Fiona is having a hard time sleeping and makes her way to
the drinks cabinet and has a little flashback to 1971 – when she was in New
Orleans with the last Supreme. Young Fiona asked the old Supreme how she knew
she was Supreme – when she was young the old Supreme manifested several powers,
which is apparently not unheard of and doesn’t make you Supreme (you have to
master the “7 Wonders” for that). Young
Fiona wants to prove it but the Old Supreme mocks her as a foolish child who
isn’t ready.
Young Fiona hits back – when the new Supreme appears the
old Supreme fades, she pulls out the old Supreme’s pills for illnesses commonly
associated with old age and says how she’s weakening. The old Supreme slaps her
and says Fiona will bring the coven to ruin – and young Fiona cuts her throat
The whole scene was watched by their butler – who is
still the silent, tongueless butler Spalding now.
Move on to modern Fiona in a club talking about the dance
– her long practiced dance of seduction which has now come to an end. She goes
to a plastic surgeon and insists on seeing a video of the surgery, crying
quietly as she sees what they do to tighten the skin.
Zoe has gone to visit Kyle’s mother, who is deeply
grieving for her son. She describes how wonderful Kyle was and how he stepped
up to help when his father left. She also tells Zoe how she was ready to commit
suicide before she rang – Zoe interrupted her and saved her. Zoe assures her
that she will see Kyle again, which his mother ascribes to religious belief not
necromancy.
Back at the school, Queenie, Nan and Madison watch the new neighbours moving in next door, including the good looking young man without a shirt; before his mother arrives to lecture him for his lack of modesty.
Inside, Madame LaLaurie is in inconsolable tears at the
news that America has a Black president.
Fiona has no sympathy for LaLaurie’s racist tears and is happy to tell her
she voted for Obama twice and then list all the other high ranking positions
Black people have held; and LaLaurie can now embrace her new role as the new
maid. Her outrage does not impress Fiona one tiny iota.
At the dinner table Madison mocks Nan and Queenie for
being virgins (to which Nan protests that she isn’t – why assume that and
Queenie says she’s “saving herself”, alas it sounds defensive) and the new maid
arrives. Queenie recognises her as the woman who hit her with a candlestick –
and LaLaurie responds with racial abuse. She throws Queenie’s plate rather than
serve her – Queenie stands up to slap her and Fiona arrives. Madison sums it up
with “Ms. Aryan sisterhood got between Queenie and her food” (because we had to
have a fat joke in there). Fiona makes it clear that “Delphine” (LaLaurie) is to
be Queenie’s personal slave and Queenie can ask her to do whatever she wants.
Fiona says how much she loathes racists – uh-huh,
not the tune you were playing last week Fiona
To the shack in the woods with Misty with her slightly
concerning obsession with Stevie Nicks and zombie!Kyle. While she uses Stevie
Nicks to make a point about finding your people, Kyle remains still and
unresponsive – even when Zoe arrives and Misty opens his shirt to show off how
all his incisions – except around the neck – have completely healed. (The neck
hasn’t because it was “really deep”, since all the cuts are from limbs being
reattached, I think they were “pretty deep” as well).
Zoe wants to take Kyle to see his mother to try and help
her grieving – but Misty is upset and possessive. She seems possessive of Kyle
and desperate to spend more time with Zoe – she’s tearful when Zoe and Kyle
leave. She tries to keep Kyle and stop him leaving – but he lashes out and Zoe
leads him out, promising to come back for Misty. Misty doesn’t believe her and
starts crying.
Back to the Academy with Madison and Nan visiting their
new neighbour. Nan brings a cake, Madison brings very overt, heavy handed
interest in the guy’s buns. The guy, Luke, seems far more interested in Nan and
her cake than Madison’s not-so-subtle flirting. He also doesn’t recognise
Madison despite her being a celebrity – they don’t have TV or internet. His
mother, Joan, swoops in to summon Luke to Bible study. Madison, being Madison,
calls their beliefs a “crock of shit”. This does not endear her with Joan who
takes the cake knife off her – and Madison telekinetically launches it across
the room. Joan bans Madison from the house or talking to Luke.
As she leaves she sets the curtains on fire – Nan is
astonished, that isn’t Madison’s power – even she didn’t know she could do
that.
To Cordelia – it seems her fertility ritual has failed.
She goes to speak to her doctor who tells her that her bloodwork is alarming –
and shows that she cannot possibly have a baby. Cut this with Fiona talking to
her plastic surgeon who says her bloodwork is also alarming – and her immune
system is in freefall.
