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Hey, everybody! It's Test of the Seven Wonders time! After a VH1 Classic-inspired Stevie Nicks music video (with some of the worst lip-synching I've ever seen), Madison, Queenie, Zoe and Misty embarked on a competitive group test. It started out easy: all of them easily aced the Telekinesis and Concilium (mind control) tests, but things got hairy when it came time to go to Hell and back. Misty got stuck in a childhood anxiety dream memory of science class gone awry and lost her focus. Her test time ran out and she turned to dust back on earth. RIP Misty. Can I have your boots?
Other complications arose as well. The girls had a swell time playing X-Men tag during the Transmutation test, but eventually Zoe miscalculated her landing and ended up impaled on a spike. Queenie couldn't bring her back to life. Madison -- thrilled that death equaled a forfeit for her competitor -- refused to try. Zoe died. Kyle cried.
With Zoe dead, Myrtle finally figured out what's been obvious for several weeks now: That Delia is the new Supreme. She convinces her to try and Delia slays all the tests the girls took so far. On to Divination! Delia can do that, too. But before Queenie can try, Madison fails the test miserably, throws a tantrum and quits the Supremehood race. (She also threatens to call TMZ on them, which only seemed to inspire Cordelia.) And when Madison went upstairs to pack, a grieving Kyle appeared and strangled her to death for letting his girlfriend die. Spalding the Friendly Ghost gave his final appearance helping him dispose of her. RIP Madison, bitch.
Meanwhile, Delia got to work on the final test of bringing someone back to life. Zoe woke up and Delia passed out from the effort. But in a flashforward, we see that Delia became the Supreme. Her eyes are fixed, her hair is flawless and she's on CNN selling Miss Robichaux's and the Coven to misunderstood Suicide Girls across this great nation. She's going to be a great Supreme. She's also going to have to sentence Myrtle to death for killing Pembrooke and Quentin, which she does. Myrtle's last words are obviously "BALENCIAGA!" Goodbye, Myrtle. You were the best thing about this entire season and we will miss your dialogue and wigs most of all.
As for Fiona, it turns out she is still alive (but on death's door), having mind controlled that false memory of murdering her into the Axeman's head to trick the Coven. She meets with Delia and they exchange some final words before Fiona dies in her daughter's arms. She ends up in Hell, where Papa Legba has sentenced her to an unglamorous eternity of monogamy with the Axeman in his country home. Sounds about right.
Mindy Monez's personal hell is a lifetime of Axeman storylines too. You can tweet with her @garnisheater.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Delphine and Marie ended up in Hell together, cursed to an eternity of each other. Queenie brought Misty Day back to life. The Axeman "murdered" Fiona. Zoe and Kyle came back. Madison and Misty had a riotous, knock-down, drag-out fight. The Supreme remains unchosen.
How else could the season finale begin than with a Sepia-toned Steve Nicks music video set at Miss Robichaux's? The song is "Seven Wonders," which, albeit a little on-the-nose (but really, what about this show isn't?), is a great jam. Stevie Nicks is surprisingly awful at lip-synching, but holding it against her seems like no fun, especially when this sequence is such a delight. Misty twirling and throwing confetti, Zoe studying like a nerd in her room, Madison studying by way of indulging in a magical bubble bath, Queenie trying to right Nan's death (Queenie's made mistakes, but fuck Cordelia -- she really is the saint of the season), CGI plant regenesis, VH1 Classic fisheye lens, everything. This show has a lot of faults, but at least it makes it easy to forgive them with stuff like this.
The girls line up on the grand staircase like perfect little Von Trapps and Stevie wishes them all luck before flouncing out of the house forever. Somehow, Misty manages not to throw herself to the ground, grab Stevie's ankles and force her to drag her wailing body behind her as she goes. So that's progress!
Coven title sequence for the last time. It wasn't my favorite one, but it did kind of grow on me as the season went on. Particularly that part where the woman laughs her ass off while stabbing a doll. That part's goddamn relatable.
Myrtle is hosting that hallowed of TV tropes, The Last Supper (Last Suppers by Myrtle Snow is the kind of small business I'd invest in, by the way). The girls enjoy caviar, blinis and champagne as shit gets even more biblical. Delia recites that Bible verse about being a child and thinking like a child and then growing up and thinking like a "woman," the regendered line falling heavily, because, after all, this season thinks it's all about girl power. There's a nice moment where Queenie silently takes Delia's hand and helps her with her food, not because she was asked or because other people could see it, but because she's innately kind. It is kind of a bummer that Queenie doesn't end up with the crown, isn't it? I'm not furious about it – being Supreme kind of sucks -- but it still doesn't feel quite right to me. At any rate, Delia advises the girls to put aside their petty childish bullshit and focus on the test. It's go time.
