Warning: This article contains spoilers.
It was well over 30 years ago that we first met Charles Lee Ray in the original Child’s Play, a serial killer known as the “Lakeshore Strangler” who’s gunned down in a toy shop one night. Of course, Charles Lee Ray uses dark voodoo magic to transfer his soul into a Good Guys doll before he takes his final breath, giving birth to the horror icon we know and love as Chucky.
Throughout the course of seven movies in the original Child’s Play franchise, we’ve become well acquainted with the killer doll, but we still don’t know all that much about the early days of Charles Lee Ray. That was until last night’s episode of brand new television series “Chucky,” of course, which made good on creator Don Mancini‘s promise of “exploring Chucky’s character with a depth that is uniquely afforded by the television series format.”
This week’s brand new third episode, titled “I Like To Be Hugged,” delved into the origin story of Charles Lee Ray, which had been teased in the very first episode. Flashbacks throughout the new episode gave us some insight into Charles Lee Ray’s early days as a child, witnessing the brutal and bloody murder of his father at the hands of a serial killer one fateful night.
In response to witnessing the horrific act, a young Charles Lee Ray picks up a knife and murders his own mother in the same fashion, inspired by the killer to become a killer himself. It’s a twisted first kill for the Lakeshore Strangler, to say the very least, revealing an entirely new wrinkle in the story of a character we’ve spent the past 30 years hanging out with.
Mind you, films including Mancini’s Curse of Chucky have touched upon the pre-Chucky days of Charles Lee Ray, but this is first time we’ve gotten any actual insight into the killer’s childhood. And the flashbacks in the episode provide key insight into Chucky’s latest adventure as well, cluing us into precisely why he’s trying to pass the knife, so to speak, to Jake Wheeler.
For those wondering, young Charles Lee Ray is played by actor David Kohlsmith in “Chucky,” who also played young Teddy in The Christmas Chronicles and young Billy in Shazam!
New episodes of “Chucky” premiere Tuesday nights on SYFY and USA.
