Chucky Review: "Dressed to Kill"

Well, it's here! The midseason finale came and went this week, and it was your typical explosive midpoint stopper. You know how in football, a team manages to get that last big touchdown before halftime? Or in hockey, a team scores a clutch goal before intermission? Multiply that by about 100, and you get this episode.

So as we know, the previous episode was a flashback telling us how and (more importantly) why Chucky was in the White House. We got the why first, and it was a big one: Chucky was aging...and dying. Even worse, he couldn't get help from Damballa, who had been at his side for 40 years. 40 years. That's longer than a lot of marriages. Sadly, that's still shorter than some championship droughts in sports (I'm looking at you, Vancouver Canucks). In order to save himself yet again, Chucky had to sacrifice six people inside a house of great evil, and that's where the White House comes in. Chucky placed himself at the funeral of Joseph Collins, and he ended up taken to the Collins' home, which was the highest office in the land.

In the episode's opening scenes, we see Chucky actually talking to Henry Collins, with the killer doll disguised as the Phantom of the Opera for the house's Halloween party that he's planning to crash...and slash. The party had three more guests--in the form of Jake, Lexy, and Devon, who made it their mission to find Chucky, possibly spread the word about him, and take him down for good. As if they didn't have all of the inspiration in the world, they had some extra motivation in the form of the fallen Miss Fairchild, the only other person who knew about Chucky and believed them when it came to him. This was for their teacher and guardian, among many other things.

Elsewhere, Tiffany is making her entrance (as only she can) into death row, where she is introduced to the head guard in charge, Erica Dorsett, who has no designs to make things easy on Tiffany, who is still referred to as Jennifer Tilly. Tiffany does ask to be referred to by her actual name, but that falls on deaf ears, just like it did during her trial. As she waits for her "religious" items, Tiffany meets an idol of hers in the form of celebrity chef Evelyn Elliott, who is in prison for, as Evelyn herself admitted, baking her husband and his mistress (Evelyn's assistant) into a shepherd's pie. Hell's bells!

The encounter featured a few callbacks to Bride; for one, the women watched the classic film, Bride of Frankenstein--the very same film Tiffany watched before Chucky electrocuted her and placed her soul in the Belle doll. Also, Tiffany credited Evelyn for her ability to cook Swedish meatballs, which were referenced and featured in Bride. The women continued to bond, with Evelyn voicing her fandom of "Jennifer," but that ended when Tiffany revealed that she killed Meg Tilly, as Evelyn became disgusted over the fact that "Jennifer" killed her own sister. Evelyn not only denounced her fandom, she also stated that she would cheer Tiffany's upcoming execution. However, Tiffany took Evelyn's discarded cigarette, and after receiving her "religious" items--the Voodoo for Dummies book and voodoo dolls, Tiffany got right to work using her voodoo powers on Evelyn.

All of this was done while Evelyn was conducting a cooking class, and while she was under the spell of the cackling villainess, Evelyn ended up using her own knife on herself, quite a bit, before her face ended up dunked in a pot of boiling water--resulting in a very gruesome demise. Speaking of gruesome, Chucky enacted his own murderous plan during that party. We were led to believe that the knife would used, but in actuality, Chucky's planned weapon was the chandelier, and as we saw, Chucky loosened the screws, and it fell and killed 13 people in that party, including WH correspondent Gretchen, and Henry's nanny Annie Gilpin--the latter played by SNL cast member Sarah Sherman.

As for Tiffany, she had another voodoo target, none other than Erica. With another doll, the same spell, and another malicious cackle, Tiffany turns Erica into her personal bitch, and enlists her to help her escape. Back at the White House, Chucky sacrifices the victims to Damballa; he only needed three more, but decided to overpay big time. It looked like the power was back--we saw the dark clouds, the thunder, all of it, and then he removed the phantom mask, and...well...

OK, I'm dead serious here. You can see it, right? Aging Chucky looks so much like Donald Trump! As I cross my fingers and hope that comparison becomes a big time meme, let me just gush over that midseason finale, and the ending. So despite that massive pay to Damballa, Chucky is still aging, and it's getting worse. The killer doll, the undisputed GOAT of horror slashers, is on his last plastic legs. The promo for the back half of Season 3 shows that Chucky is continuing to age and decay, which has me wondering if this really is the end...friend (just had to get that in there).

A huge part of the promo for Season 3 centered around the surprise celebrity guests, which included SNL's Sarah Sherman and Kenan Thompson, as well as the actress I am centering on, Nia Vardalos. We all know Vardalos from the My Big Fat Greek Wedding films, and I was stunned to see her featured in the promo for Season 3. I didn't pay much attention to her attire in the promo, which led me to think that Vardalos would be playing an agent for "Jennifer Tilly." As we saw in this episode, Vardalos played celebrity chef-turned-maniacal murderess Evelyn Elliott, and she was quite hilarious in her scene with Tiffany. Evelyn was bloodthirsty and insane in her own right, but she was also downright hypocritical. Killing people and baking them in a pie is fine with Evelyn, yet she draws the line at sororicide. My goodness.

The midseason finale, "Dressed to Kill," aired on USA and SyFy on October 25, 2023. As mentioned before, Season 3 is split into two halves, and we have the strike to "thank" for that, with franchise creator Don Mancini confirming this. Regarding the back four, Mancini also revealed that filming was almost done on Five and Six, and they had bits of Seven and Eight filmed as well. They have a day left for Five and Six, and would need a number of weeks for Seven and Eight. The back four will air at some point in 2024. I'm hoping for March or April for the back four, mainly because it would add some excitement for this Chucky fan, watching those episodes while also enjoying the intensity of the Stanley Cup Playoff race.

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Check out my article on Evelyn Elliott on Villainous Beauties Wiki!