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Queenie's got her big trial for the Seven Wonders coming up on Saturday, because why not? Instead of cramming, however, she spends her time trying to find out what happened to Marie. When she does so -- with an assist from Papa Legba (who first visits her in her own personal Hell and then shows her some footage of Delphine dismembering Marie in Cordelia's greenhouse) -- she sets out to kill Delphine, who is now a tour guide in the museum that used to be her house, busily whitewashing her own history. Before striking the blow, Queenie offers Delphine a chance for redemption, which Delphine mockingly spurns… earning her a stab in the heart in her own attic.
Cordelia manages to have a tender moment with Fiona, who is feeling maudlin in her final weeks. That is, until Fiona touches her and Cordelia receives a vision of the academy littered with corpses -- including her own -- with Fiona the last woman standing. Looks like the re-blinding worked after all. So Cordelia pays a visit to the Axeman to inform him that Fiona is going to ditch him too after she kills gets her power back by wiping out the coven. After that, Cordelia's move is to go back to rooting through Misty's stuff in order to supernaturally triangulate her whereabouts. Cordelia succeeds, but when she takes Queenie to the cemetery in the dead of night it's the latter who magically exhumes Misty and resurgences her back to life.
Also back? Zoe and Kyle, after Kyle killed a drifter in Florida and Zoe brought him back, which of course makes Zoe think she's the Supreme… because she's the only one who hasn't yet. When Misty returns to the Academy and commences kicking the crap out of Madison in front of the rest of the coven, the fight is interrupted by the Axeman, who makes an abortive attempt to kill them all. Just like he killed Fiona, after finding a single plane ticket in her purse and hearing that indeed, Fiona 2.0 would not feature Axeman compatibility. Cordelia sees it all in a vision, which means so do we and then the surviving members of the coven kill the hell out of the Axeman.
Meanwhile, in Hell, Papa Legba has Marie in breach of contract, given how she's in pieces all over the city and will no longer be able to keep up with her payment. With Marie mortal, so is Delphine. And thus Marie will spend all of eternity being forced to torture Delphine and her daughters. Yes, I just started a paragraph with the words "Meanwhile, in Hell," but the point is that all three former queen bees appear to be out of the picture for the duration.
So finally, there's nothing left to resolve but the identity of the Supreme, which will supposedly be determined week. Given all the new power manifestations we've been seeing lately, it's anyone's game. But it'll doubtless be the last person we expect, so… congratulations, Myrtle?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Am I the only one who still isn't used to the F/X announcer saying the show is only rated "TV-MA LV" instead of "TV-MA LSV?" I was starting to think those seven letters were the show's code name.
This week's historical-context-providing flashback returns us to both Salem and the silent film era at the same time, somehow. To clarify -- because I think we can all agree that such an opener calls for clarification -- we appear to be watching a grainy, black-and-white movie of colonial-style witches entering a half-constructed barn, over a piano track that sounds like it's coming out of a Victrola. It looks like an educational or magical-hygiene film from the 1910s or something. The first idiosyncratically-punctuated titles read, "Guided by ancient tradition witches survive only if united under a strong, singular authority. Every generation needs its leader The Supreme. No simple test could Ever determine the sovereign among us. We rely upon seven. The Seven Wonders." Aaand, [sic]. Inside the barn, one of the young witches is concentrating as the titles repeat, "The 'Seven Wonders'. Seven acts of magic so advanced, each pushes the boundaries of craft into art." Yes, we've heard.
The young Supreme candidate from the supposed past summons a machete flying from the wall into her hand as the titles tell us the first wonder: Telekinesis. The second wonder, according to the titles, is "Control of the mind, also known as…Concilium." Which is illustrated by the young witch making one of her fellows Prancercise around the barn. Then there's Transmutation, in which she disappears from one spot in the barn in a puff of smoke and reappears behind another witch, employing all the bleeding-edge special effects technology of the early twentieth century. For Divination, she accurately sketches a picture of a bird that another witch is holding behind her back. It would suck if you could do Divination but couldn't draw. Vitalum Vitalis is supposedly "The balancing of scales between one life force and another," and is demonstrated by the young Supreme candidate breathing on another witch's face to make her look younger, only to discover her own hands suddenly ravaged by age. That looks dead useful.
