Picking up right where “El Jefe” left off, Ash stands proudly over his decapitated neighbor’s head while Kelly pleads with him to come to her father’s aid.  He’s got better things to do, namely finding a resolution to the evil he’s unleased, and refuses.  As he readies his airstream, she leaves on her bike and Pablo tells Ash that she took the Necronomicon with her.  Ash hitches the trailer to his Delta 88, and Pablo promises to take him to Kelly’s family home so the book can be retrieved.

Pablo proves an excellent sidekick to Ash, swooning over his co-worker’s evil fighting expertise while asking for fighting tips.  He’s given the perfect learning opportunity, when their Value Mart boss turned deadite pops up in the backseat. Pablo and Ash tag team, while trying not to crash the vehicle, resulting in Ash simultaneously delivering a witty quip and final blow.  Both are sprayed with copious amounts of blood.

Agent Fisher arrives at the now empty lot where Ash resided and questions the neighbors.  While they remark what an asshole he was, she notes the business card of the rare bookseller on the ground and knows she’s on the right trail.

As Ash and Pablo pull into Kelly’s driveway, Ash gives Pablo a broken bottle as a weapon and warns him to let the “Boomstick do the talking.”  They bust through the front door to find a quaint family reunion; Kelly’s mom (Mimi Rogers) is alive and well.  She insists she’d never died at all but has just been under the spell of amnesia the past six months. Sounds too good to be true right?  Ash isn’t buying it either. Kelly’s mom remains unflappable in Leave it to Beaver style politeness and invites the bloodied crashers to dinner.

Retreating to the trailer to clean up, Pablo makes a confession. He took the book so as to manipulate Ash into helping Kelly. He’s pissed, but far more concerned about the deadite preparing dinner in the kitchen.  Pablo is insistent that the family is fine; if she really were a deadite than the family should be dead by now. Ash bluntly explains that Kelly is just small fish meant to bait the whale; Ash.  Of course, having 30 years of evil butt kicking under his belt, Ash comes to dinner prepared with his boomstick and chainsaw.

After giving Kelly’s mom the third degree, Ash still isn’t satisfied and throws the first punch.  Just when he was beginning to second guess himself, the mom rises as a deadite and impales Kelly’s dad through the eye with a fork. In the chaos, Kelly retreats to her bedroom.  Mom is there waiting for her, human again and singing a lullaby. Kelly believes her, too, until Ash breaks through the door to teach the young’uns how naïve they’re being. Kelly and Pablo once again look on as Ash removes the head from another deadite.

Standing over the freshly dug graves of Kelly’s parents, marked with Ash’s trademark DIY tree branch crosses, Kelly and Pablo vow to help Ash kick some deadite ass on his quest to hit the undo button.

Ultimately, “Bait” doesn’t propel the story forward much.  We get some nice bonding between the trio, and it solidifies their purpose.  Agent Fisher, still on leave pending investigation, grows closer to intersecting with Ash and his sidekicks though she’s still just as much in the dark as before.  It doesn’t help that Lucy Lawless is absent throughout the episode.  Ash’s humor and expertise are still very much a highlight, though with episode climaxing in nearly identical fashion as “El Jefe,” I can’t help but feel this ep doesn’t pack as much of a punch as the premier.   “Bait” does tone down the cheesy CG effects and make great use of practical blood effects, though, improving upon the previous episode’s effects in spades.