Recap: Chucky Episode 3 heats things up in Hackensack as Chucky takes control

Last week, we saw Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur) make a choice: Kill Lexy Cross (Alyvia Alyn Lind) to make all his problems disappear. Will Jake go through with it? 

**This recap contains spoilers for Chucky Season 1, Episode 3, "I Like to Be Hugged."**

Episode 3 picks up where Episode 2 left off: With Chucky lounging on the bed, he informs Jake that "everybody's a killer if you push ‘em far enough," and that Lexy has taken things to the point of deserving death.

Upon prompting, Chucky begins filling Jake in on a bit of his backstory: He begins regaling Jake with the story of his first kill, which unfolds throughout the episode. More on that later...

Everybody's a Killer If You Push Them Far Enough

Right now, Detective Evans (Rachelle Casseus) is still investigating the weird deaths that have gone down thus far in the series. Miss Fairchild (Annie Briggs) sticks up for Jake when Evans suggests he had something to do with the deaths, but Evans isn't convinced. Her son Devon (Bjorgvin Arnarson), however, might as well be president of the Jake Wheeler fan club. He's horrified by the "prank" Lexy pulled last episode, and he tells Jake — much to Jake's excitement — that he wishes he could protect him.

Jake's potentially impending violence against Lexy, however, is making him jumpy. It doesn't help that Miss Fairchild wants to get Jake's aunt and uncle together with Lexy's parents to talk about how Lexy has been treating Jake.

"You don't need to pretend like everything's fine, Jake," she tells him. She wants to be there for Jake — which isn't exactly something he's had a lot of in his life, and he seems genuinely touched.

After a botched attempt to sneak up on Lexy during a run in the woods (turned out it was Junior with Lexy's lost phone in hand that Jake was stalking through the trees), Jake's left shaken and more determined than ever. Not even Junior telling Lexy how gross her joke was and telling her to apologize is enough to change her mind, but Lexy seeing how obsessed her little sister Caroline (Carina Battrick) is with Chucky does.

If she apologizes to Jake, he might give her the doll. What's a bit iffy is her choice of venue: the garage where Jake is testing out which weapon he wants to kill her with. Her apology is truly disingenuous — and it's enough to leave Jake furious and later going home to stab a doll-covered statue of Lexy he's made — but it gives Jake an idea. An idea he comes to with Chucky's help.

If Lexy wants Chucky so badly, she can have him. All the better for Chucky to do Jake's dirty work for him from inside the Cross household.

Chucky Loves Hugs

That night, while her parents are out for that ultimately ill-fated meeting with Jake's aunt and uncle, Lexy hosts a silent disco at her house and invites all the popular kids from school. What none of them know is that Chucky's been waiting for his chance all day to sneak away from Caroline and take Lexy out with his trusty butcher knife. Upon finding Chucky (inanimate) in the hallway, Lexy returns Chucky to her sister and tucks them in together and sings them a song, only for Chucky to later cut himself out of bed and go after Lexy once more.

Except this time around, it's not Lexy Chucky finds, but Oliver Hayden (Avery Esteves), who's been trying to get with Lexy even though she's involved with Junior. Chucky stabs Oliver and then tracks down Lexy, who's smoking a joint but throws it aside when Chucky jumps her. A struggle ensues, but Lexy gets away only for the joint to start an enormous fire that will end up burning half the house down.

And here's where we get to the finale of Chucky's beginning. It turns out his first kill was not the man who snuck into his family's house in the middle of the night to murder his dad. No, Chucky's first kill was his own mother. While hiding in the closet from the killer, Chucky takes it upon himself to "help" the killer by stabbing her, for which the killer congratulates him. 

What's next for Chucky? Find out in next week's episode.