Decensum is defined as "…A perilous descent into the nether worlds of afterlife," which the Mack Sennett-level movie magic depicts in the form of a secondary image of the witch briefly rising above her body and returning, whereupon she collapses. Finally there is Pyrokinesis, which, like telekinesis, supposedly didn't need to be defined because everyone knew what it meant a hundred years ago. As the young witch slashes open her palm with a kitchen knife, we can hear Fiona's voice saying, "The highest honor comes at the greatest price. Death is not uncommon and danger inescapable." The young witch drips the blood from her hand into a candle flame, and like your parents always warned you would happen if you squirted lighter fluid onto an open flame, she goes up herself like a Roman candle. Or at least as convincingly as can be suggested by simply superimposing film of a fire over the film of the witch. "Attempting the Seven Wonders can get you killed," Fiona says unnecessarily. Then we're in the kitchen at Miss Robichaux's, as the light comes up theatrically on Fiona's face as she sits across the table from one of her own potential replacements. "But perform them, and you are the Supreme." That's exactly what Diana Ross told Mary Wilson.
Queenie just laughs in Fiona's face, because she doesn't need Divination to know what Fiona's up to: "You want us to perform the Seven Wonders so that you can find the Supreme and then kill her." Fiona laughs right back and confesses that she's just tired. Skeptically, Queenie asks where Marie Laveau is, because she's concerned about the disappearance of the only other black witch in the house. Fiona scoffs that "she's probably off in some unholy nether realm, cavorting with that half-baked Beetlejuice, Papa Lega-boo-boo. Whatever the hell his name is." Queenie angrily corrects her on Legba's name and snaps at Fiona to show the deity some respect. Fiona suddenly gets a lot less tired, and with a sharp look across the table, she's suddenly got Queenie transfixed in a Force-choke. Which is Fiona's way of demanding respect for herself, for as long as she's the Supreme. And with that, Fiona releases her, tells her to rest up and take her vitamins, and informs her that she'll perform the Seven Wonders on Saturday morning. "Or you will die trying." We're into the creepy-ass credits before Queenie asks what the third option is.
Cordelia, who so effectively re-blinded herself last week, comes stumping into Madison's cavernous bedroom looking (heh) for help in finding Misty. Madison sympathetically observes that Cordelia looks like shit, which she does; who knew that puncturing one's eyeballs with pruning shears would turn them into livid Gobstoppers? Cordelia has just come from a stuff-groping session in Misty's room, touching everything she could get her hands on, but had no luck picking up any kind of clue to Misty's whereabouts. Cordelia is worried that her Sight hasn't come back despite her pulling an Oedipus last week, but when she reaches out a hand to touch Madison, it's Madison who suddenly looks worried. At least until she teleports across the room, and acts all gee-whiz about how she just did a Transmutation. Cordelia reminds her, "You can manifest multiple powers without being the Supreme." I think we've figured that out by now, given how we've seen all of Miss Robichaux's students proving to be inexplicably versatile in the Dark Arts as of late. "Our powers always spike in times of crisis," Cordelia adds. "This is one of those times." Convenient, that.
By now she has tap-tapped over to Madison's new location, but Madison just warps out of reach again, mocking, "Tell the truth, Cordy, are you into girls now?" Cordelia reminds the viewers that she saw things the last time she touched Madison, and wonders what Madison is afraid Cordelia might see now. Something like the flashback of Madison clobbering Misty with a brick at the graveyard and tipping her into a coffin, maybe? Madison tries to bluff it out, claiming she doesn't have any secrets. So there's nothing for it but to submit to Cordelia's groping, though not without some attitude. Not that Madison ever does anything without some attitude. Cordelia gets pretty handsy, but there's nothing, all the way up to the moment when Madison jerks away angrily. Too bad Cordelia's supernatural Wi-Fi isn't up and running again yet.
Queenie's search for Marie has taken her to Cordelia's greenhouse, where, like Nan used to, she (and thus we) can clairvoyantly hear Marie's angry voice. Queenie seems to be able to trace Marie's rantings to a huge puddle of blood on Cordelia's workbench. Not to give anything away, but way to clean up the scene of your crime, Delphine.
