Abraham Lincoln went to see that play. John F. Kenedy drove through Dallas in a convertible. And President James Collins let his young son, Henry, keep his Good Guy Doll, not knowing that the toy is actually everyone’s favorite killer doll. Sure, President Collins might have survived this episode of Chucky… but this is only the premiere, and there’s a whole lot of Season 3 left to go.

But, before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s recap what went down in this first episode, fittingly titled “Murder at 1600.”

We open with a little boy, Henry (Callum Vinson), hiding in the middle of the night, and his mother Charlotte (Lara Jean Chorostecki) comes in to comfort him. We’re clearly meant to think that he’s hiding from Chucky, but as his mom comforts him, we see that he’s actually sleeping right next to a familiar-looking Good Guy Doll, who he calls “Joseph.” As Joseph — who is really Chucky, obviously — smirks, the camera zooms out and we see that all of this is taking place in the White House, right before the power goes out. In an interview with SYFY WIRE, Chucky executive producer Alex Hedlund explained that it was always series creator Don Mancini’s idea to open Season 3 with this fake-out, one that really establishes the White House as a big haunted house setting rather than as a venue for political takes or humor. 

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The Secret Service hustles to get the first family — President Collins (Devon Sawa, returning for his fourth role in three seasons of Chucky), first lady Charlotte, Henry, and their older son Grant (Jackson Reid Kelly) to safety in an underground bunker. Initially, Chucky is missing, but the agent assigned to protect Henry, Teddy, finds the inert doll lying under the bed and brings him down in the elevator too. The power comes back on shortly, though another agent is bitten in the darkness of the elevator. He blames the dog, but Chucky’s got chompers, too…

The next morning, press secretary Melanie Spiegel (Ayesha Mansur Gonsalves) leads a conference where she explains that Collins — the nation’s first Independent president (meaning there will be no specific jabs are Democrats or Republicans this season) — is safe, as is the rest of the family, and the power outage was just an inconvenience. One reporter seems not to be fully buying it, though, and she presses the press secretary about the Collins administration’s commitment to transparency. That becomes a bigger issue later, when she, the president, and the vice president are in the Oval Office discussing the power outage. They were hacked, it turns out, and Collins doesn’t want to bury the news or lie to the American people about it. 

There’s one other, well, not person, but presence in the Oval Office with them. At breakfast, Henry announced that “Joseph” didn’t want to come to school with him, but instead wanted to see what papa president was up to all day. Collins introduces “Joseph” to the vice president and Melanie, explaining that it’s a “weird coincidence” that the doll has that name — as we’ll learn, it was the name of his son who died the previous winter. 

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When nobody is in the room, Chucky moves himself behind the Resolute desk and swipes a very knife-like letter opener. POTUS seems to think that a member of his staff is being funny, rather than assuming that, oh, the doll is alive. 

But, of course, the doll is alive, as Teddy tragically discovers. Inside Henry’s room, the secret service agent bends down as he notices the purloined letter opener tucked into Chucky’s clothes, and the killer doll takes the opportunity to grab Teddy’s gun and blow his brains out, framing it as a suicide. 

James and Charlotte Collins, who are using a big ol’ bong in the Executive Residence (unbeknownst to Grant, who earlier had a conversation with his assigned Secret Service agent about not smoking weed in the White House), later decide to let Henry keep Joseph. He lost his brother and, now, he’s lost Teddy, so if the doll gives him some measure of comfort, that’s good, the president reasons. Henry has the doll at Teddy’s funeral — and the reporter is lurking on the outskirts. A source has informed her that Teddy bought tickets for a cruise with his family just days before his “suicide.” She’s suspicious, but for now, nobody seems to know that there’s a living killer doll in the White House. 

Except, our ostensible protagonists do! Jake (Zackary Arthur), Devon (Björgvin Arnarson), and Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) don’t appear too much in this first episode, but we get a trio of scenes about their social media use. They’re using art, TikTok thirst traps, and podcasting, respectively, to try to figure out where Chucky is and where Lexy’s missing sister Caroline (Carina Battrick) is. Conveniently, these vignettes are also a very brief recap of the previous season, though for a slightly less brief recap, we’ve got you covered here. 

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Near the end of the episode, Jake and Devon seem poised to take their relationship to the next level when Chucky sends them all texts. (Devon’s, hilariously, just says “f**k you, Devon,” while Jake and Lexy’s are more personalized.) He taunts them, saying he’s in a new place that’s “kind of strict about visitors” and hanging up. 

Later, as the trio’s guardian, Miss Fairchild (Annie Briggs), is lovingly chewing them out over their poor test scores, Devon notes that only the Pentagon and the CIA can make a number “not exist,” the way that Chucky’s call was. And, at just that time, they see a news story about the funeral, spying Henry and his familiar doll. Looks like Jake, Devon, and LExy are headed to Washington.

“We’re gonna kill Chucky, guys,” Jake says. “Once and for all… again.”

How are they going to get into the White House to do that? And, for that matter, how did Chucky get into the White House in the first place? Where’s Caroline? Or Nica (Fiona Dourif)? Or Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly)? We’ll have to wait and see. 

New episodes of Chucky Season 3 air on SYFY and USA Network at 9 p.m. ET/PT, streaming the next day on Peacock, followed by new episodes of SurrealEstate at 10 p.m. ET/PT on SYFY.