With that, it's the morning and the test begins, Myrtle and Delia presiding as proctors. Kyle is working as their assistant, which seems unfair, considering his favoring of Zoe and all the baggage he has with Madison, but I guess it's not like these people know anybody else who could pitch in. I suppose they could have put out on an open call on Craigslist. It's not like there's any risk involved -- one of the girls would just end up murdering anyone who saw anything damning for some reason or another. New human dolls for Spalding!
First up: Telekinesis! Each girl must pull a lit candlestick towards her with her mind and then blow it out for dramatic effect. Misty expresses concern that she won't be able to do it, but her lack of self-confidence doesn't stymie her here; the candle comes right towards her. "I did it! I did it!" She seems awfully surprised that she has was able to do it, but Madison is still displeased. She folds her arms across her chests and pouts, maximum Madison right out of the gate. Queenie's , and easily performs the task with a confident "Yuuup." Delia stifles a happy/proud smile, because even Delia is secretly rooting for Queenie. Madison goes , Madison performs the task. Last is Zoe, who passes the test as well. The qualifying round concludes without incident.
On to mind control! Myrtle and Delia explain the test of concilium as Kyle stands behind them holding a tray of wine glasses, his face twisting and contorting out what looks like a desperate urge to scratch an itch on his nose. Nice work, Evan Peters. First up is Misty vs. Queenie, because pairing them up means Madison and Zoe have to be paired up later, and lord knows we need more of that bitchiness. Queenie dares her to try to control her unflappable mind, but she immediately goes down to Misty's will and starts slapping herself across the face, the supernatural version of "Stop hitting yourself!" Queenie gets payback by making Misty violently pull her own hair out, the supernatural version of "Bitch, hold my earrings." They both pass.
, Madison resurrects the season's love triangle by forcing Kyle to kiss her and, of course, lick her boots while Zoe watches. Oh, Madison. Ever the cliché. Zoe is devastated by having to watch this, so she ping pongs Kyle (who walks like a marionette, which is great) back to her for a kiss. Madison strikes back by forcing Kyle to strangle Zoe, which is interesting for later. Delia decides to intervene just in time to keep Zoe from death by strangulation by flinging Kyle across the room. That's a little much, but it's not like Kyle is a human being with any dignity or rights or anything. He's a play thing, he's a butler, he's an emotional pawn for teen girl warfare, but he's certainly nothing more as far as these people are concerned. Anyway, since there is no flag for unsportsmanlike conduct in the game of Seven Wonders, both girls pass. This is like an extra fucked up version of Charm School.
The test is trickier: They must descend into the netherworld and find their way back. This will be a timed test, the consequences of exceeding the time limit we will soon find out. The girls lie on the ground in a circle, their heads to each other in Busby Berkeley perfection, and one by one, they all go Under.
Queenie ends up back in her chicken joint hell, old hat at all this. She's back within seconds and passes. Madison is – she was on a live network version of The Sounds of Music and she wasn't even Maria. She was LIESL! It was horrible. (NBC, ya burnt!) Madison passes. Zoe wakes up traumatized, her hell being that Kyle breaks up with her on a loop, because her weepy little love for the dreamy zombie boy is basically her only character trait at this point. Remember in like episode 3 when we used to take her seriously? That seems like a lifetime ago now. Zoe passes. Now they wait for Misty, who is getting close to her time limit…
Misty's in trouble. She's trapped in middle school science class, which is probably nightmare enough for most people on its own, but this class is led by a sadistic teacher who forces Misty, protector of all swamp creatures, to kill a live frog repeatedly on a loop. She brings it back to life every time, but he becomes angrier and angrier and Misty becomes increasingly hysterical over the ordeal. She loses her focus and is trapped in this moment for eternity. Jesus, of all the people on this show to be cursed with a torture eternity, it's Misty? That's cold. She's the least deserving of that fate of any of them, even Zoe. Back in the land of the living, Delia tries to guide her back, but Misty's time runs out and her body turns to dust, gorgeous boots and all. RIP to them both, and safe travels to that big boot depot in the sky. Delia screams and cries in that Sarah Paulson devastation voice, a signature of this show.