Up in her room, Queenie flips through a grimoire whose basic but creepy illustrations include a few of a figure that's clearly recognizable as that Papa Legba, She then closes the book and stretches out on her bed with her eyes closed and her hands crossed over her chest. She murmurs a Latin incantation, then opens her eyes to see a reflection of herself floating directly above, staring right back down at her. Rather than taking advantage of this opportunity to indulge in a bit of literal self-love, Queenie utters the word "Descensum." You'll recall that word as one of the Seven Wonders from tonight's keynote presentation, the one that entails descending to the underworld. And the thing she knows she's in…
The kitchen at Chubbie's, the chicken place she used to work at. She's back in her old uniform, standing over a table of fried chicken, and wondering what the hell she's doing here. Asked to staff the counter, she steps up, glancing out the windows to see creepily motionless patrons in a line that wraps around the building. And at the very head of the line, right in Queenie's face? Papa Legba. "What the hell?" demands a stunned Queenie. "You live in a chicken shack?" Agreed, that does seem more like Santeria than Voudun. Papa Legba patiently explains that this isn't the Hell, but Queenie's Hell, given that working here was the worst time of her life. "Waiting on people who treated you like the piece of trash you thought you were." I have to say, I love Lance Reddick's French-Caribbean accent in this role. He should get an Emmy just for the way he pronounces his R's. Queenie asks him about Marie Laveau. "She ain't here," Legba says. "There's this thing about being immortal. Your Hell's on earth."
Just then an impatient customer unwisely yells at Legba for taking too long at the register. "Don't make me put you in the fryer," Legba snaps at him, and drops his voice to a sepulchral boom as he adds, "Now go to the back of the line!" He's also made his point to Queenie that everyone pays in the end. He does admit to being impressed with Queenie's ability to come visit him here, adding that most people would be afraid they couldn't get back. He starts to leave, without even ordering, and Queenie shouts, "Wait, I'm not done with you," rather disrespectfully if you ask me. In response, Legba warns her that she needs to get back before sunup unless she wants to stay there forever. Time moves differently in Hell, it seems. The fact that it goes faster there seems like it would be kind of a perk, actually. Eternity would just end that much sooner, right? Queenie turns her back on her customer, and wakes up on her bed, in a room that is now filled with not only the darkness of night but also ankle-deep stage fog. And she's not alone; Legba's making use of his coke-fingernail. Queenie thinks she's in a position to demand some answers now that she's proven her power. As for me, I don't think I'd talk that way to a human who was making use of a coke-fingernail.
And cut to a flashback of Delphine, hacking a screaming and spectacularly pissed-off Marie Laveau to pieces in Cordelia's greenhouse. Which is apparently soundproofed, given the level of racket Marie is kicking up without anyone outside noticing. Delphine is kind enough to give Marie credit for the idea of cutting her up like Marie said she'd do to Delphine, just before slicing into Marie's neck. So maybe these two can patch things up after all.
Back to Queenie and Legba, now drinking cocoa in the kitchen. Queenie wants to know how to kill Delphine, but Legba, asking for more marshmallows, says as long as Marie lives, so does Delphine. "Then you need to take Marie out of the equation for me," Queenie says. Wait, what? Why? Legba says he can't do that, since he and Marie have a deal. But then Queenie points out that Marie's end of the deal is to perform an annual service for Legba, which she's obviously in no condition to do, currently being scattered all over the city. "Technically, you should say she's already in breach, right?" Legba admits that Queenie is pretty crafty. Is "crafty" really the word? I mean, maybe Queenie's motivation here is to avenge Marie, but I'm sure that all things being equal, Marie would probably prefer to be reassembled than "taken out of the equation."
Across town, the LaLaurie house is still a museum, and Delphine's portrait still hangs on the wall, but now there's a new tour guide, who's got a whole new spiel all about how damn wonderful Madame really was. That's because the new guide is Delphine herself, all made over for the 21st century. For once, Kathy Bates looks like she does on the other two shows I've recapped her on. One of the current group of visitors points out that the brochure describes Madame LaLaurie as a serial killer. "That's a misprint," Delphine snaps. Heh. Another guest asks when they get to see the torture chamber in the attic, which Delphine smoothly says is closed for renovations. "And there is no torture chamber. The attic was used for storage. And occasionally for the firm but humane correction of Madame LaLaurie's domestics." She mounts another impassioned defense of… herself, and leads the guests to the room, while the camera zooms out the window. Where Queenie is apparently on her way to balance an equation or two.
After the ads, Delphine shows the disappointed visitors out, once again having her house to herself. Or so she thinks, until she finds Queenie lounging on one of the "antique" couches behind the velvet rope. Queenie remarks on how Delphine has been making over history as well as herself, but Delphine claims she's setting the record straight. "This historical site was nothing but a house of lies before I came back," she says piously. At least a house of lies is easy to flip.
