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In a swamp, a couple of locals find an alligator caught in a trap they laid; after they kill it, they come across the apparently resurrected Misty Day, who is babbling about rot and murder while listening to "Edge Of Seventeen," as befits a girl who brought what looked suspiciously like a white-winged dove back to life in the season premiere. She then resurrects the alligator, who wastes no time in devouring his killers, so Misty Day as a vengeful Earth mother is a thing the cold open seems to establish.
Now for some individual character explorations: Cordelia, as it happens, is married to a "Hank Foxx" (that's where she got her current surname; also, he's played by Josh Hamilton), who knows who and what she is. They want a family, but even though she's been undergoing extensive fertility treatments, she can't seem to get pregnant. Hank wonders why she doesn't twitch her nose and fix the issue, but she feels like using magic for her every whim would make her Fiona, adding that any spell dealing with life and death is bound to be dark. Later, she proves her point by changing her mind and performing a complex ritual featuring black attire, ashes and bloodletting… among the less disturbing parts. On another note, we flash back to Detroit 2012, when Queenie was a manager in a fast-food restaurant and an A student -- and also took her revenge on a jerk customer by sticking her hand in boiling oil, giving the guy whatever degree burns are the highest. In the present, Queenie explains that while nothing could be proven, the incident was reported, which is how Miss Cordelia came to find her.
Fiona is hiding Madame LaLaurie in her room, and as most everybody probably figured, Fiona wants the secret of her still being alive after all this time. Madame LaLaurie is disoriented and uncooperative at first, but when Fiona tells her just how long she was in the ground, she fills in for us what happened with Marie after we saw her pass out last episode; she came to at night to find Marie and a bunch of her cronies holding torches outside her house and her family hanging dead from it. Marie then told Madame LaLaurie that she cursed her with immortality before having her buried alive on the spot. She didn't even give her a last meal, not that it mattered.
A pair of detectives come asking questions at the house, as everyone was abuzz with the news of Madison Montgomery coming to that frat party; they also know that Zoe visited Brener in the hospital, that he died immediately thereafter AND that it's not the first mysterious death in proximity to Zoe. Under this pressure, Zoe blurts the truth about everything -- the gang rape, the bus-flip, her witchcraft -- but then Fiona enters the room and, after some Jedi mind tricks and consumed witch spit later, the detectives are eating out of her hand. She then rips a strip off both girls, accusing Zoe especially of being soft before telling them they need to stick together and the only thing in the world they should be afraid of is she. It's not an idle threat and yet they haven't met Marie.
Zoe and Madison take a trip to the morgue so Madison can repay Zoe for killing Brener -- by using a resurrection spell purloined from Cordelia. When they find Kyle and the other boys literally in pieces (the effects work with Evan Peters is pretty great) Madison suggests they Frankenstein a version of Kyle with the best boy parts. Zoe surprisingly (perhaps thinking that this Kyle might not be so vulnerable to her powers?) goes along, and although the spell looks like it's veering out of their control, Madison finishes the recitation. It doesn't seem to work, but Zoe lingers and plants a kiss on Kyle's lips and soon, he's beating the crap out of a hapless morgue attendant. Kyle's newfound existence seems to be quite painful and Zoe, while driving them somewhere, tries to explain -- whereupon Misty Day pops up from the back seat. Later, as more of Stevie Nicks' vocals play ("Rhiannon," this time) she starts to heal Kyle's wounds with salve collected from the swamp (although his mental state is still confused, to say the least) and tells Zoe she never knew about other witches, but that day Zoe's magic called out to her. It then seems pretty likely that Misty is eyeing Zoe in That Special Way, so even though she offers to continue to heal Kyle while Zoe goes back to the school, I don't feel a hundred percent sure about the boy's safety even in the context of A) him already being dead and B) this show.
Fiona goes to get her hair done -- by a braided, leopard-print-wearing Marie Laveau. Marie quickly makes it clear that she knows Fiona's a witch and Fiona, in turn, lets us know that witches and voodoo priestesses have been enemies for centuries. There's race and class discrimination positively dripping from Fiona even as she asks Marie for the secret of her eternal youth. Marie laughs in her face, and while she declines to say what it is, Fiona informs her she has something Marie wants… and I can only assume that's Madame LaLaurie. Since she's no fool, Marie seems to figure out the only way Fiona would have come looking for her is if Madame LaLaurie had resurfaced. Oh, and guess who's still alive and living with Marie? If your guess falls into the realm of "grotesquely bastardized versions of mythological Greek monsters," it's possible you're on the right track.
