Life changes abound for pretty much everyone in the penultimate episode of Chucky’s first season. That’s right, I said first as just the other day Chucky was renewed for another season of murder and mayhem. If anyone had told Don Mancini and Brad Dourif in 1988 that 33 years later they’d soon be working on the second season of a Chucky TV series (with seven movies also under their belt), I can’t imagine they would believe that person was in their right mind for a single second.

Previously on Chucky.

As for the series happenings, lots of fun things are set up nicely for the finale so now all Chucky has to do is stick the landing and it’ll have a really solid first season to build off. If they continue with whoever survives of the current cast, though, there’ll be quite the parent shortage as far as main characters go.

After last week’s developments Jake, Devon, and Junior are all orphans now, leaving Lexy as the only one with her family still intact. I’d be kind of surprised if both her parents are among the living when the credits roll on S1. Her awful mom seems particularly destined for a bloody end. Perhaps she’ll finally get it during the rather tone-deaf Frankenstein movie screening she’s busy plugging during the press conference about all the suspicious deaths and murders happening lately. Speaking of multiple murders, the more flashbacks we see of Charles and Tiffany the more I’m amazed they got away with so much killing for so long. They aren’t exactly sly, smart, or subtle about any of their murders. Luck sure is on their side at all times, evidently.

Anyway, Junior being an orphan is obviously his own fault, what with beating his dad to death with a Good Guy doll. He sure didn’t take much pushing from Chucky and Tiffany to cross the line into killing. I mean, it seems like in only a matter of hours he goes from learning Chucky’s alive seeing Tiffany kiss his dad (in a pretty amusing scene) to violent murder. Junior’s patricide seems to be the key to whatever Chucky’s latest goal was, too. I’m sure we’ll find out some details soon, but now there’s a sea of Chucky–will there be many Tiffany’s, also? I wonder–and Devon has a front row seat to whatever’s about to happen.

Speaking of Devon, he’s certainly taking the death of his mother and the upending of his life pretty well. His very fresh relationship with Jake takes a critical blow when he tells Jake that “being around [him] hurts” and his mom’s death is connected to Jake too much for them to continue. He changes his mind about throwing in the towel on taking down Chucky by episode’s end (and I suspect he and Jake might find their way back to each other soon enough), though he probably has some second thoughts about that when he finds himself strapped to a chair and surrounded by a Chucky army.

Jake, like Devon, also decides he’s better off just running away to an unknown future as opposed to being passed around foster care. Good timing on his part, as Junior probably would have tried to kill him the first chance he got. I’ll say this for Jake, he took Devon breaking up with him like a trooper. Many adults don’t handle that kind of situation well at all, so for this 14 year old who’s been steeped in death to respond as reasonably as he does says a lot about him. The fact he seemed fairly torn about stealing cash from his uncle (who won’t need it soon) is another nice little example of how he’s not a bad person at heart–he’s just in a very unfortunate situation and has to make hard choices to stay ahead of the game.

Now, Andy’s probably had to make a lot of tough decisions in his life, too, but I think him ditching Kyle at that gas station was a wrong move. He’s obviously concerned for her safety and figures just leaving her out of it is the best way to ensure her survival, but really it’s just a different form of splitting up. That never ends well in the horror genre. I’m looking forward to him finally meshing with our Chucky: The Next Generation cast for some kind of unified front. Fingers crossed Nica finally gets her body back to herself with the added bonus of being able to walk, for her troubles. I mean, if Chucky can walk while using her body then why can’t she?

Oh, and this review delay was courtesy of a one-two punch of Sling deciding not to work for a couple days immediately followed by Thanksgiving/houseguests/etc. One thing I’m thankful for? Not needing Sling for a while after Chucky’s finale.

7 out of 10 Orphans On A Mission