With that, we flash back to the original tour guide, giving the old speech in the living room about how Delphine was right up there with Jack the Ripper, Ed Gein, and Jeffrey Dahmer. Looking up at Delphine's dire portrait on the wall, one guest turns to the woman to her to whisper, "She even looks like a monster." The woman she's speaking to is of course Delphine herself, wearing sunglasses and a headscarf inside the house so that nobody will recognize her from her portrait (little danger of that, sorry to say, prop department). Up in the attic, the guide informs the guests that Delphine supposedly murdered upwards of 150 slaves, often while there were parties going on right downstairs. Delphine quietly scoffs to another visitor that nobody would miss a party for that. "It beggars belief."
After the guide sees this group of visitors out downstairs, she turns and finds Delphine still standing in the front room, innocently claiming that she forgot her pocketbook upstairs. This is an obvious ruse to get the guide back up into the attic, and I have to say that the New Orleans Historical Society was greatly remiss in failing to warn its employees of the danger of their subjects coming back to life with murderous intent. That's the only explanation for how the guide agrees to go up with Delphine and have a look. Once there, Delphine drops her cover and says there weren't 150 slaves killed up here. "It was 62. I kept a ledger." The real guide is pretty slow on the uptake, as Delphine removes her disguise and asks for her money back over all the inaccuracies. Except that what bothers the guide most is how Delphine is stroking an animal claw hanging from a support pillar, so she asks her to leave for touching the display items. "My own house?" Delphine asks in mock-offense, taking a hammer down off the same column and thunking the sharp end of it into the tour guide's forehead. The blood spatters Delphine's face, but she's only too happy to lick some it off. As you do.
Back in the present but still in the attic, Delphine is perched on the small cage where she apparently stashed the guide, who is still alive but barely. Queenie urges Delphine to let the woman go. She's offering Delphine a second chance, saying she'll take her to the local Urban League office to try to make it up in some small part to "the descendants of the people you brutalized." I'm sure Marie Laveau would appreciate that. Delphine laughs openly at Queenie and her offer of redemption, because she knows all about what that means in this century, from seeing it on "the magic box." Cut to a montage of Delphine in her room at the academy, contemptuously watching TV news stories about the likes of Paula Deen, Anthony Weiner, and Eliot Spitzer, and how it's all crap. Who hooked up Delphine with the 24-hour Public Humiliation channel in the first place, is what I'd like to know. "You think a man jack among them was well and truly sorry?" she asks Queenie. "Not a one. Sorry they got caught is all." Delphine insists she's not sorry, and when Queenie reminds her how she was getting through to her, Delphine admits that Queenie did make her cry -- but for the state of the country. "To tell a colored man that he can be equal to a white man? There's the real cruelty." And she's saying this the week of MLK Day, too. Queenie's had enough, and sinks a handy knife deep into Delphine's chest. Delphine goes bug-eyed in shock and pain, telling Queenie that she's immortal. "Wrong," Queenie says coldly. Delphine whines, "I don't want to die!" Which isn't actually a surprise; as much as Delphine used to bitch about being trapped on this mortal plane during quiet moments, she had a pretty well-developed sense of self-preservation when shit started going down. Which it now has, for her, for the last time. Queenie responds, "Tough shit. Who does?" Pulling the knife out, she lets Delphine flop on her back onto the cage. Moments later, Delphine's face is covered with the thick, blackish blood geysering out of her chest. So much for that makeover.
In a rather more elegant setting, Fiona is sitting for her portrait in the parlor at Miss Robichaux's. She points out the spot on the wall where she wants it hung, a large, empty space that has absolutely no reason to have been blank all these years. Myrtle goes on about how wonderful the artist is, though it's obvious from his style that he's the same painter who did Delphine's portrait 180 years ago (sorry again, prop department). Suddenly Fiona's nose starts bleeding. A real artist would add the blood to his palette, but this one just lets Fiona wipe it away with a tissue. As she does so, she catches a reflection of herself in a lamp and bemoans the condition of her face as it's being immortalized, and her mental prediction that she's got less than two weeks left on earth. "So what the hell am I doing here?" Stroking your vanity? Is that so out of character?
Up in her room, Fiona is looking though her jewelry box when Cordelia stomps in all in a snit about Queenie being on the Seven Wonders schedule. Fiona's not in the mood for a fight, especially when she gets a load of Cordelia's volcanic-looking eye-holes. "Did you really think self-mutilation would restore your power?" she asks. "Right up until I tried it," Cordelia says unrepentantly. Fiona says Cordelia will never lose her power, it being inside her and completely separate from Fiona, as much as Fiona might want to take credit for it. Cordelia softens at this uncharacteristic modesty (again), so Fiona offers her a valuable jeweled necklace that belonged to her mother. Cordelia remembers it, and realizes Fiona is saying goodbye. Fiona goes around behind Cordelia to put it around her neck, and unfortunately for Fiona, this is the moment Cordelia's Sight chooses to come back.