Speaking of Madame LaLaurie, at the school, Nan senses her thoughts and frees her, and she wastes no time in calling Queenie a slave and knocking her on the head with a giant candlestick. Later, Fiona tracks Madame LaLaurie down in front of her old home, whereupon Madame LaLaurie expresses the hope that Fiona's a witch -- because she might know how to kill her. Fiona laughs that she might do so someday, and then a crane shot shows the two of them walk into the early morning light of old New Orleans. It's a little early to call them frenemies, but it could happen.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!In a algae-covered swamp, the camera pans down to reveal an alligator caught on a line, and I'll say this now: Like with many scenes on this show, it's pretty easy to foresee at least the gist of what's coming; the genius of it is that it only enhances my enjoyment. Through the green film cuts a small boat with an outboard motor carrying two men, and the alligator swims about with a more agitated but still futile effort as one of the hunters crows that they've got another one and lauds the efficacy of jerk chicken as bait, which I admit would probably catch me too. After a bit of talk about the alligator's keen olfactory senses, the other of the Swamp People notes that they have a lot of skinning to do before it gets dark, so the first one wastes no time in pulling the gator up and blowing its brains out. And if you're at all doubtful that no animals were harmed in the filming of this episode, consider how often you've ever seen a cutaway from violence on a Ryan Murphy show.
But we won't have to wait long for some gore, as no sooner have they landed the boat than do they hear Stevie Nicks' "Edge Of Seventeen" playing loudly (Joe Reid is going to be so mad he missed recapping this episode), and when they look inland, they see a woman whose frizzy blonde hair even at this distance identifies her to us as Misty Day. The men quickly discuss how while she doesn't look like she's from Fish and Game, their little operation could net eighty grand in fines, so I'm guessing their plan is to err on the side of killing Misty. Of course, they don't know about her power, but that's just another thing that will quickly be revealed. Clarifying the guy's mention of the fines, we see the corpses of several other alligators strung up in a small clearing, and with her back to them Misty talks about how "this" is all wrong – there's murder, "all rot and black. This will not be forgiven." Being burned at the stake seems to have helped her not to mince words. She asks them why they'd kill God's innocent creatures for monetary gain, and despite the fact that this makes her seem more like a random tree-hugger than an actual threat, it's enough for the older of the two hunters to draw his handgun: "You play with dead things, you're more'n likely to join 'em." It's not quite "If you look in the face of evil, evil's gonna look right back at you," but as a theme for at least this episode it's perfectly serviceable.
In this case, however, the statement comes back literally to bite him, as Misty closes and then reopens her eyes and somberly intones, "Not all dead." With that, one of the alligators hanging upside-down suddenly revivifies and bites the older guy's arm full force. The gun discharges, whereupon the younger guy tries to run, and there's a series of jump-cuts that make it a little hard to see, but I believe Misty also (with an awesomely mild expression) reanimates the alligator by the boat; in any case, the guy gets chomped right in his face and dragged unceremoniously into the water. The song kicks back up as Misty walks to the water's edge and catches a glimpse of the beast's image before it vanishes, and off her hint of a smile, we leave a cold open I expect to watch at least ten more times after I finish this recap.
At Miss Robichaux's Academy, Cordelia and her black bell-bottoms are bustling about administering wake-up knocks to the girls' bedroom doors, but the only witch to actually answer is Madison, undaunted by the fact she's only in bra and panties. Cordelia tells her she expects her downstairs in five minutes, getting this sunny reply: "Shall I come in this?" With all the sass Cordelia gets from these kids, I'm surprised she's so keen to have one of her own. Madison then tells Zoe to get over Kyle already, referring to the fact that Zoe is trolling Web pieces about his death and how he leaves behind a "legacy of stewardship," or as she explains it, "He spent his summers volunteering for the United Way!" And yet he surrounded himself with the frattiest, rapiest assholes on campus. College, how you do confound us. Madison thinks Kyle "would have happily taken a turn on me if he had the chance," and I'm guessing she doesn't know that Kyle was the one who pulled them all off her as she goes on that it's "guilt by association." Zoe still doesn't accept that, so Madison offers, for the sake of their getting along, that she's sorry she killed him. "But given your black-widow status, he was living on borrowed time anyways." That's a pretty solid line from someone who hasn't even had coffee yet.
Outside, Cordelia has been trying to get Fiona to open up, which she finally does. Cordelia, nose wrinkling, asks what that smell is, so Fiona makes up an excuse about some pungent herbs she got from a Chinese doctor. Cordelia tells Fiona that she's going to be going over house rules with the girls and that she'd like Fiona also to hear them, so Fiona promises to be down in a minute, although even when she's trying to get rid of Cordelia she can't restrain herself from offering that the upcoming lecture sounds "riveting," or "rivuh ting" as she pronounces it. Once she's closed the door, we see that she's got Madame LaLaurie, still in that same dress (and as such likely unbathed; hence the noisome odor) bound to a chair and gagged; Fiona address her as "Miss Pittypat" (hee) before telling her that if she screams, she'll put her right back in the ground. Madame LaLaurie, wide-eyed, nods her understanding – but as soon as Fiona removes the gag, Madame LaLaurie yells for help. Fiona, however, looks like she was expecting this as she cracks Madame LaLaurie across the face, shutting her up, before asking – as you might have expected was her reason for digging her up in the first place – how Madame LaLaurie is still alive after all these years.
Before Madame LaLaurie can answer, though, Fiona's cell phone rings, prompting another agonized cry that results in Fiona replacing the gag. As she goes to get it, she's like, "Jesus, woman, it's a cell phone!" While I do think Madame LaLaurie needs to calm down generally, that's still a bit rich given that Fiona's dealing with a woman who'd be freaked out by a technological advancement as early as the sewing machine. A quick shot of the phone shows the number coming up Unknown, and with Cordelia calling to her from downstairs, Fiona tells Madame LaLaurie they'll resume their little chat later. "And you better make it worth my while." And if she doesn't, what sort of things might an angered witch do?