There is something confusing about all the hell business, right? If going back and forth from the afterlife has been part of the Seven Wonders forever, wouldn't everyone know that one exists? What was that business with Madison and Kyle being terrified about the nothingness of death that they experienced? How would that even be possible if people who murder (Madison) go to hell, and good people (Kyle) should probably go somewhere else? Just a thought.
Delia changes into black mourning clothes and tries to take a nice moment for them all to remember Misty, their fallen sister witch, but Madison, who owes her life to Misty, is over it. She'd like to move on. Also, she can't handle the attention being on anyone else, no matter how recently dead they are. ACTRESSES, RIGHT? Queenie calls her out on that, but when Zoe doesn't back her up she relents. It's time to move on to the test of transmutation.
The test quickly devolves into an eerily gleeful game of teleportation tag all over the grounds of Miss Robichaux's, which I guess amounts to them all blowing off some steam. Still weird to see them all have so much fun together considering how little they can all stand each other. Or maybe they're just happy because this is a form of tag where you don't have to run. Lazy tag, if you will. Delia warns them to be careful, because as we've seen with Misty, when one loses focus one tends to die in this game, but it's too late. Zoe miscalculates a jump and ends up impaled on the spikes of Miss Robichaux's front gate. Kyle runs to her aid, but what can he do? Nothing. Zoe is dead.
They take her body to Delia's garden shed (the theremin is still there, which is a nice touch) for the test of resurrection. Question: What were they going to do for this portion of the test if no one had died? Actually, what am I saying? They would obviously just kill some stranger! Queenie tries to bring Zoe back, but despite her ability to save Misty last week, she can't do it. That's weird! Madison refuses to help, thrilled that one half of her remaining competition will forfeit by death, and the other half has failed the test and should therefore be out of the running (she's not, but whatever, this show makes no sense so let's move on). Madison petulantly claps a fly to death and then brings it back to life, which qualifies as passing. Oh, Madison, you glamorous brat. Myrtle and Delia begin to grasp the fact that a Supreme Madison is a Fiona 2.0 situation and a very possible reality at the moment. Delia weeps, which is appropriate.
Delia and Myrtle powwow over their situation as Kyle cries over Zoe's corpse. Delia, as usual, feels like a failure, is blaming herself, we're all doomed, it's all her fault, if only Zoe hated fun as much as she does she'd still be alive, blah, blah, Delia stuff. Myrtle is despondent, but she has an epiphany: Delia has royal blood, she's always protected the Coven, and besides, she clearly has great power which is possibly being leeched by the other girls. Always a good sign of a Supreme! Myrtle insists Delia take the test of the Seven Wonders. I mean, it's worth a shot, partly because of the dire Madison circumstances, and partly because of the fact that everyone on the internet has known Delia was the Supreme for several weeks now.
Time for Delia to get test-ical! Pyrokinesis: Check. Madison asserts that this is all a trick to get her to finish the test (like she wasn't going to anyway?) and that she isn't stupid. Queenie: "Yes you are." Haha! Concilium (which she takes out on Queenie, for some weird reason): Check. Telekinesis: Check. Madison is unnerved. To hell and back? After enduring a loop of trying to gain Fiona's approval and "getting bitch-slapped for it" (ha!), that's a check too. Transmutation: Also a check. Time for divination, which unfortunately has nothing to do with Bette Midler. It's like telepathy via objects, I guess?
Myrtle rolls out a bunch of pebbles and asks Delia to "divine from the pebbles the location of the item which belonged to Mimi Delongpre," a name that has to be a drag queen stage name somewhere in America. Delia runs her hands over the pebbles as Madison makes some uninspired Braille joke, but Delia quickly knows the answer. Queenie comes back with it (it's a broach!), and Myrtle verifies its veracity, as if Myrtle is even remotely an objective party here. I love that no one can be Supreme until, what? Myrtle decides? It's not like the skies open up and there's a Jesus moment in the process. Delia passes the test of divination. Madison gets nervous and accuses them of cheating, which Myrtle calls "Charaderie," so that's great.
Madison is up , and is clearly in trouble. Her face has panic written all over it, and she tries to get out of it by saying it's stupid. Always a brilliant tactic. She's so desperate she even offers to go in the greenhouse and bring Zoe back to life, so you know it's real. Myrtle threatens to fail her, so Madison throws a Hail Mary, not once, but twice. She cannot divine the location of Anna Leigh Leighton's possession, so she fails. But at least she makes an exit! She calls the Coven "some jacked up version of Celebrity Rehab" (or Charm School! A lot of VH1 tonight…) and threatens to call TMZ on their asses, which, of course, would garner her public ridicule, and depending in the ferocity of her insistence, a 5150 hold as well, but still. She knows how to leave a party, that Madison.
