Lucy Lawless Joins 'Ash Vs. Evil Dead'

Lucy Lawless will fight Bruce Campbell in Ash vs. Evil Dead, as she takes a part in the new Starz series that acts as a sequel to Army of Darkness. Campbell repeats the title role of Ash, the affable and often-abused guy who keeps getting into fights with the reanimated dead. And in the TV series, he'll also have to contend with Lawless, who'll play a woman who thinks that Ash is responsible for the latest plague of deadites.TV Line says Lawless will play Ruby, "a mysterious figure who is myopic in her quest to hunt down the source of the recent Evil outbreaks. The only problem? She believes that Ash is the cause of it all."

That sounds similar to the role to be played by Jill Marie Jones:

[She's] Amanda Fisher, a disgraced Michigan state trooper who, following the grisly murder of her partner, sets out to find Ash and prove his responsibility for the crime. But as she soon learns, Ash and his cohorts may be mankind's only hope against the plague of the evil dead.

Perhaps Ruby and Fisher work together at first, with Fisher eventually learning the truth about Ash? Regardless, they're part of the cast that also includes Ray Santiago as "Pablo Simon Bolivar, an idealistic immigrant who becomes Ash's loyal sidekick—a Sancho Panza to Ash's Don Quixote" and Dana DeLorenzo as "Kelly Maxwell, a moody wild child trying to outrun her past."

Lawless has been part of two series produced by Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert: Xena: Warrior Princess and Spartacus. (She's been part of three, technically, if you count the two different Spartacus runs in which Lawless played a part.) Xena was, of course, the show that made her a star, and so this new collaboration with Tapert and Raimi makes total sense.

Here's the official synopsis for the show. Sam Raimi is directing the first episode when it begins to shoot later this year in New Zealand.

Campbell will be reprising his role as Ash, the stock boy, aging lothario and chainsaw-handed monster hunter who has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead. When a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind, Ash is finally forced to face his demons–personal and literal. Destiny, it turns out, has no plans to release the unlikely hero from its 'Evil' grip.