Well, to answer that question, after a few close-up shots of breaded chicken and fries being prepared in a fast-food environment, a card lets us know that we're in Detroit back in 2012, where Queenie is barking orders when a middle-aged customer tells her he's short a piece of chicken. Queenie is unimpressed as she tells the guy she packed his meal herself, and when the guy suggests her math skills are challenged, she's like, I've gotten As in calculus and trig, so I'm pretty sure I know the difference between seven and eight. The guy, however, still wants his extra piece, so she snaps that "Pencil-Dick" is trying to scam her. When he calls her "stupid fat-ass" in response and asks for the manager, she grits, "I AM the manager" – and then plunges her hand into the boiling fry oil. The guy quickly looks like he's in unspeakable agony, and the camera pans down to show his corresponding arm blistering all over the place; Queenie keeps her own arm down there as the guy screams in pain, and a close-up of her amused eyes lets us know, in case that there was any doubt, she is not to be fucked with.
At the breakfast table, Nan, who's possibly just read the whole scene from Queenie's mind, asks with a smile if she was sent to jail, but Queenie tells her no, since none of the witnesses could say that they saw her throw any oil. However, the incident did get some local news coverage, which is how Cordelia found her. Cordelia exposition-recalls that Queenie didn't want to join them at first, and Queenie agrees: "I grew up on white-girl shit like Charmed and Sabrina The Teenaged Cracker. I didn't know that there even were black witches. As it turns out, I'm an heir to Tituba." Given what Marie says later about Tituba being a voodoo practitioner, it seems witchcraft and voodoo derive from the same source in his universe (as Marie basically says later), but Queenie thinks this makes her part of their tribe, to which Madison sniffily wonders if they're supposed to sing "Kumbayah." Queenie gets to her feet with a "Bitch, I will eat you," but Cordelia tells them to take care of each other since they have so many outside enemies – at which point the butler appears in the doorway with two other men in tow. One of them introduces himself as "Detective Sanchez" while his partner is "Detective Stiles" – they're from the New Orleans PD and need to have a word with two of the girls.
Cut to a room into which the two detectives, Cordelia, Madison, and Zoe have repaired; Sanchez tells them that a famous girl like Madison showing up to a frat party was bound to attract attention, and a lot of people saw her go into a back room with some of the guys who died. Cordelia is like, there's no way these girls could have caused the bus to flip, but Sanchez thinks anyone motivated could have screwed with the brakes or steering column, and maybe what happened in the upstairs room was upsetting? Cordelia, if you're going to play defense attorney, you might ask if there's actual evidence that the bus was tampered with, and on that note Zoe asks if they shouldn't have a lawyer there, but Sanchez is like, hey, we're just talking! Come on, people, this shouldn't fly! You must have watched a few procedurals in your life, no? Madison, convincingly enough, tells Sanchez that they never met those boys before the night in question, and they only took her in the back room to try to get her high, but she said no. Cordelia takes the opportunity to says that Madison has come a long way with her addiction issues, and Madison gives a smile so awesomely ingratiating that you can practically hear an accompanying "Ding!", but as it happens, she's not Sanchez's real target, as he turns to Zoe and asks why she visited one of the boys in the hospital. This being news to Madison, she fixes Zoe with a look, and then Sanchez shows Zoe a photo apparently taken from a security camera. Zoe does a reasonable job of smiling that she felt bad for the guy, but Sanchez goes on that he died right after she left – in much the same mysterious way a boy named Charles Taylor did. Feeling checkmated, Zoe loses it and blabs, and even though Madison tries to say she's crazy, Zoe spills about the gang-rape and the telekinesis and the fact that they're witches. Cordelia, I think you should have been more extensive with your house rules. Speaking of whom, she tries to tell Sanchez that Zoe's had some sort of mental break, but Zoe begs Sanchez not to send them to jail – whereupon Fiona enters the room.
Cordelia looks like she has a pretty good idea of what's coming as Fiona sends the girls out of the room, and when Sanchez asks if she's in charge of the school, she replies, "I'm Fiona Goode. I'm in charge everywhere." Arguments? Sanchez says that although they'll try to keep it quiet, they'll need to take the girls in for questioning, but none of this stops Fiona from heading to the sideboard and pouring some water into two glasses to which she then adds some of her own spit. Over Cordelia's objections, she hands each detective a glass and tells them to drink, and the dissonant rumblings on the soundtrack suggests something nefarious is happening. With a blank look, Sanchez complies, but Stiles resists, prompting an amused Fiona to call him a tough guy. Well, considering he has no lines, he's got to do something around here. However, that something looks exceedingly painful as he starts to convulse, and she encourages him to give up: "I'm barely trying, you know." She threatens to "turn the heat up in that chubby melon of yours," and under normal circumstances he might take issue with that description of his head but he's got more pressing issues to deal with. As blood runs from his nose, Cordelia once again tries to intervene, but Fiona tells her to shut up "unless you want me to spit in a third cup." It seems like an odd two-step to bend them to her will so they'll drink the spit that then bends them to her will, but I'm more wondering whether making out with them would have the same effect. (Actually, speaking of that, now that we've seen this power I wonder why she didn't use it on the maker of that youth concoction last week? Maybe the coke affected her judgment – no really, that can happen!) Anyway, after a few more seconds, the guy finally concedes and drinks, at which point Fiona relaxes and informs them they're going to turn over whatever information they've gathered on Zoe and Madison and will never speak about it again. And that's how you run a witches' academy, folks.
