Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Chucky: Season 3’ on Syfy and Peacock, in Which the Nasty Murderdoll Infiltrates the White House

Chucky is the toy story that won’t die. The spinoff series based on the cult-horror franchise returns for its third season (streaming on Peacock, airing on Syfy and USA Network) of typically nutty, gory camp-comedy. But this new narrative arc also delivers a little political satire as our beloved slaughterous doll – voiced by Brad Dourif, as ever – finds his way into a position of power in Washington, D.C., and no, he doesn’t become the new Speaker of the House, but that would be pretty damn funny, wouldn’t it? As it stands, though, showrunner and OG Chucky creator Don Mancini keeps the silliness rolling for the season three opener (note: half the season airs this fall, with the rest debuting in 2024) thanks to a rather amusing new narrative arc.

CHUCKY: SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A little boy bolts awake in his bed.

The Gist: That little boy is Henry (Callum Vinson). He bolts to his closet and hides until his mom Charlotte (Lara Jean Chorostecki) checks on him. “He whispered to me in the dark and said we’re all going to die,” poor scared little Henry says. It seems they just moved into this “big, old house” and they’re not settled in yet, and Henry worries it’s populated with ghosts. But at least Henry has Joseph to protect him. Who’s Joseph?, you may ask. Well, he’s a doll, about yea-high, red hair, overalls, creepy maniacal eyes… right. You Know Who. Tormenting children again. The camera zooms out the window and backs up until we can see the big old house and it’s THE White House. You may jump down to “most pilot-y line” now, but please come back, because there’s other stuff to read up here, thanks.

Lucky for us, Chucky isn’t President yet, but [INSERT POLITICALLY PARTISAN JOKE HERE]. Soon after it’s established that the First Family officially includes a homicidal talking doll, we meet President James Collins (Devon Sawa, now taking on his fifth different role in the series), a member of no political party who got elected anyway, proof that this is absolutely a ridiculous fictional TV series and not a documentary about toys that come to life and murder people. Henry has a teen brother Grant (Jackson Kelly) who smokes weed in his room and criticizes his dad for mercilessly touting his transparency: “You sold off our privacy to win an election,” the kid snipes. Before heading to school, Henry insists that “Joseph” wants to hang out with the Prez in the Oval Office, so there he sits, watching the most powerful man in the world use a letter opener that would be a perfect-sized dagger for a toddler-sized doll, should said toddler-sized doll want or need to stab someone. Or open a letter!

This sets up a hilarious scene in which the Prez goes to meetings and whatever for a bit, then returns to the Oval Office to find “Joseph” in his desk chair. Ha ha, very funny, but when he asks his Secret Service agent and administrative assistant and all his handlers who did it, nobody fesses up. This is what you call “situational irony,” because WE know Chucky is a doll possessed by the soul of a long-dead serial killer, which pretty much automatically makes him a Republican RIMSHOT.

At this point, we catch up with the core characters from previous seasons: Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) makes TikTok thirst-trap videos disguised as pleas to help find her missing sister, while totes-adorbs teen couple Jake (Zackary Arthur) and Devon (Bjorgvin Arnarson) post videos about Chucky that we’d dismiss as dumbass conspiracy theories if they weren’t TOTALLY TRUE. Of course, Chucky soon wreaks havoc at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in typically splatterific fashion, and when the aftermath is on the TV news, our core hero trio spots Chucky in Henry’s arms. Oh shit. The leader of the free world is clueless that there’s a murder in his midst. We got ourselves one hell of a season of television here, people!

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Chucky joins Ash vs Evil Dead in the pantheon of TV shows based on horror-movie series that are actually pretty good – which probably can’t be said about Scream or The Purge.

Our Take: An orange-haired lunatic with small hands in the White House? Terrifying! I’ll make the obvious jokes since Chucky, after one episode at least, tends to avoid them, probably wisely. But there’s SUBTEXT here if you want to find it, at least a little bit, anyway, although socio-political commentary isn’t at all the emphasis, at least not yet. This is just Mancini innovating within the boundaries of OTT horror-comedy ridiculousness, setting the stage for a season that hopefully will find Chucky exhibiting a little more ambition beyond coating the hallowed White House halls with blood. Will he attempt to assassinate the president? Will he find the nuclear codes? Will he hack the president’s Twitter account? The mind boggles.

As for Chucky’s first kill of the season, it’s a doozy, a big, nasty, awful, incredibly bloody snort-and-laugh-then-gag moment that nevertheless sends ripples through the First Family. Funny, how this series finds a way to balance the extremity of dark comedy with a palpable sense of loss – the latter occurring in part because it affects poor little Henry the most, and will only make him lean heavier into Chucky for emotional support. This is one diabolically twisted doll, and we’re here for all his high-hilarity nastiness.

Sex and Skin: None in the season three debut.

Parting Shot: The camera spins all the way upside down as Lexy, Jake and Devon make a vow: “We’re gonna kill Chucky, guys, once and for all.” (We’d like to see them try!)

Sleeper Star: Dourif is always the secret sauce that makes Chucky/Child’s Play enjoyable, but we don’t hear much of him in the season debut. I do like Sawa as the guy who goes on and on about being the most transparent president in history, although he doesn’t foreclose that he and his wife let off a little steam by hitting the bong in the Lincoln bedroom.

Most Pilot-y Line: “The White House. Chucky. In the White House.”

Our Call: The biggest surprise here? How entertaining this dumbass franchise is in 2023. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.