Back in her room, Madison is packing her enormous Louis Vuitton trunk through tantrum tears when Kyle appears in her doorway, furious. "Why did you let her die?" He puts his hands around her throat and throws her down on the bed. "You know that dark place! We've both been there!" Maybe you have, but I still say it makes no sense! He can't believe she would send his Zoe there. Madison puts on the waterworks, claiming she loves him in the best manipulation voice I've ever heard (Emma Roberts really turned out to be quite good in the end, didn't she?), but not even Kyle's dumb enough to fall for it. "You're not that good an actress." And with that, Kyle chokes out Madison and she dies again for good, several years short of the 27 Club.
Downstairs in the greenhouse, Delia is working on bringing Zoe back to life. Queenie takes Myrtle's hand in solidarity, clearly caring much more about Zoe's well-being than being the Supreme. The second Madison dies, Zoe screeches back to life. Delia passes out from the effort, but there's no doubt about it: Delia has officially passed all Seven Wonders.
The commercial break in my area (NYC, so it actually makes perfect sense, but it still made me laugh) had a Wicked commercial in it. WITCH CONTEXTUAL MARKETING!
As Madison lies freshly dead on her bed, Kyle standing over her, a creepy-ass hand appears in the frame and brushes her hair with a tiny severed doll hand. So yes, Spalding makes his final appearance to claim Madison's dead body once again for his attic fetish practices. He claims he's going to help Kyle by burying her, but we know better. Madison was a (hilarious) bitch, but her soul is trapped in the empty darkness she hated and her body's trapped in Spalding's sex attic. That, too, is a rough way to go. Hard for anybody to catch a break tonight.
Back in the greenhouse, Delia wakes up from her nap looking flawless. Her eyes are fixed, her skin is flawless, even her hair is perfectly coiffed. Zoe and Queenie look on in awe as Myrtle makes it official: "Behold, the one true Supreme." It's finally over!
Sometime in the near future, Delia is giving a big fancy interview to a CNN-esque news service about the plight of women who identify as witches and her organization's (which is not a cult, by the way) intent to take them all (well, the hot ones with good outfits, at least) in and give them a safe place to thrive. Fiona's portrait looms over her shoulder while she speaks. We get into heavy-handed True Blood territory once again as Delia explains that witches are born that way, and that crimes against them for being who they are are hate crimes. Myrtle watches the taping and dabs away proud tears as her new Supreme ushers in a brand new generation of witches with a brand new monetization strategy to boot. Delia's annual performance review is going to be amazing. KPIs all over this bitch.
"Up : Liza Minnelli talk about her hip" is on the lower third of Delia's interview because this show knows who its audience is. It's pandering, sure, but I would never complain about a Liza joke.
Submissions start rolling in, and since a photo is required for some awful reason, Delia and Myrtle are waist deep in applications from (hot) Suicide Girls nationwide. This is going to be such a good-looking Coven! Fiona wouldn't have stood that for a second. Delia would like to elevate Zoe and Queenie to managerial positions within the school because she is an inclusive kind of gal. Myrtle brings up the fact that leadership positions require hard and unpopular decisions. Like this one: Delia needs to sentence Myrtle to death for killing Pembrooke and Quentin. We get a fun flashback to Myrtle gouging out Pembrooke's eye for old time's sake, too. Myrtle is a rule follower, and if Delia is going to run this Coven right (and avoid a nasty scandal at the start of her tenure), she must be too. Myrtle insists that she burn at Delia's hands. Delia tearfully refuses to burn her real mother, but Myrtle won't stand for Delia being a hypocritical Supreme, so it must be done. The music of "Silver Springs" rolls in and we know it's time for Myrtle to return to the fire pyre.
Myrtle goes to the stake again, this time in billowing crimson couture. She is of course flanked by those two albino security guards they had the last time out, so I guess they just have them on retainer from the Albino Security Company. Delia, Zoe and Queenie trail behind, wind in their hair and slow-mo working its magic. Delia chokes back tears to read her sentence as Myrtle is strapped in and doused with gasoline. Her last words are as ridiculously colorful as she lived: "BALENCIAGAAA!!!" Myrtle goes up in flames, and Delia really is on her own now. Goodbye, Myrtle. You were the most consistently enjoyable thing about this season, and you'll be hard to top in future ones.