This leaves Fiona rather despondent when she gets home –
and gets a visit from Joan her new neighbour. And she’s brought a Bible! She
always brings a Bible when visiting someone’s house for the first time (Fiona
is WAAAY nicer about this than I would be). Joan is sure that Madison’s scandalous
clothing will warp Luke for life and tells Fiona that Madison threw a knife at
her head that just missed her! Fiona’s response:
“She has to work on her aim.”
Fiona is far more interested in hearing that Madison lit
the curtains on fire – and proves it by having Madison light her cigarette when
Joan storms off. She calls Madison to sit and talk. Hmmm.. a second power,
looks like Madison may be the next Supreme. Fiona takes Madison out for drinks
and waffles and we learn about Madison’s mummy issues, having to work as an
actor as a child to support the family and the general awfulness of her drug
using/stealing mother. Fiona adds that she was a terrible mother too and
regrets it and wishes another chance – someone to mentor and teach. Like
Madison – Madison leaps at the chance and Fiona shows her how to make a man
walk into traffic.
From there it’s off to play pool, where Fiona notices the
many male admirers Madison gets with a slightly sour look on her face. They
drink, Madison getting drunker and drunker – and Fiona carefully pouring her
drink away
Back to the boring ones: Zoe takes Zombie!Kyle to see his
mother. Well she carries his almost comatose body up the steps and props his
inert form against his mother’s door, rings the bell then runs away. His mother
is shocked and ecstatic and takes him inside – but he looks out at Zoe with
something like fear in his eyes.
His mother takes him inside and later that night talks to
zombie!Kyle about his concerns. When she burst in on him in the shower (uh…)
she noticed his body was completely different (double uh… ) she then gets
really close to him in bed (oh… no no no). And she kisses him and no, not in a
maternal way. And groping him while Zombie!Kyle sobs. Oh gods no.
Moving rapidly on, Cordelia goes to speak to Marie Leveau
(kind of have to love how all these all powerful witches are going to Marie for
help – especially after Fiona’s condescension last episode) for a fertility
ritual – one that is ornate, involved, with lots of blood sacrifice and drama.
Marie plays solitaire for the duration of the conversation, which is truly
excellent, and warns that she charges $50,000. Or would – if Cordelia wasn’t
Fiona’s daughter; she has no wish to help anyone of Fiona’s bloodline.
Zoe briefly stops by the Academy and is annoyed at Nan
reading her mind, Nan snaps back that she doesn’t like hearing people’s
thoughts and that it’s noisy; and Zoe gets a call from Kyle’s mother who is
concerned that Zombie!Kyle isn’t the same Kyle she knew.
She goes to Kyle’s room where he rocks back and forth in
trauma and she monoligues about how possessive she’s been and she never meant
things to go along “for so long”. I think the line that gets through is the “I
think you needed it as much as me” that brings him to his feet. She adds some
more near hysterical confusion about why his body is so different (because she
really knows his body – ew ew ew ew ew ew) then presses him to her because “mama
knows how to please you” (oh dear gods EW). He grabs a trophy, screams and
beats her in the head with it.
Zoe arrives and finds the door open, Kyle’s mother well
and truly dead and Kyle himself covered in blood
Elsewhere in the Academy, Queenie is making LaLaurie cook
for her and LaLaurie makes a crack about Queenie’s weight – and Queenie hits
back that it’s not food that’s her problem, it’s love; using food as a comfort
since she’s from a broken home (or so says Dr. Phil) when LaLaurie sees
something moving outside. She checks the window and sees… Bastien, the
Minotaur.
Madame LaLaurie reveals who she is to Queenie after saying too much about the Minotaur outside – and Queenie remembers her portrait from the LaLaurie museum. She grabs LaLaurie and says she deserves what she gets. LaLaurie begs on her knees for Queenie to help her – Queenie tells her to go hide, but not before cutting her hand and coating a towel in her blood.
Queenie goes out to the Minotaur, leading Bastien with the bloodstained cloth. She leads Bastien to the greenhouse where she says she too has been called a Beast – but that both of them just want love and deserve to be loved. She then starts masturbating asking “don’t you want to love me?”. He strokes her face with his horn (not an innuendo), touches her shoulder – then grabs her.
