The Chucky show revisited one of horror’s most controversial sequels

Season one of ChuckyThe original concept was a stand-alone. The original concept and design of the killer doll voiced Brad Dourif are still valid, but the role is now in a different setting. Jake, a bullied gay middle schooler, finds the doll in a garage sale and chaos follows. It feels like a soft reboot of sorts, carefully weaving in characters and other plot points from the prior seven films around the edges of Jake’s story.

Having laid the groundwork, however, the show’s recently concluded second season takes a much more direct approach to the franchise’s own history, choosing to address three decades of continuity and contrasting tones head-on. And it coalesces into one of 2022’s most fascinating TV shows — a whirlwind meta horror-comedy that unpacks the franchise’s history while exploring our relationships to our parents with surprising maturity and nuance.

Still overseen by creator, writer, and sometimes-director Don Mancini, the series has proven shockingly malleable, constantly evolving to meet new cultural moments as its birth in the ’80s slasher boom gave way to something more self-aware and comedic. Its current form as a TV show is as emblematic of the era as any of the prior films, and the most shocking development of the second season is how Mancini and his collaborators tackle some of the franchise’s most contentious installments. While it might not always be successful, it’s still fascinating.

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In the aftermath of the first season, the series transplants its surviving teen trio of Jake, Devon (Björgvin Arnarson), and Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) to a Catholic boarding school. Under the eye of strict nuns and a self-important headmaster, they find themselves locked down in an unfamiliar environment, much like in 1991’s Child’s Play 3. That film jumps forward in time, recasting Chucky’s child nemesis Andy Barclay as a troubled teen who’s gone from the care of his single mother to various foster families to, finally, the military academy that serves as the movie’s main setting.

Child’s Play 3This is an old film that’s a bit boring. It’s most notable because of how disturbing the pre-Columbine gun violence in schools today. For a more modern film, 1998’s follow-up was released. The Bride of ChuckyThe self-aware to be seen The ScreamChucky turns to comedy and finds humor in his old flame Tiffany Valentine (Jennifer Tilly), who is using the book.Voodoo and Dummies. Abandoning the Andy Barclay character and cranking up the absurdity, the film concludes with Tiffany giving abrupt doll-birth, the result of a fast-forward “voodoo” pregnancy that followed her and Chucky’s earlier confirmation that they were both anatomically correct and, uh, functional.

This film will follow the doll-child. Get Seed of ChuckyThe most controversial franchise, ‘The Simpsons’ has remained a long-standing favorite. In the early 2000s, during paparazzi’s glory days. South Park, the film marks Mancini’s directorial debut and is far more of a gross-out Hollywood meta comedy than a conventional horror film. Separately treated as a boy, Glen, by Chucky and as a girl, Glenda, by Tiffany, the child’s gender dysphoria manifests as distinct personalities. Glen’s timidity and calmness are contrasted by Glen’s impulsive nature. Glenda is a cross-dressing victim, but Glenda has a far more sympathetic portrayal than the other horror movies. It is difficult to describe the film’s solution to this problem. In what’s far and away the franchise’s most audacious meta casting gag, the Tiffany character played by Jennifer Tilly possesses the body of an actress she idolizes: Jennifer Tilly. Redheaded twins are born to her, who each house both the Glen personality as well as the Glenda personality.

Until Chucky’s second season, the franchise’s reaction to the mainstream rejection of Get Seed of ChuckyIt has been best to let the movie play in the background. The direct-toDVD sequels of 2013 and 2017. Curse for ChuckyAnd Chucky’s Cult are essentially soft reboots before the TV series’ own soft reboot, taking a back-to-basics approach that finds a Chucky doll menacing a new character, Nica Pierce (Fiona Dourif), who he eventually possesses. Tilly has a small role in the latter film, again going by “Tiffany Valentine.” Nica notes Tiffany bears a striking resemblance to Jennifer Tilly; it’s simultaneously a wink to Get Seed of Chucky fans and a largely extraneous, ignorable detail for those who either haven’t seen the film or dislike its broad tonal departure. There’s not a peep about Glen or Glenda until the first season of Chucky, when the killer doll tells Jake that he has a gender-fluid child he accepts because he’s “not a monster.”