Girls are packed outside the Miss Robichaux's gates like they're having a One Direction album signing inside. They are a hit! Delia promotes Zoe and Queenie to Counsel and Right Hands to the Supreme. Queenie agrees, promising to have Delia's back. Zoe's in too; she'd be honored. This little trio will usher in the new generation of witches, and honestly, you could do a lot worse. Here's to the non-psychopathic, non-narcissistic people of the world, for they shall inherit the Coven. But they can't open the doors just yet – Delia's had a vision, and must go downstairs by herself to handle… something.
That something turns out to be a very much alive, but also very much decrepit and almost dead Fiona, who is sitting in the parlor with a cigarette and a grin waiting for her daughter. This is Fiona's worst nightmare, of course: she's lost her power, she looks like shit, she's facing a very near and closing mortality, and her daughter has beaten her at her own game. For once, it is no fun to be Fiona. Delia approaches her mother, asking what the hell happened with that whole "I-saw-you-die" thing, and Fiona tells her to look again with her new Supreme vision, and we see the truth. When the Axeman confronted Fiona about leaving him, she laughed it off, saying she just planned to go to Paris for a few days while the Coven figured out who the Supreme is so she can kill her. Oh, also, they need to think she's dead before they'll perform the Seven Wonders, so she's going to have to implant false memories of murdering her into the Axeman's brain, cover him in goat's blood, and flee the scene. Fiona: "I ruined a good pair of Jimmy Choos, but I knew you'd get rid of him for me once he served his purpose." Ok. Sure. A LOT OF OTHER, MUCH EASIER WAYS TO GO ABOUT THIS, but as we know this show loves making zero sense, so that's how it happened. They don't explain why Delia's non-Supreme sense wasn't good enough to see the truth at the time, but does it matter at this point?
Delia switches on the light on and we see Fiona's face and severely balding head. It's rough. She looks like death and Jessica Lange is really selling it. Delia says she won't bother putting Fiona out of her misery because she's so close, and they have a dysfunctional heart-to-heart. Fiona explains that she could never really accept Delia because she was a constant reminder of all of Fiona's fears: death, loss of power, aging, etc. It was nothing personal! Fiona, softly, "I loved you plenty, though." She contritely admits she had some limitations as a mother and Delia gives her a great "REALLY?" face, before Fiona strikes another blow, saying Delia was always looking to replace her. And that power Delia has, the one so powerful it's vibrating off the walls of the place? That's Fiona's. When it went into Delia it left her.
Delia goes on the offensive then: "You were the monster in every one of my closets. A lifetime spent either trying to prove myself to you, get close to you, or get away from you." Fiona picks up a knife and begs Delia to kill her and fulfill her destiny and lead the Coven. "God knows you'll do a better job of it than I did, though you won't look half as good doing it." Ha! A last burst of vanity from a dying siren. Of course. Delia puts the knife down and embraces her mother, the first hug we've ever seen between them, I think. Delia says as much, and then Fiona dies in her daughter's arms, weak, vulnerable, and with nothing. Lot of rough deaths tonight.
Time to find out what Fiona's hell is! She wakes up in a farm house of dreadful country convention. There is a floral wallpaper. There is a rooster crowing. There is a lens flare. It's awful! At least she has her lacy black lingerie and high end pumps, so not everything is lost. Just then, the Axeman bursts in the door with enormous, freshly caught catfish he's going to fry up for dinner. She slaps them away, disgusted. Axeman is tired of this -- she wakes up like this every morning. She pours a drink and he makes a crude gesture. She slaps him, he slaps her harder. She blames Delia for this, but Axeman informs her that nobody did this to her but herself. Fiona: "I can't spend eternity here in this place! It reeks of fish and cat piss. What is this? Knotty paaahhhhhne??" Axeman takes her in his arms and we see Papa Legba chuckling in the window as Fiona accepts her eternity of unglamorous country monogamy with the Axeman. I still say everyone else's is worse, but these things are relative.
Delia makes her way down the staircase to welcome her new students with Queenie and Zoe by her side. Kyle, who is the new butler and wearing a brand new tuxedo to show for it, opens the doors and the horde of girls walk in to their new lives as Covenettes. Delia addresses them all, explaining that it's their time to really take this Coven to the level, and considering how beautiful and perfect they all look, they might just have a shot! One poor, dumb girl in the group: "What's a Supreme?" Queenie: "You're looking at her." The camera closes in on Delia, a satisfied smile spreading across her lips.
Mindy Monez's personal hell is a lifetime of Axeman storylines too. You can tweet with her @garnisheater.