Chucky Finally Addresses A Plot Hole With His Serial Killer Name
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Chucky season 1, episode 3.
Ever since his debut in 1988's Child's Play, there's been a largely unspoken issue with Charles Lee Ray's serial killer name, which Chucky has finally addressed. Played by Brad Dourif, the character famously began life in a human form. Having terrorized Chicago for years, racking up an extensive body count, Charles was dubbed the Lakeshore Strangler before he was seemingly killed by Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon). Despite that, and the fact he was able to live on by transferring his soul into a doll, Chucky has actually done very little strangling over the decades or since returning to Hackensack, New Jersey in Chucky.
If such dramas as Dexter, other horror franchises, and various real-life documentaries have taught fans anything, it's that serial killers are rigid about their weapon and pattern of choice. Once an M.O. is settled on, they will very rarely deviate from it. That has proven to be far from the case with Chucky, however. Despite his aforementioned nickname, Charles Lee Ray has assumed a preference for knives or improvising with whatever materials and weaponry are available to hand. Even Chucky's final crime before becoming a doll, as revealed in Curse of Chucky, was a stabbing. Since then, he's only been seen trying to use strangulation on two occasions. Firstly, it was when he sought vengeance on Detective Norris. Secondly, it was toy company CEO, Mr. Sullivan, after Chucky returned in the worst Chucky movie: Child's Play 3.
During Chucky season 1, episode 3, "I Like to Be Hugged," the issue was subtly addressed. As Chucky recounted the story of his first kill to Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur), flashbacks revealed his first victim to have been his mother. Once again, Chucky's weapon of choice had been a knife. Given the prevalence of knives during his formative experience and the fact most killers act in order to relive past twisted thrills, it retroactively made sense why Chucky had mostly adopted knives across his serial killing tenure. Episode 3 also conveyed another reason why he wasn't using strangulation as a method to pick off Chucky 2021's cast of characters (or any of his targets in recent years). "You want hard," Chucky told his doubtful and inquisitive protege while holding up his doll hands, "try choking somebody with these."
Conversely, however, the new information begged the further question of why he'd ever turned away from knives and toward strangulation so prolifically in the first place. Whether or not that will be addressed in future Chucky flashbacks shall remain to be seen. Whatever the case, the likely option was that Chucky grew up as nothing if not an experimenter, simply enjoying the act of killing in itself and no doubt going through phases of different methods. It just so happened that his reign of terror in Chicago and meeting Jennifer Tilly's Tiffany (who has a cameo in Chucky episode 1) coincided with a strangulation phase. As Chucky also said in Chucky season 1, episode 3, "I Like to Be Hugged," he could see the appeal of both methods.
After discussing the matter with Jake, it was also implied that Chucky may be nostalgically longing for his Lakeshore Strangler days. After killing Oliver Hayden (Avery Esteves) with a knife, he reverted to that more hands-on method while attacking Lexy. Unfortunately, his point about it being difficult was emphasized when Lexy was ultimately able to fight him off — forcing him to return to the knife. Whether or not he was able to complete his quest to kill Lexy was left up in the air. Either way, as well as being packed with Chucky and Child's Play references and Easter eggs, episode 3 offered signs that Charles Lee Ray might once again be tired of being a killer doll and craving a human body through which he can more easily experiment with different styles of killing once more.