In another room, Zoe is wondering nervously whether Fiona can fix the situation, while Madison berates her for spilling the beans, adding that her public image can't take the hit this news will cause. She then asks what Zoe did to "that shit-dick" in the hospital – but she doesn't get an answer, as Fiona bursts in and sends them both flying into the wall. She seethes that she forgave Madison's "ham-handed mass murder business" (my God, the delicious way she drags out those vowels) as over-exuberance of youth – but if, turning to Zoe, they don't have the brains to know that they're supposed to close ranks when strangers ask questions, their line is well and truly screwed. Zoe bleats that the detectives knew so much, but Fiona goes crazy-eyed as she snarls that "I couldn't toast a piece of bread with the heat they were putting on you." Love. She steps forward and tells Zoe that she's soft and emotional and cares what people think before informing them both that there's one thing they need to know – "in this whole wide wicked world, the only thing you have to be afraid of…is me." She heads out, and with the morning she's had, Madame LaLaurie, I'd REALLY suggest you play it a bit more tractable.
In the former's black sports car, Madison and Zoe pull up to a compound that wouldn't have looked out of place in Season Two; striding up to one of the buildings, Madison jauntily explains that she was supposed to play a cat burglar in a film whose funding fell through – but not before she learned a thing or two. Pulling a small tool made of paired wires out of her purse, she picks the lock on the morgue (as the sign to the door so helpfully IDs the building) and hustles Zoe inside, whereupon she tells Zoe she's going to pay her back for taking care of the lead rapist. She produces a scroll which she explains she stole out of "Foxxy's" (Foxx is Cordelia's surname, in case that wasn't covered) stash, and although the text is in Latin, the title of "Resurrectione" makes the meaning fairly clear, so I'm not sure what Zoe's dipshit "What is this" is all about unless it's to prepare us for her idiot comment about Stevie Nicks later. Madison spells it out – "we're going to bring your boyfriend back to life," and Zoe may be fairly sheltered but Buffy seems like it might be in her wheelhouse, so the horrified look on her face might suggest she's seen at least one of the two episodes of that show in which bringing someone back didn't turn out so great? (I'm talking about Some Assembly Required and Forever, although you could argue that bringing Buffy herself back in Bargaining didn't turn out so hot either.)
Inside, I suspect, a somewhat colder room, we see a bunch of corpses whose clear body bags do not completely obscure the fact that they're mangled something fierce, and Madison enthusiastically observes the crash was even worse than she thought; to demonstrate, she unzips one to reveal Kyle's head and several pieces of his body in no particular order. I have to admit it's been a long time since I've seen an ad for seat belts, but this certainly qualifies. Madison is like, hey dead Kyle, you're kind of cute, and while Zoe just wants to get out of there, Madison gets a crafty look on her face as she tells Zoe she sees potential in this room. Yup, that's what's happening – if you didn't see the title, Madison hits it for you as she says they're going to take the best "boy parts" and attach them to Kyle's head, and boom – the perfect boyfriend. This is certainly the craziest scenario Ryan Murphy has come up with to get Evan Peters' clothes off so far, but I'm sure he's not out of ideas yet. Zoe asks if this is all a joke to Madison, but Madison is like, am I laughing? She then tells Zoe to find her a saw, and the offhand delivery and girly way she's holding her purse while delivering that line makes me laugh, at least.
Cordelia is getting an ultrasound, and she jokingly (but also nervously, I think) asks how her "oven" is. Here's the scenario: She's married to the guy to her, Hank (played, as I mentioned in the recaplet, by a bearded Josh Hamilton), and she's been taking fairly invasive fertility drugs for the past year with no apparent positive effect. The doctor advances in vitro fertilization as another possibility, but Hank asks for a moment alone with Cordelia, and when the doctor's gone, Hank wonders if she really wants to put herself through this. Cordelia somewhat tellingly replies that she should be able to have a baby just like any other woman, so it's less of a surprise than it might be when Hank says that's not what he means – she has another option. Cordelia, however, thinks that if she starts using magic all the time she'll be just like her mother, and when Hank points out that they both really want a family, she taps into the episode's theme when she says that any magic dealing with life and death is dark, "and I don't want to play God." Hank points out that she's going to let their doctor play God instead, and I don't know what all this verbal sparring is about when it's pretty apparent the ritual she's considering isn't something God would want to touch with a ten-foot pole.
