Chucky wraps up its debut season like the last couple movies have ended, with more of a stopping point than a climax of the story. I don’t want to say I was underwhelmed, but I think that’s a fairly accurate description. I know they can’t exactly kill Chucky once and for all, as then it’d be pretty difficult to keep making more, but I think Mancini & company should spice things up next season and somehow break this cycle of non-endings.

Previously on Chucky.

Last time I said Chucky just needed to stick the landing, but unfortunately I think that mark was missed. There was just something about the integration of film characters (Andy, Kyle, Tiffany, & Nica) that never quite gelled for me. They simply showed up at a certain point and kind of spent most of their time spinning wheels on a separate track. Aside from the opening sequence with Junior, Andy barely even shared a scene with any of our main cast. There was a brief exchange with Devon before the house blew up, but that was largely it. As for Nica, once she showed up in the second half of the season she had *nothing* to do aside from be confused, get restrained/drugged, and suffer some kind of torture. That’s it. Tiffany removing all her limbs has me wondering how much more abject misery Mancini has in store for her and why he wants her to suffer such extended torment.

Jennifer Tilly was easily the highlight of this whole finale. She has an entertainingly unhinged energy that gives life to whatever scene she’s in and whenever she got to interact with non-Chucky characters there was always an extra spark. By comparison, as much as I want to be invested in Andy, he’s kind of an empty void. The character seemingly has no purpose or personality aside from “Kill Chucky,” and I don’t think that’s enough. Maybe next season they’ll fold in some kind of layers–it certainly couldn’t hurt. 

As for the movie theater massacre, it was mildly interesting, but since when is getting stabbed in the butt an insta-kill? So, Lexy’s dad got stabbed in the ass and immediately died, without so much as a scream or even attempting to get up? Huh? Others at least shouted out as they died immediately from a stab to the ass. Anyway, Lexy’s part of the dead parent club now, too, except she still has her horrible mother around. Also, that Lexy/Junior backstage reunion felt both hollow and endless. Cutting back to them just standing around talking, a couple times, had a stagnant feeling and the fact that I couldn’t care less about Junior kneecapped the drama of things quite a bit.

Jake gets to reunite with Devon and express his emotional baggage to a Chucky, at least, before squeezing the doll so hard it’s eyes amusingly pop out. The whole question of where these two orphans wind up living will be something for next season to figure out, but I suspect they’ll be sticking around Hackensack. Maybe Lexy will insist her mother take them in and she accepts as it would play well for her political career. Whatever they go with, I hope the young cast and the movie cast get to actually overlap more while also keeping Jake as the center. The farther the series got from Jake, the less successful it was overall.

The flashbacks for the season also didn’t really add much, if you ask me. The only one that had any real relevance to the main narrative was the revelation that Tiffany called the cops on Chucky, but they’ve had quite a contentious relationship (to put it mildly) since we met her in Bride of Chucky so it’s not as if that was an out-of-nowhere development.

There were just too many dumb decisions by everyone and, despite having eight episodes to work with instead of 90 minutes, this last episode somehow felt like a rushed & underwhelming third act of a movie that just seemed to trail off as opposed to complete anything. Chucky’s little fireside chat was amusing, but pointing out how incomplete things felt didn’t suddenly make everything great.

I don’t mean to sound like I hated it, or anything. A lot of it was fun and I definitely laughed at a few things. I was just kind of disappointed with some of the season’s second half and this finale left me underwhelmed. I’ll still be watching when S2 rolls around. Hopefully there’s more of a cohesive story next time that actually has a semblance of an ending.

6 out of 10 Killer Butt Stabs