Full spoilers for the fifth episode of Chucky, “Little Little Lies,” as well as 2017’s Cult of Chucky, ahead. For more, check out our review of last week's episode.
Perfectly timed to the dual release anniversaries of the first two Child’s Play movies, Chucky’s past and present finally collide in “Little Little Lies.” After taking its time building out a new cast of characters, Chucky makes its first big moves towards setting up a generational struggle for survival. “Little Little Lies” may be the first episode to put any real strain on those unfamiliar with the canon, but with a healthy balance of forwarding new storylines and revisiting threads from previous films, Chucky just keeps coming into its own as a can’t-miss treat for horror fans.
Taking the wide view, “Little Little Lies” is an exploration of how we close ourselves off, and how opening up can lead to exciting new possibilities. As Chucky’s nailed throughout the season, Jake (Zackary Arthur) and Chucky’s individual perspectives on this dynamic position the two as excellent foils for each other. For Jake, that process has seen him progressing from an insular, dark loner to a young man with compassion — for others, but more importantly, himself. Not that that stops him, Devon (Bjorgvin Arnarson), and Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) from stomping the burned Chucky doll to bits after it reappears in the Cross house.
Jake’s work in letting his guard down is marked by a very sweet kiss between Jake and Devon, who are ready to take their relationship to the next level now that they think they’ve saved Hackensack from Chucky. It’s played with such earnestness by Arthur and Arnarson and connects because we know what a big moment this is for Jake especially, having been shamed and mocked for his sexuality for a significant part of his life.
A flashback to the 1980s shows us the closest analogue for Jake’s milestone that Chucky has. To get a sense of how Charles Lee Ray navigated his own choice to let someone into his life, we flash back to the 1980s when he meets an ever-so-slightly sadistic new friend named Delilah. In a full-circle piece of casting, Fiona Dourif steps into her father Brad’s shoes as Charles Lee Ray, with Brad dubbing over her performance. Their physical resemblance is uncanny on its own, but aided by judicious camera work and costume choices, Fiona Dourif recreates her father’s physicality to perfection. The illusion starts to break as Charles and Delilah bring another woman back to Charles’ place for… well, not child’s play. The flatter lighting and lack of sunglasses to obscure Fiona’s face draws more attention to Brad Dourif’s dub job, which ends up distracting from this new look at Charles’ early days.
To a lesser degree, that uncanny quality carries over to Charles and Delilah’s new friend, who ends up helping Charles murder Deliliah in the heat of the moment. It’s then that this “new friend,” uh, kills so hard that her voice changes… into that of Jennifer Tilly’s Tiffany. It’s a fitting first date for everyone’s favorite dysfunctional plastic couple, but again, Tilly’s voice is iconic and singular, and having it dubbed over an actress that bears little resemblance to her felt a little silly. But Chucky’s been leaning hard into “a little silly” all season, so the overall effect of these scenes isn’t diminished all that much.
Chucky and Tiffany’s affinity for psychosexual playdates leads to a much stronger scene in the present day. Here, we finally get Tilly back as Tiffany proper, and she hasn’t lost a step. Gleefully deranged as ever, there are few actresses who can chew scenery as hard as Tilly and get away with it, but that being par for the course here is the benefit of Tilly’s longtime commitment to the role. Fiona Dourif again plays Charles Lee Ray, but with some caveats that may send more casual Chucky fans reeling at first, chief among them being that he appears to be a woman now.
No matter what iteration she’s playing, Fiona Dourif’s performance is readable throughout.
As Tiffany leaves the room, Charles is mocking a soon-to-be victim and touches a drop of his blood, which causes Charles’ consciousness to give way to that of Nica Pierce. There’s an impressive, instant shift in Dourif’s demeanor from an excellent facsimile of her father’s swagger to a panicked Nica trying to use her time in the light as best she can. No matter what iteration of Nica/Chucky/Charles she’s playing, Fiona Dourif’s performance is readable throughout and, paired with the quick catch-up on the events of Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky, is a huge reason for the episode’s success in bringing together these two eras of the franchise together. Now that we know Chucky can use pieces of his soul to possess others simultaneously (like Caroline’s new Tommy doll), Jake and his friends may have exponentially more problems to deal with in battling the killer going forward. Side note: there is no acceptable name for a piece of Charles Lee Ray’s soul other than Horchux.
With the kids thinking they’ve beat Chucky (hah), life drifts back towards normal and the teens are faced with more challenges at home. Mayor Cross (Barbara Alyn Lind) continues to build a case for her own untimely demise as she takes the “godawful queen bee” mantle away from Lexy with her impossible selfishness and narcissism. At least her self-aggrandizing town hall backfires in grand, head-rolling fashion. Over at the Wheeler house, Logan (Devon Sawa) continues to turn the screws on Junior (Teo Briones) to resume his athletic career, smoke inhalation recovery be damned. Chucky’s been doing a great job of slowly burying Junior in the same isolation and strife that Jake has been overcoming since the start of the show, and Lexy’s insistence to Jake and Devon that his lack of imagination renders him ineligible to fight against Chucky is making that isolation all the more acute.
We also discover that Bree’s (Lexa Doig) secret she’s been protecting wasn’t an affair, but a terminal cancer diagnosis. Bree’s discussion with her therapist dovetails thematically with what’s going on in the main story, but in an episode so jam-packed with interesting developments for the leads, her realization that she needs to tell her family doesn’t have much weight to it.