And here's what Cordelia Sees. She's suddenly on the balcony overlooking the main hall of the darkened academy, looking down at the body of Madison, who has been recently re-killed with her head sticking through the broken railing and a puddle of her blood on the main floor far below. Further down the stairs, Zoe has been nailed high on the wall with a rail post that protrudes from her chest. In the parlor, Misty's body lies facedown and bleeding on the piano, while the late Queenie sprawls nearby with another post jammed down her dead throat. In the final puddle of blood lies Cordelia herself, her ruined eyes still wide open and pointed at the ceiling. A gloved hand reaches down to retrieve the necklace still around her neck-- the hand belonging to Fiona, who is obviously the one who mowed down the entire coven. Even worse, she removes the necklace with a sharp tug, because people are so damn careless about necklace clasps on TV. Cordelia says none of this to Fiona after the vision ends, and claims to be fine. She's just wondering what became of the ring that goes with the necklace. I think a more relevant question would be where she might go in case she ever needs to have that clasp repaired.
But it was just a ruse to get rid of Fiona so she can go see the Axeman, who doesn't appreciate Cordelia's magical mode of entry. "Just because you witches can open the locks with your hocus-pocus," he says, "it doesn't make it polite. A man shouldn't be disturbed when he's playing with his instrument." I am greatly relieved to be able to tell you that the instrument in question is his saxophone. They waste little time with introductions; "We spent quite an evening together," he whispers. As he sets his sax down on the bed, Cordelia warns him, from experience, about how dangerous it is to love Fiona. "She can't love anyone but herself," she says. And she's not always such great shakes at that, either. The Axeman tries to play the understanding stepdad, but Cordelia isn't interested, saying that she's Seen everything and that Fiona is going to kill them all, "and leave you behind, too." We zoom in close on one of the Axeman's eyes, and then we're in a blue-tinged, noirish version of a vision showing bits of a scene between himself and Fiona. She has him unzip her dress, and he grins at her about drinking gin rickeys on the porch, and he discovers a boarding pass in her purse, and Fiona looks at him over her shoulder as Cordelia's voice tells the Axeman that Fiona's full of shit, even as the vision of Fiona leaves the vision of the Axeman's apartment.
Back in the real apartment, Cordelia tells the Axeman about how Fiona uses people, including him. He's trying to play it off, but Cordelia says the flight leaves in two days, and figures -- correctly -- that the Axeman doesn't have a passport ready. Not that we ever got an explanation on how a dead guy got an apartment lease, either. Cordelia warns him, "She's going to regain her power and when she does, she's not going to waste her time on some halfway decent musician in a twelve-dollar suit." Whoa, that's quite a revelation. Where can I get that suit for twelve dollars? Oh, right, in 1919. As he sits pouting in his chair, Cordelia crouches down in front of him, pressing, "You feel that? That empty, heartbroken feeling? That's what it feels like to get close to Fiona." You can always tell Cordelia's pissed when she uses Fiona's first name.
With that accomplished, Cordelia returns to Miss Robichaux's to spend a productive evening rooting through Misty's things some more, hoping to pick up her psychic spoor. This time, though she has better luck, getting a weak signal of Misty quietly singing "Landslide" to herself from inside the coffin where Madison dumped her. Probably hoping for a stronger fix, Cordelia stabs herself in the finger with Misty's pin. The direct contact between the artifact and her bloodstream apparently works like an Ethernet cable, because Cordelia is immediately treated to a vision of the sign identifying Deville #1 Cemetery. Triangulation complete!
Cut to the outside of the tomb, where Queenie asks Cordelia how they're going to get Misty out. "With a jackhammer if we have to," Cordelia answers. But it was just a rhetorical device to indicate her determination, because she stops Queenie from going to get a maintenance guy and reminds her of who she is. "When the rest of the world sees a wall, we see a window." Queenie stretches out a doubtful hand like Luke Skywalker trying to lift his X-wing out of the Dagobah swamps, and the brick facing on the above-ground tomb starts to crumble. Queenie makes a yanking motion, shattering the bricks and dragging the casket clear out of the mausoleum to land on the ground at their feet. She swings open the lid that Madison never even bothered to screw shut, and after seeing that Misty isn't breathing, she bends over her to perform Vitalum Vitalus. And after a long pause, Misty sits up gasping for air and probably wondering why we're not calling it Resurgence any more.
