In RFMC’s “All Dolled Up” series, I’m taking my first journey through the seven original films, one reboot film and one TV series of the “Child’s Play/Chucky” franchise. Spoilers follow.
Overall impressions
“Chucky” Season 2 (2022, USA/SyFy) does a deep dive into religious horror, likely something creator Don Mancini wanted to do for a while, as he (like his two lead teen characters) is gay and there’s a rich history of LGBTQ-church conflicts to draw from.
While it is theoretically a deep dive – in that Jake (Zackary Arthur, better than in Season 1) and Devon (Björgvin Arnarson) and their friend Lexi (Alyvia Alyn Lind) are sent to a Hogwarts-esque religious school – it’s ultimately a superficial thematic exploration. Plot points and character arcs are cursory. The “Chucky” franchise has always been like this, but it’s becoming more striking, not in a good way.
“Chucky” Season 2 (2022)
USA/SyFy; eight episodes
Creator: Don Mancini
Stars: Zackary Arthur, Björgvin Arnarson, Alyvia Alyn Lind
For instance, because a suicide-bombing Chucky doll kills Jake’s foster brother, the trio is blamed and sent to this school, but we get zero scenes of Lexi’s mom (Barbara Alyn Woods) reacting to this happening. Based on what we know of her, she would use her mayoral power to protect her child, or she would turn on her child and send her away. The latter is apparently what happened, but we desperately need that scene.
Season 2 has a major world-building hole. Knowing the Chucky dolls are alive is still dangerous, as authority figures will not believe you and you’ll be labeled crazy. Yet simultaneously, one Chucky is a talk-show host! I suppose it’s possible that everyone working on the show is under the impression that it’s an animatronic doll, but if so, it desperately needs to be communicated to the viewer how this scheme is pulled off. For example, who is Chucky’s human ally in pulling off this trick?
Altogether, Season 2 is a hole-y season more so than a holy season.
Outsider status
Gay teens in a Catholic school. Weirdly, the writers don’t do much with this. When Father Bryce (Devon Sawa, continuing the saga’s tradition of an actor returning in a new role) finds out Jake and Devon are gay, he’s not happy, but there’s no punishment beyond extra Bible study. They are still allowed to remain roommates, even.
A drug addict. Lexi is addicted to pills.
The just plain weird kid. Bella Higginbotham excellently plays Nadine, the show’s equivalent of Luna Lovegood. She’s in her own world, in a delightful way. Early hints suggest some particularly sinister reason why she has been sent to the school, but it turns out she’s simply a kleptomaniac.
Nadine is a prime example of how the actors don’t have juicy scripts to work with, but Higginbotham maximizes the role. She makes the fairly bland trio into a vibrant quartet, but then she’s killed off in a way that the writers perhaps think follows the Whedonian principle of “give the viewers what they need, not what they want.” But it’s just depressing that we’re back to the trio again.
Comedy quotient
80 percent horror, 20 percent comedy. Season 2 is often unserious, but that’s not the same as funny. A prime example of this tone is “Death on Denial” (episode 4), in which Meg Tilly, Joe Pantoliano and Gina Gershon play “themselves” as Jennifer Tilly’s relatives and friends (although they have been unaware that Tilly has been possessed by Tiffany for two decades). It’s an aggressive episode, riffing on murder-mystery home games, but also the season’s worst, since the joke is obvious and tiring.
Magic and the dolls
As a result of the “switch” variation of the Damballa chant, several Chuckies are out there, each with a unique trait. For example, one (The Colonel) is a torturer, one is a talk-show host and one is a bodybuilder. Unlike with Voldemort’s Horcruxes, we never find out how many exist. The trio really wants to know, even torturing a Chucky doll in “Hail Mary!” (3) to the point where he turns into Good Chucky. The show never answers the question, but it does seem like Chucky Prime is an important doll.
In a revelation that maybe I was supposed to have already known, the Tiffany doll contains the soul of Jennifer Tilly. Lexi’s sister Caroline (Carina London Battrick) is given an off-the-rack version of that doll, Belle, by her therapist (Rosemary Dunsmore), who we later learn (via flashback) is possessed by Chucky.
Glen and Glenda (Lachlan Watson) return to the saga in human form for the first time since they were little kids in “Seed of Chucky,” and after various plot machinations, they re-enter the doll and become G.G. Since Glen and Glenda are both non-binary, their pronouns are “they.” This makes for a cheeky parallel to the fact that they originated in the same doll and return to the same doll.
Again, we have good acting by Watson (better than in “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”) but poor overall characterization of Glen and Glenda; they’ve always been the oddball peaceful offspring of Tiffany and Chucky, yet Glenda commits a murder without showing any remorse.
Special effects
The team has fun making a variety of types of Chuckies and continues to do such good work that the dolls’ facial expressions – when combined with Brad Dourif’s voice work – make for more robust personalities than many of the humans. Good Chucky borders on being outright sympathetic.
Best kill
Riffing on the famous moment in “Scanners,” Bryce explodes from many camera angles in “Goin’ to the Chapel” (7).
Best one-liner
In “Chucky Actually” (8), Chucky recaps his kills this season to the tune of “12 Days of Christmas”: “On the 22nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, one crucifixion, one resurrection, one vivisection, one execution, one nucleation, one defibrillation, one defenestration, one crime of passion …” and so forth. It recaps the season and also reminds us of that crazy kills are the franchise’s core reason for being.
References and meta commentary
School of the Incarnate Lord is Hogwarts-meets-horror. Good Chucky is a riff on all those “Is there still good in the villain?” arcs, such as Anakin Skywalker’s. Caroline has elements of Damien in “Omen IV: The Awakening” in that she looks like an innocent child but perhaps is evil (although in this case there’s no reason why she should be).
Andy is tortured by The Colonel by having his leg muscles peeled off and eaten a la “Hostel.” (A temporary limp is the only issue, luckily.) “Goin’ to the Chapel” is a play on exorcism movies, with direct “Exorcist” references, and the dangerous Chucky Prime is caged and outfitted with a Hannibal Lecter mask.
Continuity and predictions
The mythology is a mess, yet simple enough to follow: There are a ton of Chuckies out there. Killing one is all well and good, but it’s probably a drop in the bucket. The one thing that makes no sense whatsoever, as I mentioned above, is that you’re still an outcast if you believe these dolls are alive, and yet there’s a popular talk show hosted by a Chucky doll.
I will give Season 2 this much credit: I never knew where it was going. And the same will hold true going into the third and final season: I don’t have the slightest idea what will happen. Unfortunately, I can safely predict the plots and character arcs will not have the impact they should.