not a creature, and I am a blind idiot). He then hesitates before intentionally biting into the apple, cutting the inside of his mouth and drawing his own blood, which drips down his chin as he smiles a Joker-like smile.

The writers get points here for not blatantly identifying this scene as a piece of temptation of the Forbidden Fruit symbolism, thus allowing content creators like myself to draw that conclusion ourselves. Hate on this parallel all you like, but the fact that young Chucky was curious and hesitant (the perfect mix for temptation), and that they chose an apple of all things? That's literal low-hanging fruit right there. I didn't think this scene was necessary because of the "explainium bad, mystery good" point that I was originally going for, but it apparently ties into a throwaway line of detail from the first Child's Play, and it reassures me that the chaotic Chucky we know and love is still intact. That, also like the Joker, he has had his eyes opened to something twistedly amazing that he wants to share with the rest of the world. The Joker had laughter, and Chucky has the adrenaline rush of blood and pain (though he does his fair share of maniacal laughter, too). Now it makes total sense (on paper) why they went with Mark Hamill for the reboot (which I will never see).

Back to the story: Following Lucas Wheeler's electrocution by Chucky, Jake Wheeler has moved into his uncle, Logan's house. Some of his abusers from the first episode have deigned to show him sympathy in the wake of his tragedy, with one even inviting Jake to the neighborhood Halloween party--on the condition that he brings Chucky with him. Lexy (the requisite bitch-queen of PMS--that's the initials of their school, remember?), on the other hand, continues to wear her proverbial "Please, Murder Me!" sign with gleeful abandon, even after learning that her younger sister has become a huge fan of Chucky.

Speaking of Chucky, he kills the Wheelers' maid by pushing her onto a dishwasher rack full of more improperly stored butcher knives than even the average rich person should have to their name. Despite having an argument in the same room as the body and looking in the direction of the dishwasher multiple times, Jake and Junior (presumably Logan, Jr. because English naming conventions and children) take quite some time to notice the crime scene before calling The One Police Officer In Town Who Responds To All Murders that these things tend to have. Yes, said character has a sidekick and several uniformed extras accompanying her, but none of them is a main character. Props for assigning the trope to a successful woman of color, but a trope is a trope, and conveniently, Devon Evans is her son, so I might be killer at TVSins. I'm not going to ding anything because that's their thing and I don't plan on getting sued, but you all know where the sound effect goes. She later responds to the home of a woman to whom Chucky, pretending to be a trick-or-treating child in a Hello Kitty mask, gave an apple with a razor blade in it. This of course ties to the flashback, and further cements the old Child's Play plot device of drawing suspicion to Chucky's "owner."

But none of these are as interesting from a character or comedy standpoint as Chucky's interactions with Lexy's younger sister, and with Jake.

Chucky attempts to bond with Jake after the maid's death by lying to Jake and presenting himself as a killer with a code who only targets assholes. In itself, this isn't interesting; it's just an evil-doing liar lying about doing evil. What makes this exchange interesting is when Chucky tries to manipulate Jake by being honest. Not only that, it's the piece of information which he chooses to be honest about: that Chucky has a son who is like Jake in a way. Jake, as was established in last week's episode, is gay. Glen/da, as we discovered in the bonkers, uber-meta clusterfuck that was Seed Of Chucky, is (Chucky's words in this episode) "queer..., gender-fluid." Yes, as a comparison, it's a glorious oversimplification of the LGBTQ+ community that I, as a heterosexual cis-man, cannot personally begin to fathom. But it's still nice to get a Glen/da reference out of it, and it once again imparts that much-needed chaos to the "sympathetic character dilution through psychoanalysis" vibe that the series appears to be going for long-term. And Chucky playing a bloody first-person shooter and debating the morality and entertainment value of real-life murder with Lexy's kid sister is surreal and hilarious in a way that the Econ 101 Thanos gag from What If...? failed to capture. I mean, that stilted, child-actor line delivery combined with the morbid but poignant subject matter and everything that is Chucky...it just works in that Slither, "you damned Republicans are the reason I'm this hungry!" kind of way, and I'm grinning and chuckling (pun not intended) to myself right now just thinking about it.

There were definitely some questionable creative decisions at play (more unintended punnery) in this episode that spoke to wasted potential down the line. But in return, Chucky got more screentime to do what he does best: chew scenery and kill people in hilariously gruesome ways. And it doesn't look like we'll be running out of characters or scenery-flavored bubblegum any time soon.

I'm putting off Ticket Stubs again this week because I needed to get this re-write done as soon as possible, but another episode of Chucky airs tonight (new episodes air every Tuesday at 9pm PST, simulcast to your app of choice), so Stay Tuned for that and try not to murder me too hard when I have something to say about it.

Ticketmaster,

out.