Fiona returns to her room with a plate full of fried chicken that she wafts under Madame LaLaurie's nose before grudgingly complimenting Cordelia's cooking and wondering if Madame LaLaurie even needs to eat. She also mentions the length of time Madame LaLaurie was in the ground, whereupon Madame LaLaurie starts making noises, so Fiona removes her gag and Madame LaLaurie (I'm going to have to drop the "Madame"; it's getting too cumbersome) asks her how long she said? Fiona repeats that it was 180 years, and the renewed hatred LaLaurie feels seems to ground her as she seethes, "That evil bitch." Fiona asks who did it to her, adding that the story was that she was poisoned but that was obviously erroneous, and LaLaurie blames "that black devil."
After a couple quick shots we saw last week, the last of which is LaLaurie falling to the floor, we see her regain consciousness, it now being night. Groggily, she sits up and calls for her husband, but it's Marie that answers from outside; she's standing with a group of torch-wielding allies in front of the house. LaLaurie makes her appearance quickly enough, stepping out into the street and asking if Marie thinks she and "this rabble" can frighten her, and it seems clear this kind of confidence could only come from extreme racism, so her following up by calling Marie "[n-word] witch" in pointing out that her poisoning attempt failed is probably overkill, although given what happens later Marie might be just as offended by the "witch" part. Marie replies that if she wanted LaLaurie dead, she would be, and the extra layer of meaning given the immortality given is fairly delicious, as if the response when LaLaurie orders Marie to return her family to her: "They never left." She theatrically points up and to her right, and when LaLaurie's eyes follow, she sees her husband and three daughters all hanged and collapses in grief. Two of Marie's men then haul LaLaurie back to her feet, whereupon Marie comes in close and grabs her face: "Don't think that they didn't suffer, because they did, greatly. But the fate that I have planned for you will make their suffering seem as a gentle sleep." Scared yet, LaLaurie? I mean, I hate you and I'm still kind of scared for you.
Marie tells LaLaurie she gave her life everlasting before crying out to the crowd to bring her, and just like that, LaLaurie is being shoved into the coffin as Marie finishes up: "For your sins, Madame LaLaurie [I can't escape it completely], you are damned to live forever; to never know the release of sweet death, to never reunite with your loved ones in the realm beyond but instead to be alone, sealed up in your unmarked grave for all eternity, listening to the world go on around you even until that world is no more." On top of the voodoo, lady knows how to pronounce a good sentence. I'd like to bring her along to intimidate people in my neighborhood who do terrible parking jobs. The coffin lid is closed, and the clock starts ticking off nearly two centuries.
Back in the present, Fiona diffidently says she's sorry for LaLaurie's loss, emphasizing just how awful she feels by taking a hearty bite of a chicken leg. Hee. She offers LaLaurie some, but LaLaurie, keeping her tear-stained face pointed away from Fiona, says she's not hungry. Lord, is that another curse of immortality?
Back in the morgue, we get a montage of the pieces of Kyle's body (wasn't that a Hole song?) being chosen and then sewn together, and easily the most surprising thing for me in this scene is that Madison is so good with a needle and thread. Then it seems to be time to begin the ritual as Madison says she needs a bowl and some hair from Kyle's head. Soon, all the ingredients are in place, and after Zoe sets fire to the contents of the bowl (although no flames are visible), Madison tells her to breathe in the smoke, as she does as well. They both look a little sick, but nothing happens for a few seconds – until suddenly they both drop to their knees as they cover their ears and scream in pain. This seems like more than even Madison was bargaining for, but she recovers to take a knife and cut Zoe's hand as she announces that blood is their sacrament. She dips her finger in said blood and draws a pentagram on Kyle's chest (and the lighting is dim now, so forgive me if I miss a detail or two) as she alternates between Latin and English in invoking "Azazel, the Lord of the Underworld." She offers him their devotion "until death sanctifies this unholy union," and obviously Cordelia had no idea what she was talking about when she said such spells involved darkness.
Flashes of light and mini-thunderclaps seem to signal that something is happening as Madison, joined by Zoe, continues calling what sound like fairly demonic names, and then Madison finally cries, "Return to the mortal coil! Arise!" And then – nothing. Hilariously, Madison picks up Kyle's arm and lets it fall limp back on the table; Zoe wonders if she said the spell correctly, but Madison is like, I'm an actor – I know my lines. It's funny, but it'd be easier to take her seriously if we hadn't seen how terrible she is at hitting her marks; nevertheless, Zoe decides that they just must not be powerful enough. Not one to linger at the scene of a defeat, Madison makes for the door, but Zoe says she's just going to look around for her phone, so Madison tells her to hurry. When she's gone, Zoe approaches Kyle, while outside, Madison's just lighting a cigarette (can't blame her after the experience she just had, I guess) when a car appears behind her and she hops in her own ride with a "Tough luck, bitch." To be honest, I was surprised her gratitude went as far as it did.
