“The Killer of Killers” is a return to better, though not perfect, form for the show after several weeks of frustrating sidelining of its female characters and a couple of episodes that were disappointingly light on the stylishly (and hilariously) gory action scenes that are the most recognizable characteristic of this franchise. This episode brings back the action (with interest!) and, while it’s not a great episode for the show’s ladies, they’ve definitely got a little more to do than they had last week or the week before. Unfortunately, any gains the women made this week were offset by the unpleasantness of Ash’s misogynistic behavior being played for laughs.

The show opens with Ruby and Amanda arriving, again, at a place that Ash and company have just left. The poke around separately in one of the few legitimately creepy sequences of the season so far, and then the Brujo’s charred corpse comes out of his funeral pyre, accuses Ruby of some kind of betrayal, and then drags her into the flames. Amanda, doing the smart thing for once, gets in the car and drives off after Ash, but not before we’re shown that Ash’s severed hand is, ominously, missing.

Meanwhile, Ash, Pablo, and Kelly have stopped for breakfast at a sort of greasy spoon kind of place. I’m not sure why they don’t just dine and dash, but instead we’re treated to a too-long bit of Ash disgustingly sexually harassing their waitress. It’s probably the most unfunny this series has been so far, and that the waitress is one of the unfortunate victims when all hell shortly breaks loose only adds insult to injury—made still worse again when Ash quickly moves on to harassing Amanda as soon as she arrives on the scene. The action the follows helps to gloss over some of this nonsense—mostly with enormous gouts of fake blood—but it’s kind of a mess nonetheless.

Still, “The Killer of Killers” turns out to be a solid episode if you don’t think too hard about it. It’s highly entertaining, and it benefits greatly from the show’s short running time. Ash might be abrasive and his antics might be stupid and/or offensive, but he consistently provides enough laughs that he doesn’t overstay his welcome. And while the show is still not doing the best job of utilizing its secondary characters, this week was an improvement over last week, and uniting Amanda with the rest of the group feels like an importance piece falling into place.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

• I’m so glad the goat didn’t die.
• I was honestly shocked that they killed a kid, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It wasn’t too much enough for me to not watch the show any longer, but still.
• It was great to see Kelly finally get in on the action without being possessed or needing to be rescued.
• One of these days, Amanda will learn that you have to shoot deadites in the head, but it wasn’t today.
• “When you were possessed, you tried to fuck me and kill me,” is my favorite line of dialogue in this show, ever. I hate the “friendzone” narrative that Pablo and Kelly seem to be getting forced into, but I love this frank conversation opener.