Dead is never really dead on “American Horror Story,” and this witchy season is no exception. While you would think our sweet young things at Miss Robichaux”s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies would be inclined to behave themselves and lay low after the bus-flipping incident last week, that wouldn’t be any fun at all, would it? No, while Zoe and Madison are busy finding new ways to get into trouble, Fiona’s stashing an immortal in her bedroom and Delia’s having snakey baby-making sex with her husband Hank. Really, just about anyone passing by these ladies would have a hard time ignoring the weird thing going on in their orbits, but I guess that’s why having the power of compulsion is so darn handy.
Misty’s back! As you might expect, the witch with the power of regeneration regenerates herself, and as sweet as she may seem, she may also be a little nuts. When she spots two Cajun hunters dragging a poor alligator onto their boat, she decides to revive the alligator and let it settle the score. While this seemed to be a bit of a dig at “Swamp People” and shows of that ilk, there was something darkly funny about watching an alligator drag off a backwoods tough guy by the head.
Still, Misty isn’t just back to provide us with comic relief. She’ll be forming a bond with Zoe later in the episode, but we’ll get to that shortly…
Zoe’s got a crush on Kyle As we know, Kyle died in the messy bus crash last week. That doesn’t mean Zoe doesn’t pine for him still, sure he was the sweetheart amidst a crush of scumbag frat brothers. Wait, didn’t we do this particular dance in season 1? Anyway, Madison, being a take-charge kind of witch, decides to help out her classmate by dragging her down to the morgue, stitching together body parts from the crash to create a “perfect boyfriend” with Kyle’s head placed like a cherry on top, then tries out a spell to bring him back to life, Frankenstein-style. Initially, it doesn’t seem to work — and when a morgue employee pops in, Madison is off like a shot, leaving Zoe behind to face the consequences. Of course, those don’t come, as Kyle conveniently rears up and kills the poor morgue employee in a Frankenstein’s monster-esque rage.
Zoe sticks groaning, pathetic Kyle in the car and drives off with him — only for Misty to pop up in the backseat, swearing Zoe’s energy or witchiness or some suck called to her. She drags them both to her backwater digs and promises to “fix” Kyle with swamp sludge, but I suspect Zoe is only okay with this arrangement because she has no other options beyond sticking Kyle on a street corner with a cup and a “Will Grunt for Food” sign. Misty appears to be obsessed with Stevie Nicks, thrilled to have a friend in Zoe, and is not entirely grounded in reality. But for someone who was recently burned at the stake, she’s doing better than most people.
Fiona does not make friends with Madame LaLaurie At first, I thought Fiona might try to befriend Madame LaLaurie. After all, she’d been stuck in the ground for 180 years; maybe give her some clean sweatpants. But no, Fiona keeps Madame LaLaurie in her stinky old clothes (even though the woman smells so lousy Delia notices the stink through Fiona’s closed bedroom door) and instead focuses on getting what she wants — the secret to LaLaurie’s immortality. Of course, Fiona doesn’t have to be nice. She knows LaLaurie is evil through and through and not just a product of her time, and given that LaLaurie (during a brief escape courtesy of Nan) clubs Queenie in the head with a candlestick, we know Fiona’s right.
Fiona does get most of the story out of LaLaurie, though, even without buttering her up — it turns out Marie Laveau’s spell all those years ago only knocked LaLaurie out for a little while. While LaLaurie dismisses it as a failure, it’s not — Laveau wants the evil woman to see her loved ones hanging before she’s buried in the ground, cursed with eternal life. Of course, Fiona doesn’t see eternal life as a curse — and neither, apparently, does Laveau.
These days, the voodoo priestess runs a hair salon, and while Fiona makes no attempt to win her over during her visit (the two get into a verbal battle about race and voodoo and witchcraft which is quite something to behold), it seems Fiona has the upper hand, setting a wall of wigs on fire before she leaves. She tells Leaveu she’s going to give her eternal life, “because I have something you want,” which I’m guessing is LaLaurie. I would argue that Laveau probably doesn’t want LaLaurie so much as she wants to stick her someplace else to suffer, so I’m not sure it’s much of a trade. In any case, Laveau goes to her minotaur (apparently her poor boyfriend has eternal life, but he’s spending it stuck inside a bull’s head) and tells him “we’ve got some business to attend to.”
Delia wants a baby It seems that Delia is infertile, and she has a husband. While I’m thinking, wow, she has a husband, and what guy would put up with all of this crazy stuff, apparently he’s on board with making a family and, I guess, letting his wife change diapers with her mind. Actually, this is sounding like a better idea all the time. Anyway, she doesn’t want to do magic to make a baby. It will cost her dearly! It’s a bad idea! Then, next thing you know Delia and Hank are writhing around with snakes in the middle of a circle of flames and it is ON. So much for that argument! I’m guessing Delia will soon be pregnant with devil spawn or some such, though I wish “AHS” had waited at least a few more seasons before returning to a pregnancy storyline, as it seems we’re starting to see some repetition here. Granted, that’s not surprising, given how much source material this show churns through every season.
Best line of the episode “Did we just marry the devil? Because I’m not sure I’m down with that” — Zoe.
Best scene of the episode Madame LaLaurie sitting outside her former house-turned-museum, complaining about how Laveau hung her babies. “I loved my girl in my own way… even the ugly one. She had the face of a damned hippo, but I loved her just the same.” Then, she and Fiona debate the pros and cons of death, and I cannot wait to see more of these two great actresses tearing up the scenery.
Parting thoughts I’m a little worried about the Frankenstein’s monster storyline that’s shaping up between Zoe and Kyle, as this could take a weird turn into Disney territory, though I’m pretty sure it won’t. Maybe it’s just a question of casting, but I’m most excited about the Kathy Bates/Angela Bassett/Jessica Lange storyline and least interested in what’s going on with Zoe and Kyle (though I do hope Madison will stay nearby to stir things up). If Evan Peters doesn’t get more to do than grunt and flail around, it’s going to be a pretty lopsided season. Let’s hope that swamp muck does the trick!
Do you think Delia will have a devil baby? Do you think Kyle will remain a grunting blob? What do you think the minotaur will do?
Follow Liane Bonin Starr on Twitter @HitFixLiane