Inside, Zoe apologizes to Kyle's head and a bunch of other people's body parts for everything, adding that she wishes she could have kept him out of her crazy life, and if you really think that maybe even attempting to Frankenstein's monster him wasn't the way to go? She leans in and plants one on him, whereupon we cut pointedly to Misty walking in the woods, so even now it's hard not to wonder if the kiss is going to be restorative. The morgue door then swings open, and Zoe takes cover before a youngish guy walks in. After trying the lights without success, he produces a flashlight and is rather freaked to see the grisly sight of Kyle And Friends on the table. He then hears a clanging noise, turns his light on Zoe, and asks what she's doing there – and then Kyle slowly sits up on the table behind him. Zoe's eyes go wide, and then Kyle starts beating the crap out of the guy, so Zoe rushes over to pull him off…oh no, I'm sorry. What actually happens is that she stands there for like five full seconds and lets Kyle hit him eight times before rushing over, and I like Taissa Farmiga a lot but I'm starting to wonder if Zoe really isn't all that bright? Regardless, when Kyle sees her, he stops what he's doing and stares.
Out in the sunlight, Misty arrives at the morgue. The filtering is weird – I can't tell if her vision is supposed to be somewhat distorted or if there's some weird light around her, but regardless, she sees the morgue guy's car in front of her. We then cut to a poor part of town, and we push in on the entrance to a hair salon that, once we get inside, we see is just a room or two in a house. Fiona is in the chair getting worked on by a woman of color, and when the woman pulls her hair, Fiona guesses she's not used to working on a white woman. If that sounds like good-humored deference that suggests Fiona is not a LaLaurie-level racist, hold that thought. The hairdresser snorts that they're not used to having a white woman in the neighborhood before telling Fiona she can't smoke in there, and I really do enjoy every single moment of this show but I really hope you'll forgive me for skipping just a few moments ahead to a woman appearing in the door – Marie Laveau. Again, you could have guessed; it only makes it more enjoyable, especially with her leopard-print dress, braided hair down past her ass, and her face that looks like not one day has passed since we saw her in the early 1800s. God, Angela Bassett is flawless. Marie kicks everyone out as she steps forward and puts a hand on the back of Fiona's chair: "I'll finish this one myself." I usually fast-forward through the commercials, but suddenly I feel like I should have popcorn on hand.
Back at the Academy, Nan is trying to read, but guttural noises on the soundtrack and the distracted looks she throws upstairs suggests that something is competing for her attention. She tells no one in particular to stop several times, and around the corner, Queenie hears her and asks if she's okay. Nan starts to march upstairs with a "Too. Much. Noise.", and she purposefully strides into Fiona's room and opens the (I think) walk-in closet, in which the re-gagged LaLaurie is sitting. Also, from Nan's POV, the image seems to be black-and-white, so that's another witch's vision that seems oddly distorted. I could be reading something into nothing, but we'll see, I suppose. Nan tells LaLaurie that she thinks too loudly – and to LaLaurie's disbelief, Nan unties her and tells her to get out. LaLaurie doesn't have to be asked twice, but now Queenie's at the door, and getting one whiff of LaLaurie, she puts her finger to her nose and asks who she is. LaLaurie doesn't even look at her as she snaps "Get out of my way, slave," which gets Queenie's back up – but not for long, as when she turns to Nan to ask who the "stinky old lady" is, LaLaurie brains her with a huge candlestick. It'd be hilarious if that ended up knocking LaLaurie out, but I'm guessing Queenie has to intend the harm. Hilariously, Nan doesn't react at all, even though I'm guessing LaLaurie is still thinking (and smelling) pretty loudly.
Back at the main event, Fiona asks some lightly probing questions, but Marie turns them around, noting how filthy rich Fiona must be – "woman like you wipes her ass with diamonds" – so she obviously didn't wander into her little place looking for hair extensions. Dropping any civility in her tone, Fiona notes how perceptive Marie is, and Marie matches her by saying Fiona knows exactly who she is and what she's capable of, "witch. I can smell the stink of it on you." Among the many enjoyable things in this scene is the way Marie keeps working on Fiona's hair through this speech; woman's a pro. Fiona does sunnily concede that she didn't expect Marie to like her, as their two kinds have been going after each other for centuries, "though it is kind of like a hammer going after a nail." Well, even a nail's got a sharp side, Fiona. Marie comes back that everything witches have comes from "us," but Fiona condescendingly breathes "Tituba. Voodoo slave girl who graced us with her black magic. She couldn't tell a love potion from a recipe for chocolate-chip cookies if she had to read it." Might as well vary the racism with class discrimination; you don't want your bigotry to get stale! Marie shoots back that white people made Tituba a slave, but before that she came from a great tribe – the Arawak. "She learned the secrets of the other side from a two-thousand-year-old line of shamans – necromancy. She gave it to your girls of Salem." I know, Marie, I read The Crucible! But given this conflict, I wonder what Fiona's feelings are about Queenie and whether that's going to cause a rift in the house soon.
For now, she is not about to concede that an illiterate (she does keep coming back to that point) voodoo slave girl gave her the Supreme crown; she also informs Marie that she's been to the tomb of Laveau and seen "the fat tourists drawing crosses on the bricks, making wishes to the bones of Marie Laveau." She laughs that all they really have to do to get their wishes granted is come down and get their hair braided, so Marie finally stops working and faces her from the front: "And what is your wish, witch?" Fiona doesn't mince words in saying she wants the secret of Marie's lasting youth, and Marie can't help but be amused: "The hammer wants the nail's magic!" Fiona laughs right along with her but says she has something Marie wants; Marie, however, replies that Fiona could offer her "a unicorn that shit hundred-dollar bills" and she still wouldn't give it to her. I mean, you say that, but you get in front of an actual unicorn with Ben Franklins flying out of his behind and I wonder how your principles might waver.