At Miss Robichaux's, Myrtle warns Madison about the deadly nightshade in a bouquet she's arranging. "I wouldn't sniff around unless you're looking for a bout of delirium." "Sounds like every Saturday night since I was fifteen," Madison says, and wonders aloud where everyone is. Myrtle says that Cordelia has regained her Sight and has gone on a little Misty-run with Queenie. "Apparently the poor girl has been entombed. Who would have been cruel enough to commit such an atrocity?" Myrtle wonders aloud with no curiosity whatsoever. Madison plays dumb, and for a movie star, she's a terrible actress. She claims to be worried they won't reach her in time; "I heard people die after three days without water." Well, right on cue, the door opens and in walks…Zoe and Kyle, actually. Myrtle quietly hopes this is an hallucination from her flowers. She thinks that instead of whiling away her days with her true love like she was supposed to, Zoe has forsaken her destiny, "like Halston when he sold his brand to J.C. Penney." Zoe insists that she embraced it. So does that mean it's dead now?
No, actually we move on to a flashback of her and Kyle in a suspiciously arboreal area of what is supposed to be Florida. "What better than the Sunshine State to cast the darkness out of her lives?" she narrates. Good thing we only hear her say that in voice-over, because nobody could deliver such a terrible line with a straight face. We see that they were sharing a little picnic under a tree, until a homeless guy came up and yelled at them to get out of his spot. Zoe got up, saying she was leaving, only to be told by the man, "You, don't talk to me! Don't talk to me!" Kyle, being far too much of a gentleman to allow this rudeness to his lady love go unanswered, chivalrously clubbed the man to the ground and broke his neck. In the present, Madison snarks at Zoe, "What a surprise. Your pit bull mauled somebody. Is that why you came back? Because you can't handle him?" Back to the flashback, in which Zoe also used Vitalum Vitalis, but to bring Kyle's fresh victim back to life. "I came back because I'm clearly the Supreme," she declares. Oh, Zoe. I thought you of all people were immune to these endemic delusions of Supremacy. So disappointing. You know, bear with me here, but this season is a lot like Big Brother. You've got all these crazy people from all over the country stuck in a house together, each of them thinking they have a chance to be the big winner at the end. Alliances and objectives keep shifting inexplicably, as do the rules. And everyone wants to be Head of Household. The only difference is that evicted houseguests on Big Brother don't come back quite so often.
Speaking of which, now is when Misty returns, in the highest of high dudgeon, with Queenie and Cordelia in her wake. She stalks right up to Madison and commences to smack the shit out of her. "You thought I was some swamp rat you could leave behind to die?" she accuses. Madison: "Um, yes?" Myrtle mildly tells them to knock it off, and turns to Cordelia to intervene. "I'm good," Cordelia responds, as the fight between Misty and Madison escalates. Actually it's less of a fight and more of a beating, which Misty administers without even bothering to use magic. "This is awesome!" Queenie says as the rest of them follow the fight into the front room. Zoe disagrees and yells at them to stop. The fight soon goes out of Madison, probably as a direct result of Misty hurling her sideways against a support column, but Misty isn't about to let her get away.
Just when it looks like Misty is about to choke Madison out, Kyle intervenes, trying to get between them. But before that can play out, another character makes a surprise entrance: the Axeman, spattered with blood and wielding his other instrument (his namesake, that is), bellowing, "You! You must pay for what you've done!" They all turn to face him as he charges at them, and Madison recovers enough to say, "Wow, did you walk into the wrong house." As one, Misty, Zoe, Cordelia, Queenie, and Madison (Myrtle's around the corner of the hallway) raise their hands like Iron Man, with a similar effect; the Axeman goes flying backwards to crash helplessly into the grand staircase. "Who the hell is this guy?" Queenie demands. Cordelia has already recognized the voice of the Axeman, even though this is the first time she or indeed anyone has heard it raised above a whisper. Myrtle notices the blood that he left spattered on the floor, which Misty says isn't the Axeman's. "Then whose?" Myrtle wonders. Cordelia crouches to touch the spots, and gets a flash of Fiona's blood-spattered face hissing into the camera, "How could you do this to me?" Cordelia slumps to one side in shock and says, "This blood is my mother's." Notice how she didn't say Fiona's name that time? Aw, sucks for Cordelia that her plan worked exactly as expected.
