The Chucky TV series just brought the Child’s Play franchise full circle in its season 1 finale by revealing the truth behind the original movie’s very first scenes. This fall has seen Brad Dourif’s killer doll return to our screens for the first time since 2017’s Curse of Chucky, with the eight-part run not only picking up the threads from that movie but also introducing some new characters and even revealing Chucky’s childhood, too. And this week’s 90-minute conclusion reached back to 1988’s Child’s Play to solve a 30-year-old mystery.
As horror fans will know, the franchise-starter kicks off with Charles Lee Ray AKA the Lakeshore Strangler on the run from the cops, with the serial killer eventually cornered in a toy factory, which leads him to use a voodoo ritual to transfer his soul into a certain Good Guy doll to escape. As the film starts in media res, we never actually found out how he got discovered by the authorities in the first place. But now we do. And the truth comes as a big betrayal.
As a fight breaks out between Chucky and Tiffany, Jennifer Tilly’s character finally reveals a secret she’s been holding onto for decades. “Did you ever wonder how those cops found you that night in Chicago?” she asks him. A flashback to the ’80s then shows the younger Tiffany asking Chucky why they never kill anyone together anymore, which he ignores and leaves. When he’s gone, Tiffany calls the police and asks for Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon’s character in CP).
In effect, then, it turns out that Tiffany is responsible for the entire franchise, as her snitching on her murderous lover kickstarted the chain of events that led to Chucky transforming into a doll and her own eventual death and resurrection. It’s a surprising twist but also very much in keeping with the couple’s love-hate relationship.
The good news is we’ll find out where Chucky and Tiffany go from here when Chucky returns to Syfy and USA Network for its second season in 2022, as per the recent renewal announcement.