Marie calls for her men to get rid of Fiona, but with a look to her left Fiona causes several wigs (we were told earlier they're mostly human hair) to ignite, so Marie sends the boys to deal with that instead and tells Fiona to stop. Looks like they're both guilty of underestimating the other; I'd imagine that'll change on both sides. Fiona breezily says she doesn't like the hairdo, but she'll still be in touch. "Such a lovely place you have here. It's nice to see you doing so well after all these years. I mean, maybe in another century, you could have two shithole salons." Marie's face suggests she wishes she'd mixed minotaur piss in with the hairspray.
In a small greenhouse, Cordelia recites a Latin incantation before Hank's voice cuts in to ask if she thinks it's going to work, so apparently she's going to go through with the ritual that I'm guessing is the precursor to The Omen. After chiding him for scaring her, she asks him to give her twenty minutes, and he smiles, "Whatever it takes." I'd make a comment, but he does prove to mean that. When he's gone, she meaningfully kneels down and picks up what might be a harmless rock were it not so suspiciously egg-shaped, and then we cut to the bedroom. And look, there's a lot of jump-cutting so I'm not going to try to hit every blow; suffice it to say that there's Latin and candles and a circle of ash inside which the two of them kneel, she in a negligee and he buck naked, which I'll admit is how I like my TV sex scenes. Less appealing, however, is the fact that they both stab each other in the finger rather forcefully, and after more recitations that no longer sound like Latin, they basically stick their bloody fingers in each others' mouths before passionately getting down to business. As Cordelia gasps from, well, his entrance, the ring of ash ignites and the two eggs crack open, releasing several snakes that slither all over the couple. I have to guess that at the very least, they're not aware of them from the way they continue about their business, as I'm not particularly fearful of snakes and that still seems like a serious ardor dampener. And it's not even clear if any of it was real, as once they finish, the light returns to normal, with the circle and the eggs (there are now at least four of them) intact and the candles burning normally. We cut away without learning who's the first to ask "Was it unspeakably terrifying for you?"
Back at the morgue, Zoe is dragging Kyle out, and it's totally dark now, so she's apparently literally slow as well as figuratively. However, to be fair, Kyle isn't exactly the easiest to manage at the moment, convulsing with pain as he is, so it probably wasn't a quick errand to get him dressed in the other dude's clothes. Seeing the car, Zoe fishes out the keys from Kyle's pants pocket, and then we cut to them driving; I wouldn't be so bothered by how clear it is she has no destination in mind if it weren't for the fact that his extreme pain and incomprehension is making him a total transportation menace. I mean, I guess they had to get away from the dead/injured/naked guy, but she could have driven a safe distance and pulled over. And to add to the problem, Zoe tries to explain to Kyle that he died, which only upsets both of them further; he seems incapable of anything more than guttural grunting, and between that and his violent banging of all the surfaces around him, Zoe almost runs the car into the side of the bridge (?) they're crossing. She babbles some more about how she couldn't have forgiven herself if she didn't try to bring him back – and then Misty pops up from the back seat: "I forgive you." HA! Also should have seen that coming, but didn't. Awesome. Zoe almost crashes the car again, but an unperturbed Misty tells her Zoe drew her out there before ordering her to turn around and make a right. I'd wonder if Zoe were going to miss curfew if I thought Cordelia had recovered from her demon-sex ritual yet.
The sun's coming up over Misty's waterside shack as the strains of Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon" begin to play (the bit here about how Stevie Nicks prefaced live performances of the song is possibly significant); inside, Misty is applying to Kyle's wounds what looks like a thick green paste but what she says is "the shit, literally." Well, if he runs into LaLaurie, he won't be the worst-smelling person in the area. Misty goes on that the swamp's combination of Spanish moss and alligator dung has amazing healing properties. "Mother Nature has an answer to everything – healed me when I was burned alive." Yeah, we can put a pin in that but that is a story I would like to hear at some point. This pings even Zoe's fairly dim radar as she IDs Misty and tells her everyone thinks she's dead; she goes on that Misty has the power of resurgence, and Misty's never heard the term before but says she likes it. She smiles that they have so much to teach each other and that she always knew there must be other witches, but she had no idea how to find them – until today. Kyle, by the way, has calmed down from the car but still looks in a pretty bad way, but Misty stops administering to him as she tells Zoe that she was meditating in the woods when her heart started racing and her teeth started vibrating; something was summoning her, and that something turned out to be Zoe. I wonder what it was about the kiss that called Misty and what exactly happened – it doesn't seem likely that the kiss was a listed ingredient of the spell, yet nor does it seem like the spell worked until that moment, so did her wish to resurrect Kit tap into Misty's power of resurgence somehow?