Back at the Academy, Madison and Fiona return and Fiona
remarks on getting a portrait done while young because all of the portraits of
powerful witches in the Academy are of old women. Madison doubts she’ll be
commemorated and Fiona drops the bomb – she’s the next Supreme. Madison asks how
she knows and Fiona says because she’s the old Supreme – and she’s dying. She
says Madison is killing her, her powers are growing because she’s draining
Fiona’s life. She adds that she has cancer – Madison suggests an oncologist but
Fiona refuses. She doesn’t want to die after the debilitating effects of
chemotherapy and needing morphine “I led a disreputable life but I did it in
style and I’ll die likewise”. She regrets that she came into her gift so young
and how she squandered her powers, taking them and pouring them back into
herself. She was a shitty Supreme.
It’s scenes like this that remind us what an incredible
actor Jessica Lang is.
She talks about the last Supreme, how she was so much
better and how she failed her – and how she slit her throat – right where she
and Madison are standing. She even still has the dagger she used to do it – and
she tries to give it to Madison who refuses it. She tells her to use it, kill
her for the sake of the Coven. Madison refuses. Fiona screams at her to do it –
as she did it to the last Supreme. Madison screams she can’t – and Fiona “accidentally”
slits Madison’s throat. Actually the shock on Fiona’s face suggests she really
didn’t intend it, she even briefly tries to stop the blood flow before Madison
collapses to the floor.
Spalding appears with a cloth so Fiona can wipe her hands. She tells him to bury her deep “god knows what the shit in her body will do to the lawn” and finishes with another classic line
“This coven doesn’t need a new supreme, it needs a new
rug.” Madison’s body has bled on the rug.
The terrible horror of women getting older is writ large
in this season of American Horror Story – what with Madame LaLaurie and her
evil potion, Fiona’s ongoing obsession with aging and the grasping for Marie
Laveau’s immortality. Grasping for immortality is fair enough – power and life
ever lasting – but this terror of getting old, this contempt for older women
and this ongoing meme that a woman’s life is over once she gets old – and,
linked to that – is no longer beautiful is a particularly sexist meme. We
rarely see men in the media worrying so about aging – and when they do it has a
distinctly different tone: because while Fiona occasionally refers to weakness
and lack of energy, her true concern is always at the forefront – her looks.
Her appearance. Aging isn’t about health or energy or power or even death – it’s
about beauty
And look at Fiona. Quite possibly the most powerful woman
in the world with incredible magic, vast wealth and seeming no small amount of
intelligence – but it’s her looks that define her?
While these are important issues to look at and challenge,
it does need to be challenged. There needs to be a counter message and, no, “old
women become evil and unstable in their efforts to look young” isn’t a counter
message. Especially since, as much as Fiona feels threatened by the new
Supreme, she’s equally jealous of the attention Madison gets from men.
As much as I like moments like LaLaurie’s face being
rammed into the changes of the modern world, her whole character is
appropriative and unnecessary and used as a vehicle to say terrible things
because of who she is. And then we can all be shocked and outraged by her
racism which is so blatant – upholding the constant media meme that THIS (the
open useage of slurs etc) is racism; this is the racism we see presented as
awful, not the, for example, general awful treatment of POC in a show that has
run for 3 seasons.
I’d also quite like Queenie to be something other than a
target for abuse, over and over again. Fat jokes, racism, fat jokes, racism.
Fat jokes, racism, fight with other Black person over fried chicken. Can she
appear in one scene without someone commenting on her weight?
Queenie and Bastien… Queenie starts well about seeking
love and how they’ve been demonised as beasts when they both seek love – and then,
with nary a blink, that changes to her masturbating to the minotaur? What? So
we have the sexual Black man who is literally a beast, a monster that Marie
keeps chained; and the fat Black woman is so desperate for “love” that she
feels herself up to attract a MINOTAUR to have sex with her? The fat Black
woman is desperate, needy, unloveable,
unhappy, tortured and reduced to having sex with a minotaur for the sake of any
“love” or attention. There are so many tropes about fat women being
undesireable, Black women being undesireable AND jezebel-sexual and the whole
bestial Black person and beast-like, savage Black sexuality. Was this scene
written to hit as many tropes as possible?
I don’t see why Kyle and Zoe’s storyline is needed or
adds anything to the plot except more SHOCK HORROR which goes nowhere because
it’s American Horror Story and this show loves rape and sexual abuse so much
that a mother molesting her own son just feels like the writers got together
and brainstormed how they can make rape even more shocking. A parent raping
their child – with, of course, a strong inference of child molestation? How
much further will this show actually go?
