Chucky is getting old. The premise, which drives the third season of Chucky, series starring the killer doll, is as literal as it is metalinguistic. Yes, the character is aging within the plot, however unlikely it may seem – in the universe of flexible mystical rules created by Don ManciniChucky loses the protection of the voodoo deity Damballa because of his Reluctant flirtation with Catholic rituals in second year of the series, which means his eternally young plastic body begins to deteriorate rapidly. But Mancini also knows that Chucky is aging as a cultural artifact, and that (36 years, seven films and three TV seasons later) the franchise is reaching that critical stage of saturation.
It’s a curious dilemma for an author like Mancini, who tends to thrive when positioned right on the edge of the mainstream, talking to a converted audience, who are delighted with the way he uses somewhat dated genre codes to construct a subversive text, full of empowering ideas tucked between the lines of the characters’ perversity. Who is Chucky then if Chucky Is it just part of another Hollywood “never-ending franchise”? The third season of the series seems to constantly struggle with this question, and comes close to slipping into the familiar and tiresome hypocrisy of the other “never-ending stories” in American pop culture, flirting provocatively with the prospect of outcomes that it knows very well it is incapable of. to hug.
But Chucky It’s smarter than that, of course. In previous seasons of the series, Mancini and his creative team demonstrated that they understood that the eternal reincarnation of the serial killer doll is one of its narrative strengths, and not one of its weaknesses. A franchise slasher You need to keep your killer alive in the end, obviously, but there are few horror stories about maniacs. who understand the thematic potential of this perennial quality of their villains. In Chuckythe whole point of the story is in the repeated trauma that the doll inflicts on its victims, in the way they end up needing to organize their lives and their communities around a common enemy, and in this desire for survival they end up finding acceptance and affection of those willing to fight alongside you.
Here in the third year, while playing with the possibility of permanently cutting off his tormentor’s immortality, Mancini is also playing with his audience’s opposing instincts: that of wanting the heroes to triumph in the end, even due to the affection that has been built for them over three television seasons; and wanting the story not to end, even though we know that the parade of trauma and carnage must continue to do so. Holding on to the compulsive suspense caused by this emotional conflict, the third season of Chucky takes the opportunity to make his sadistic immortal killer a perfect avatar for the spirit of American institutions. After all, this time Chucky is in the White House.
The doll infiltrates the headquarters of the US Executive as part of his plan to circumvent mortality, but that doesn’t matter beyond the clever joke about the White House being “the most evil building in the world”. The idea here, in fact, is to make the vicious cycle of the franchise’s narrative (Chucky infiltrates a location, causes a bloodbath, destroying one or multiple families in the process, is eventually defeated, but survives in some other form to start everything off again). new) a commentary on the vicious cycle of political life in the USA, whether due to the unbridled war impulse that runs through the country’s history or the almost timed pendulum of American democracy, perpetually oscillating between conservatism and liberalism – markedly violent movements, albeit in different ways .
Hence the fact that the third season is more charitable towards its paternal and maternal figures than the previous ones. Chucky It needs its villain to place himself as an obstacle in a reasonably functional (although appropriately neurotic) family so that the political parallel resonates better. Fortunately, Devon Sawa It is Lara Jean Chorostecki are surprisingly engaging as President James Collins and his first lady, Charlotte – if in the caricatures of adult misfits they played in past episodes they were just distractions to the fun of the series, here they become the heart of the plot, a dynamic couple convincingly distorted by grief and parental responsibility, but whose complicity and affection are never questioned.
That they have the opportunity to be all of this is a testament to the series’ shift in focus: before, Chucky it aimed at the hell manufactured in the world by people; now, she takes aim at the system that tries to coerce them into creating these hells. It is a chain of cause and effect that is strong precisely because it feeds back on itself, because – no matter how many times we try to kill it – this infectious evil is woven into our own social organization. Chucky has always been, is and will be there, lurking, a weed whose roots are too buried to be extirpated once and for all. Ever ingenious, Mancini chooses to manifest this evil both in the undisturbed plastic of the classic killer toy and in the wrinkled scowl of Brad Dourifwho reappears in the flesh (and dramatic excellence) when Chucky ends up in the spirit realm.
And who are we in this game? Well, we are Fiona Dourifwhose Nica at one point in the season is forced to crawl across the floor to chase Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) as she tries to escape from prison. Like her, we are all on our last legs, suffering, livid, trying to lend dignity and tenderness to an unworthy and difficult situation. And we do everything with gusto, with a nose for drama, desperately looking for someone to match our energy on stage. We act, in short, as if we were loving every second – you’ll really know why, but perhaps a little in defiance of those who would really like us not to love anything at all.
Chucky
Ongoing (2021- )
Chucky
Ongoing (2021- )
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