Another flashback, because why not? The Axeman is still sitting and pouting where Cordelia left him earlier, when he hears his door open again. Rising and going to the mantel so his back is to Fiona when she enters, he suffers her to come right up behind him while she remarks on how quiet it is. "I don't remember the last time I was here when there wasn't music playing." Or jazz, as the case may be. Without turning to look at her, he wonders if she packed her waders, in case he wants to take her fishing. "For catfish." He goes on about the right way to fry them, until she breaks the news that she isn't a fan. "I loathe all bottom-feeders," she says symbolically. The Axeman turns around and offers to go boar-hunting instead, "while you're sitting on the porch drinking gin rickeys," he grins, just like in Cordelia's vision. Fiona laughs and asks him to unzip her dress, which he does, then zips her right back up, telling her that Cordelia stopped by earlier. "Please tell me she's in the bathtub," Fiona sighs wearily (and hilariously) before crossing into the kitchen with her back to him.
Meanwhile, the Axeman fills time by speculating that Cordelia was trying to upset him, even as he reaches into the purse Fiona left on his bed, where he immediately finds the boarding pass. One would expect someone like Fiona to have it in one of those fancy little folders, but no; she printed it off a color Inkjet or something, on regular typing paper, like a normal person. Oddly prosaic of her. But this does mean she was able to check in online and print her boarding pass more than 24 hours before her flight's departure time, which totally qualifies as an Eighth Wonder if you ask me. The Axeman is less impressed, and he huffs woundedly, "We had a deal." Fiona mockingly asks if Cordelia convinced him otherwise, then turns around to see the pass in his hand, which tells her the jig is up. She has the grace to look briefly embarrassed before coming to reclaim the printout and her purse with a kiss on the Axeman's forehead, wondering, "Why do they always insist on putting me in seat 1A?" That's another power I wouldn't mind having. She claims she was going to tell him, and throws him a bone. "You have been the most delightful distraction. A life preserver. But I'm gonna be on dry land soon." Which is more or less what Cordelia told him, too.
The Axeman asks her to pretend and humor him for a bit, and she admits, "I guess I loved you. Although I really don't know anything about love, if I'm gonna be honest." By now she's right up in his face, breathing into his lips about how he was the best lover she ever had. But on the other hand, as she bounces back away from him, she'll have 30 years of vitality from the time the Supreme is dead until the one comes along. "And the doors of every palace are going to open for me," she says. She's oblivious to how the Axeman is now slowly stalking her from behind, until he actually grabs her by the back of her hair. Which picks this, of all moments, to stop falling out in handfuls. He drags her back to the bed, yelling that they love each other. She struggles as he throws her down on the bed (luckily the sax isn't on it any more) and climbs on top of her to try to remind her of how he made her feel. Not like this, I hope. He kisses her until she forcefully kicks him off and gets up. She goes back to the kitchen while he goes on about her crime and betrayal of love. You'd think she'd know better than to turn her back on him a third time, since the first two times haven't worked out at all for her on this visit, but she does so anyway. And she's just starting to illustrate her indifference to and failures in love by beginning a story about a cat she had when she was eight, when the Axeman buries his hatchet in her back. Repeated blows drive her bleeding to the floor, so I guess we're not going to hear the end of that story. I feel bad for the cat anyway, though.
Back in the present evening, Cordelia has just finished watching this vision and backs away from the still-dazed Axeman. It's official: Fiona is dead. "Does anyone feel any different?" Madison asks excitedly. Myrtle wonders where Fiona's body is, and Cordelia quickly answers, "In the swamps. He fed her to the alligators." Misty figures that's it. "Even I can't bring somebody back once they're gator-shit," she says. Wow, so it turns out there are limits to what can be undone this season? I've been mentally referring to these witches as The Coven of CTRL-Z for months now. Anyway, Queenie asks who's going to kill the Axeman now. "Oh, bloody blood blood all day in this place," Myrtle says. "Is that really necessary?" Grabbing the axe before the Axeman can sneakily pick it up again, Madison says, "Yeah. He's a psycho mass murderer." Myrtle reasonably points out, "Is there anyone here of whom that cannot be said?" Nobody has an answer to that, even though I don't remember Cordelia having killed that many people, so she goes on: "This poor troubled soul has saved this coven by doing away with Fiona. And as Cervantes once said, 'Where there is music there can be no evil.'" But what about jazz? Kyle says, "Cervantes never met this asshole," and starts dragging the Axeman away by the scruff of his neck to do his grim duty as the coven's guard dog. But Madison, who after all is the one holding the axe, steps up to do it herself. And with a mighty southpaw swing for the bleachers, she buries the blade in the Axeman's side, sending him slipping in his own gore as Kyle sprawls clear. Misty tells Kyle, "We really don't need a man to protect us," as she and Queenie and Zoe telekinetically collect knives from the magnetic rack on the kitchen wall. And with that, all four potential Supremes cluster around the fallen Axeman, hacking and stabbing until their faces are covered with his blood, while Cordelia and Myrtle hold each other in the hallway. Once again, the Axeman meets his violent end inside Miss Robichaux's. Let's hope that this time it takes.