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However, in its resolve to reconcile all aspects of the franchise ChuckyNo longer are you a relegate Get Seed of Chuckyfor a great background reference. The second season focuses on Tiffany’s life and how it has influenced Jennifer Tilly. What happens to her money? Who responds to her mail? Is it suspicious that the police are investigating? These questions (and more) that nobody was asking are belatedly and hilariously answered, culminating in an absolutely deranged fourth episode entirely dedicated to a murder mystery within Tilly’s mansion, where the people who knew Tilly before her possession stage an intervention. Meg Tilly is with her sister and friend Sutton Stracke. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. So, too, are beloved actors Joe Pantoliano and Gina Gershon, who co-starred with Jennifer Tilly in the Wachowskis’ masterful pre-MatrixCrime thriller Bound.

The murder mystery episode seems almost separate from the rest of the series, with no cuts to the Catholic school plot that operates as the season’s main story. Chucky himself doesn’t appear at all, except in jokey bookend segments as the host, and the episode visits fictional deaths upon several nonfictional people, of the kind not seen since Get Seed of ChuckyBritney and Redman, both of whom played themselves, lost their lives. It also reintroduced Glen and Glenda, who were both played by Lachlan. And in what’s as much a testament to Watson’s performance as the series’s absurd ambitions, Glen and Glenda become pivotal characters for the rest of the series and its themes.

The increased visibility of queer narratives has been core to the Child’s Play franchise’s evolution. This metaphorically is illustrated in Chucky’s possession of Nica who he uses to rekindle his friendship with Tiffany. We see it in the very first episode of the TV series, too, in the artsy Jake’s difficult relationship with his father, a struggling mechanic (Devon Sawa, wearing a large goatee) reluctant to accept his son’s sexuality as anything but a phase. Mancini is allowed to revisit the ending with Glen and Glenda’s return.Get Seed of Chucky.

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In a 2019 essay for Little White Lies, Sam Bodrojan writes, “Mancini offers the kind of touching summation countless ostensibly serious films about gender have failed to articulate. What vices and values we develop are distinct from but must also be viewed in context of our parents; their relationship with our queerness may never fully match up.” This is perhaps best seen through Chucky’s exploration of Glen and Glenda, and their mother’s decision to keep them in the dark about their true origins. They’ve never met their father and are unaware he is a killer doll. They don’t know that they themselves were once a single doll, and they have no idea the woman who raised them is a separate person who has possessed the body of Jennifer Tilly. To the world and themselves, they’re the Tilly twins. But the Tilly twins suffer from nightmares and an inescapable sense that something is missing – the fallout of a parental decision that dovetails with the broader failures of adults throughout the series.

While Jake’s father seems more agreeable when sober, his intolerance escalates to verbal and physical abuse when drunk. In the second season, Jake remarks that maybe they could have worked it out someday, but the opportunity will never come: Chucky kills Jake’s dad in the show’s first episode, hoping to goad Jake into murdering the children who ridicule him all by himself. For Vulture, Louis Peitzman observes, “The show is both literally and subtextually about coming out, with Jake working hard to suppress his inner urges. The series links Jake exploring his sexual identity with Jake exploring his killer instincts, but in a 2021 twist, it depicts both without any of the shame that traditionally colors metaphors like this.”

Though none of the other adults are so openly hostile as Jake’s father, they’re hardly much better. Jake lives with Devon Sawa (without goatee), his uncle, who insists on Teo Briones running track to get into an Ivy League college. Jake’s friend Lexy is frequently at odds with her own mother (Barbara Alyn Woods), the town’s narcissistic ex-mayor. There are good parents, but they end up dispatched alongside the bad ones, as a part of Chucky’s ultimate goal to be the only influential authority in the kids’ lives. The ability to speak up and take action is essential for any positive adult. While there will be some problems, Chucky, or Devon Sawa (a third-time, in large glasses), are more successful in helping the children achieve their goals.

Even if there are too many characters and ideas in the second season, they will still be entertaining. Chucky It is unlike anything else. This show offers both incisive criticisms of the franchise itself and trenchant commentary on queerness within our current age. It takes an impressively consistent view at how children grow up, but it’s also a great time.

Season one of Chucky Peacock has the season available for you to see. Digital purchase and rental of the second season are available on Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or Google Play.