Misty sits on the bed and smiles that she's not alone before starting to sing along with the song, and Zoe has had a baseline level of looking freaked out this whole scene that's amped up when Misty dreamily sings the "Who will be her lover" part. She asks who sings this – NOT GREAT, ZOE – and when Misty talks about how Stevie is her hero, Zoe is like, "Stevie Nicks from American Idol?" I really hope it pained Taissa Farmiga to utter that line. Misty informs Zoe that Stevie is the White Witch; she sits her on the bed and leans in close as she goes on that this song was her anthem. "Doesn't it just…penetrate your soul, and tell the truth about everything you ever felt your whole life?" I mean, she's making a play here, but I don't have a problem with it; I'm mildly interested myself. Zoe smiles and seems to mean it as she says she does feel the song, but she then stands and says she should go, and Misty sharply, although I wouldn't say menacingly, asks what she means. Zoe tells her the school will be wondering where she is, but she needs to figure out where to take Kyle, so Misty tells her to leave him and she'll continue to heal him. Kyle whimpers as he pulls Zoe to him, which is understandable given that he's about to be left alone with a powerful witch who seems to have a thing for his girlfriend. Also, I'm assuming it's traumatic shock that's keeping Kyle from talking; I hope his original tongue stayed intact even if the rest of him was sewn together. Misty is like, so you will come back, right, and Zoe looks a bit fearful but not nearly as much as Kyle And Friends. I do wonder what Misty, champion of nature she is, thinks of Kyle being cobbled together like this, but I suppose they'll have some time together to discuss the point.
Back at Marie's, she admonishes one of her employees to clean her workstation before withdrawing into a secluded part of the house, whereupon she tells an unseen someone he'll never believe who's back. Okay, you and I know it's the minotaur, and he shuffles out of the shadows, whereupon Marie unshackles his legs and tells him they have some business to attend to. Two things: One, obviously she's figured out that LaLaurie is back, as there's presumably no one else who would have turned Fiona on to Marie's ability to deal out immortality. And two, speaking of LaLaurie, we still don't know exactly how Bastien went from wearing a bull head to becoming an actual minotaur, right? Just another entry to the list of questions I'm sure I'm going to somewhat regret asking.
In the early-morning light, Fiona walks down a street in the French Quarter until she comes across LaLaurie, sitting on a bench and looking defeated as she plaintively notes the names of the streets are the same. Fiona, smoking as ever, takes a seat beside her and tells her she's lucky she didn't get run over, but LaLaurie reminds her she doesn't have to worry about that before complaining that her home's been defaced with a plaque deeming her house a historical site. "My home, a museum of horrors." Well, I'm no preservationist, but I saw that attic and I'd be hard pressed to come up with a better description. Fiona conversationally points out that people have always celebrated the macabre: "You're not remembered fondly, but I guess that beats not being remembered at all." LaLaurie tries to justify her atrocities by saying she was a woman of her time, but Fiona tells her that's "a crock of shit" – LaLaurie has a mean streak wider than her ass, or possibly she has a mental disorder. "Either way, if ten of the hundreds of things I have read about you are true, then you deserved every minute down there under all that dirt." It's so much more effective a speech coming from someone else on the evil side of the spectrum.
LaLaurie doesn't argue with Fiona but does tell her how her children were hung right from the house, and you'd better believe this show takes that as an invitation to flash back to that grisly tableau again, although it does refrain from any close-ups this time. She adds that her husband was killed too, but she didn't care about him – "I was plannin' on killin' him for weeks." Ha! Although if that's the case, I wonder what the appeal of the love potion was for her. Fiona's like, I'll conjure a violin to play Hearts and Flowers, so moved am I, but LaLaurie tells her she doesn't care what anyone thinks – she loved her girls in her own way, "even the ugly one." Hee. She adds that said ugly one was a shame to her – "she had the face of a damned hippo" – but she still loved her. She then breathes that hell is real; time disappeared for her in that box, and the only thing left was what was in her mind's eye. "And all mine saw were the faces of my girls." It doesn't sound like she reflected on her victims any, but the little run-in she had with Queenie kind of made that clear already.
Fiona, who's been paying close attention to this part of the speech, cryptically offers that maybe death is better – there, you can't disappoint the ones you love. I don't think she's planning to die any time soon, so I'll be interested to know what specifically prompted her to say that. LaLaurie looks at Fiona and inquires if she's a witch, and when Fiona wonders why she's asking, LaLaurie says she was hoping she was: "Maybe you'd know how to kill me." Fiona chuckles and says she may kill her, but not today, and if LaLaurie runs away again, she'll be back in the box in two seconds flat. LaLaurie deferentially agrees, so Fiona suggests they go home. As a saxophone cuts through the morning, LaLaurie starts to step into the street, but Fiona pulls her back out of the path of an approaching police car; an overhead shot shows them heading down the street, and if FX sees fit to put an extended version of them sashaying into the morning, Fiona in her black skirt and LaLaurie still in that period costume, I can guarantee it'll get at least a few hits. Joe R is back week; thanks for reading!
John Ramos is a writer and film producer living in Los Angeles. His new film, a documentary on online privacy and the exploitation of personal data called Terms And Conditions May Apply, a New York Times Critics' Pick, is now on iTunes here. You can get news on it from the film's Twitter accountor website, or check out trackoff.us to learn how to protect your privacy. Also, you can email John at couchbaron@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/couchbaron, or check out his blog, "Pull Up A Chair," which he'd just love for you to stop by.