Also having a bad evening? Delphine, still in the attic where we last saw her, but back in period costume and being dragged to an iron cage by two slaves she mutilated herself. What manner of flashback is this? The slaves lock her inside, near but just out of reach of another cage occupied by her daughter Borquita. In fact, I think it's the same cage where Delphine had imprisoned the museum guide. Delphine moans about not being able to touch or comfort her daughter, and being consumed with regret. "Why are they doing this to us?" Borquita asks. And out from the shadows steps a fully intact Marie Laveau, also in her nineteenth-century kit. She coldly responds, "Because we can," with an extra dose of Angela Bassett's trademark upper-lip action. "Behold the kingdom of the family LaLaurie!" she proclaims, as we get a look at Delphine's other daughters in other cages, one with her face nearly burned off and one with her mouth sewn shut. Nothing worse than what Delphine used to do to her slaves, in other words.
Borquita begs for something to drink, and Delphine rudely orders Marie to give her something. Marie obliges by slashing Delphine's throat, collecting the blood in a tin cup, and feeding it to Borquita, offering to chase it with one of Delphine's fingers if she so desires. Delphine calls Marie a monster, saying she herself never went as far as "torturing a mother's babies in front of her. Even when I killed that little high yella bastard, I spared his mammy from seein' it." A true humanitarian, that one. Ignoring this, Marie has retrieved a glowing hot poker from the stove at the far end of the attic, and is now advancing with it while Delphine begs for mercy. "This ain't for you," Marie snaps at her. "But I will let you choose whether I slide it down her throat or up her backside." Both LaLauries start screaming, and suddenly Marie seems to come back to herself, asking, "How did I get here?" She douses the poker in a bucket of water, saying "No, no. no, I don't wanna do that. That girl ain't never done nothing to me. I don't want to do this!" So Marie only wanted to kill Borquita the one time, then?
Enter Papa Legba, intoning, "You will do as you are tasked. It is your soul's purpose, because I own it." Again with the crazy-deep voice there. Delphine asks who he is and where they are, and Legba turns to her, formally congratulating her. "You have been granted your sweet release from the world of the mortal. And as punishment for your crimes of murder, torture, passion, fashion, and being an all-around no-good miserable bitch, you will spend all of eternity here, in my home.. Delphine weakly protests that it's her home, and Legba corrects her, "No…it's mine. Welcome to Hell." Marie protests that she herself can't die, given their contract. "One you can no longer fulfill," Legba points out, just as Queenie did. Marie sadly says, "But I was good to people. I protected so many." Legba reminds her, "How many little babies did you bring to me every year? No one gets away with sin." He retrieves the poker from where Marie dropped it. "Eventually, everybody pays. Everybody suffers." And with a look, he reignites the poker and hands it to Marie. "Now get back to work," he says, and leaves them to it with a chuckle. The LaLauries get back to screaming, and Marie gets back to being their coldly implacable tormentor, using the red-hot metal to collect from Borquita a none-too-gentle throat culture. Well, I guess Queenie showed them all, didn't she?
Back at Miss Robichaux's, Kyle has just finished hanging Fiona's completed portrait on the wall, and he rejoins the group of witches standing and facing it. Cordelia asks how Fiona looks, and Myrtle answers, "Magnificent. I wish you could see it." Cordelia says she can see it, through Myrtle. Why ask, then? "She was so beautiful." The others join in on how marvelous Fiona supposedly was, now that she's dead and all. "She was a force to be reckoned with," Cordelia concedes, "But she was a horrible Supreme. She shirked all of her responsibilities, including the most important: identifying her successor. So it will be up to us to find our new leader." Someone call Julie Chen. Actually, Cordelia goes on to say that the only way is, as we've been hearing all season, the test of Seven Wonders. "And since it could be any one of you, you will all be tested. The Seven Wonders. Sunday at dawn it begins. Everyone participates. And by week, we will have a new Supreme." And the ones who aren't the new Supreme will finally, at long last, have to shut up about it.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.