How naïve I was to think American Horror Story: Coven could get past its third episode before delivering a narrative element that could “out-Ryan Murphy” a character that literally bangs people until their brains explode. And this episode gives us three of them. Of course, Fiona is given the classier, less surreal story that is steeped in murder and intrigue over, say, quasi-zombie quasi-incest.
”This coven doesn’t need a new supreme. It needs a new rug.”
A midlife/endlife crisis will affect different people in different ways. For some, it’s the purchase of a ridiculous vehicle or dating someone barely out of high school. For Fiona, it’s teaching your potential protégé how to make a man walk into traffic before eventually murdering her after a Bond villain expository reveal. Of all the dastardly adjectives one could use to describe her, subtle isn’t one. Just as she did with the supreme before her, Fiona slices Madison’s throat to ensure her sole presence atop Witch Mountain, and all in front of the tongueless Spalding, a character whose breakout episode is hopefully on the horizon. He knows too much to stay so quiet, so to speak.
I knew this season wouldn’t bog itself down with “Fiona teaches Madison” how to be a great witch, and I really hoped that the Madison character would get a complete overhaul, but I didn’t expect those thoughts to come together in a bloody heap on the rug. “Bury her deep,” Fiona instructs. “God knows what all that shit in her body will do to the lawn when it comes up in the spring.” All you need to know about Fiona’s character is embedded in that line: she judges most harshly those who share her worst habits and personality traits. She wants some form of eternal youth, but for what? So she can continue to not share her gifts while boozing it up all the time. (No judgment here.)
“When it’s over, I sleep for four days and four nights.”
Cordelia is having health problems of her own, but it’s doubtful they have anything to do with Fiona’s challenged Supremacy. Her bloodwork shows that she just can’t have a baby. So the obvious solution for tackling a physical hardship is going to see the local voodoo witch doctor to see about getting a fertility spell enacted. I mean, it is Cordelia’s only option after all. And when we get a description of the spell’s details from the Marie, who sits in her macabre throne that immediately needs to be part of an action figure set, that’s when AHS really burns up the rails.
If you’ve never seen a glass jar of sperm on TV before, this was your best chance. And if for some reason you have seen one, you probably didn’t see it get hot enough for the sperm to bubble up and soon burst free from the shattered jar, all while a goat’s throat is cut open and bled out onto a bare vagina. Of course, the entire scene was all based on imaginative description, since Marie would never help out the daughter of her sworn enemy, but now my own imagination is ruined in some way.
”Noooooooooooo!!!!
Incidentally, the above quote, the first words spoken by Kyle since he was resurrected last week, were uttered by me several times earlier in the episode. Mostly because his still-in-mourning mother, played by veteran actress Mare Winningham, takes no time in getting back to incestuous basics as soon her as thought-dead son returns home. (Leaning with his face pressed against a glass door, no less. Definitely not a face that makes anyone horny.)
Zoe, in an effort to ease Kyle’s mother’s pains, takes him away from the so-lonely hermit Misty and brings him home, not realizing that his was a home of horror-infused handjobs from his mother. Note that this will be the only time in TV history that a mother realizes that her son is not who she thinks he is because his naked body is completely different from what it was. Plus all the Frankenstein scars. I mean seriously though, is it still incest if only the head is still her son’s? (Cue slide whistle.) Doesn’t matter anymore anyway, as he reached his closure by trophy-whipping her head into a pulpy crater.
“Don’t you want to love me?”
Of all the absurdity-spawned laughter that spewed from me during this episode, the most forceful came when LaLaurie caught wind that Obama is President. (“Liiiiiiies.”) That moment should win an award of some kind. In any case, this whole plotline got even better as Fiona turned LaLaurie into Queenie’s slave, a most fitting undertaking for the hateful woman. But when the Minotaur houseboy Bastien returns to haunt LaLaurie, who gets on her racist knees and begs for help, Queenie takes matters into her own hands.
Or onto her own fingers, as it were. Because instead of using her pain-swapping witch power, Queenie gets her flirt on, assuming all that Bastien wants is love. I can’t tell if she started masturbating because her power could somehow make the creature feel like his genitals were getting touched, or if she just insanely wanted to get it on with the beast with one back, to pop her chocolate-covered cherry. In any case, it probably doesn’t end well for her, as his doggystyle approach ends with him covering her mouth with his fused-together hoof-hand.
“The Replacements” didn’t really tease at where the season is going or reveal anything we didn’t already know about these characters, but it gave us more than enough WTF moments to last us until next week’s episode. And it killed off Madison Montgomery, who had better not come back as a resurrected shell.
Things Stirring in the Cauldron
“Peach cobbler won’t keep you warm at night.”
The religious family next door has to come into play at some point, right? They almost have to, since the great Patti LuPone (Parker) can’t go out with just this fundamentalist appearance. How awesome was it to watch the nice cake-loving son flirt with Nan instead of the whorish Madison? Will her absence come into play where they are concerned? Also, how much coke do we think Fiona snorted off of that Bible?
This many years into their relationship, how many times do you think Fiona uttered the line “Cat got your tongue?” to Spalding? He should shove a cat down her throat in the last episode.
Zoe turning down a bowl of weed because she “has to drive” was pretty cool for some reason.
“Like butter on a stick.”
“Can’t be your best self till you find your tribe.” Why doesn’t Misty just go and watch Fleetwood Mac in concert and find a bunch of likeminded friends?
