*This Review Contains Full Spoilers*

After desperately struggling last week to create some positive momentum for the story and bring together its jumbled lore, Chucky starts to hit its stride again in introducing protagonist legacy characters and having better moments with its characters, but still stumbles in big ways.

Although Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) and Nica’s (Fiona Dourif) reintroductions didn’t have the epic flair it deserved, this week’s episode does the return of two iconic franchise protagonists justice right in its opening. Since that weird phone call in the premiere, the return of Alex Vincent as Andy Barclay has been highly anticipated and its even better that Christine Elise returns as Andy’s foster sibling Kyle as well. Finally, that post-credit scene from Cult of Chucky has some pay-off and this opening of Andy and Kyle posing as Cenus workers is just perfect. The build up to them looking for the melty fingered Chucky doll from Cult is perfect and the way they dispatch it by shooting the hell out of it was just *chef’s kiss*. Now that’s how you make an impression, and their return is definitely the big highlight of the episode even though it’s sadly minimal.

The reunion of Andy and Kyle is certainly worth it just to see the great foster sibling chemistry they have spark again and Vincent’s darker portrayal of an adult Andy makes his return have darker meaning and showcase the impact Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) still has on him. There’s this deep-seeded trauma within him that can be felt throughout him talking to Kyle and eventually Jake (Zackary Arthur) and it’s going to be interesting to see that boil over when he sees Tiffany and Nica possessed by Charles. Their return is unfortunately super short though and we don’t even get much more of Nica and Tiffany. We basically catch up where we left off with them as Tiffany and Charles’ relationship continues to be chaotic and Nica is able to slip into control again.

The whole sequence of Nica bluffing Tiffany is pretty enjoyable and the turn of Nica not noticing Tiffany stabbed her leg was great. Also, I like how Tiffany has now taken a liking to Nica since Charles has been quite a dick to her lately, but the return of legacy characters has been disappointing. At this point, they’re just glorified cameos and all the retconning and dredging through the past makes the overarching story a total headache. The flashbacks to older movies are basically just narrative padding and we get another look into Charles and Tiffany’s relationship of them getting a car that serves basically no purpose at all. Also, now Tiffany, who we’re reminded is technically Jennifer Tilly because of Seed of Chucky, is looking to buy Charles’ old house for some reason and it just seems like a forced retread into the past.

It’s honestly unfortunate that we don’t get more impactful moments of returning legacy characters since everything with the new characters is painfully boring. It really doesn’t matter how much they try to make Bree’s (Lexa Doig) cancer storyline this emotional arch because it’s just bland filler. It’s nice that this series tries to have serious character moments, but they often feel shoved in for some emotion that doesn’t hit. Bree’s whole cancer situation really feels that way as it just reenters the story to seem impactful only for her to end up getting killed by Chucky making it entirely pointless. The same can be said about everything happening with Devon’s (Bjorgvin Arnarson) mom Detective Evans (Rachelle Casseus). All she does is falsely accuse Jake and Devon’s science teacher, show that she accepts Jake and Devon’s romance, and then randomly show up in the final moments to get killed by Chucky.

Personally, I’m tired of Chucky killing pretty much irrelevant characters that are clearly just easy bait for him to continue his secret reign of terror. The formula at this point has been to make a parental character seem slightly important enough and then kill them once they’ve been basically used up. By that logic, it’s likely that Logan (Devon Sawa) and Lexy’s (Alyvia Alyn Lind) parents aren’t long for this world, and it simply feels like the stakes are way too low. Again, I can appreciate this series having meaningful character moments like Jake and Devon having more touching romantic chemistry that’s elevated through Arthur and Arnarson’s performances, but this series really doesn’t have the killer instinct it should. It’s honestly become boring and the only interesting thing its eluding to other than its legacy characters colliding is that Junior (Teo Briones) could be being pushed to his mental limit making him the perfect Chucky accomplice.

Chucky’s latest episode fixes some of the wrongs from the previous episode but does nothing to make it have real stakes and the waiting game for its legacy characters to become a relevant part of the story is becoming less and less worthwhile.

Watch the Trailer Here: