Laura Re-Caps American Horror Story: Coven.
Welcome back, my favourite creepy primetime show. I’ve missed you. After the first season, where you introduced us to the Murder House, and showed us exactly just how deliciously fucked up you were capable of becoming; then your second season, Asylum, where you took “deliciously fucked up”, stepped on it, crushed it, skinned it, and turned it into a lampshade…you’ve returned with your third season, American Horror Story: Coven.
And boy howdy, AHS, have you done a number on us this time; So much of a number, in fact, that I’m going to be doing a weekly recap for my wonderful readers here at GEEKPR0N. Obviously these will be filled with spoilers, so to my lovely readers, DON’T READ ANYTHING ELSE UNTIL YOU’RE CAUGHT UP.
Thank you. Now we continue.
Our scary story begins in New Orleans, 1834.
Holy shit, it’s Kathy Bates! I’m already excited, because nobody does crazy quite like Kathy Bates. She plays Madame Delphine LaLaurie (who was a real person btw), a swanky lady hosting a dinner party in which she is presenting her three daughters, Marie-Louise Pauline, Marie-Louise Jeanne, and… Borquita (wtf?) to the eligible bachelors of the town. The daughters all have various exceptional talents, but unfortunately Pauline’s has “yet to be revealed”. She suddenly speaks up, stating “perhaps my talents are in the boudoir…” (Sex. She means sex, you guys). The bachelors are all, “aw yiss…” but the camera focuses past them, onto one of the house slaves, who we later learn is named Bastien. Something’s up.
In true creepy fashion, our next scene amps it up a bit. Madame LaLaurie is smearing blood on her face like it’s a beauty cream. When she’s finished, her skin will be tight as a drum! Apparently. But this blood isn’t fresh, she exclaims. But wait! Something really bad happened downstairs at the dinner party.
Turns out Pauline came onto Bastien! Oh shit! That’s totally a no-no. WHAT WILL THE NEIGHBOURS THINK? LaLaurie smacks the shit out of Pauline, just like a loving mother concerned with status should, and promptly informs her since she was a total whorebag, it’s going to go down as Bastien raped her. That’s what happened, yes. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Bastien is ordered to be taken “upstairs”, and we’re briefly left to wonder why he totally freaked out when he heard that word.
Only for a few seconds though. Up in the attic is what has cheerfully come to be known as the Chamber of Secrets Horrors. A dark dungeon type deal, filled with salves in tiny cages. You know, just the normal stuff in the attic. One slave begins to cry out…and then you notice his mouth is sewn shut. She tells him to shut up or she’ll shove more excrement in there and sew it up again. GROSS. Onto the next slave, who has his face peeled off, but is still very much alive (I bet that stings so bad…). LaLaurie loves her little attic of torture! At the end of the room, we see Bastien being strung up in chains. LaLaurie says she knows just what to do with him, and somehow just happens to have a severed bull’s head on hand, calls forth a little slave boy, as has the bull’s head placed over top of Bastien’s. “I always looooved the Minotaur,” she coos, absolutely joyous. “…and now I have one of my very own!”
…and that was just the intro. SO STOKED. Our favourite spooky theme music is back, with a brand new credit sequence. Very greyscale and “witchy”…is that a word? it is now.
VIOLET! We missed you, girl. Only she’s a bit older now, and sneaking her hottie bf into her parents-free house for some sexy time. Violet is now Zoe, and up until this very moment, she’s a virgin. Boyfriend Charlie is being super adorable and polite, wanting to make sure she’s okay and he doesn’t hurt her. Zoe gives him the green light, and…wait, what’s this…Charlie looks like he’s in pain? WAIT NO HE IS BLEEDING FROM HIS FACE HOLES WHAT IS GOING ON HOLY HECK!? Zoe understandably loses her shit, and the next scene is covered by a monologue explaining how Charlie died of a brain aneurism and Zoe doesn’t know what the fuck.
Post Charlie’s funeral, as in they pretty much just walked in the door, Zoe’s mom breaks the news. Sometimes it skips a generation, but sorry Zoe, you have “a genetic mutation”, a.k.a. you’re a legit witch and sorry but we have to send you away because it’s not safe, so don’t worry about these strange creepy albino men with sunglasses who are about to drag you out of the house. NBD. Around the same time, Zoe laments about her “skills”, and how everyone apparently exhibits them differently. Like her cousin Amanda? She was just bulimic. How passé. The leader of the men in black is HECK YES Francis Conroy, who completely chews up the scenery with less than a paragraph about how Zoe is their daughter now, and…wait, YOU HAVE TARTAN DRAPES!?!
Zoe is being whisked away to Miss Robichaux’s School for Exceptional Young Ladies, a.k.a. Hogwarts School for Gifted Youngsters. She enters, and it’s empty, save for some creepy split second whooshes behind her. She’s suddenly surrounded by hooded figures in plague doctor masks! Oh no! They’re going to sacrifice her! Oh no! They’re…haha, just the other witch girls messing with her. Intro to new main characters! (Emma Roberts), an actress gone a bit Lohan, Queenie, played by the girl from Precious (Gabourey Sidibe), and Nan (Jamie Brewer), who we all remember and love as Addie from AHS season 1.
In comes Headmistress Cordelia Foxx (Sara Paulson). She tells the girls to chill out, and gives Zoe the big rundown. Robichaux was home to over 60 witches once back in the day, but as time went on, people who had the witch gene didn’t think reproducing was such a good idea, so they stopped having kids, and thus the number of witches dwindled exponentially.
The butler comes in for a brief minute. His name is Spalding. He’s played by Denis O’Hare, but as soon as he shows up, you cannot unsee THIS GUY:
=
I can’t even. It’s so funny.
Cordelia continues, explaining that every generation of witches has a “Supreme”…a witch with pretty much ALL the powers. She’s not it, and she points out quite blatantly that neither is Zoe (ooh, foreshadowing?). Madison isn’t into Cordelia’s whole idea that magic should be kept a secret and suppressed, but Cordelia reminds her that a girl named Misty Day was recently outed as a Necromancer and burned at the stake. As in it’s on the news recently. So it’s better to be safe. Misty Day is played by Lily Rabe, who rocked it last season in Asylum as Sister Mary Satan.
Next scene…HERE SHE IS, BITCHES! You know who that heel beings to. Jessica “The Best At Everything Ever” Lange, ladies and gentlemen, as Fiona Goode. She looks awesome as always, and she’s her way into a swanky office building, hopefully up to something sinister and awesome.
And is she ever! She wants some anti-aging medication that has been tested on monkeys by Un-Dylan MacDermott, the scientist, and she wants it NOW. But no, he objects. it’s not ready. Fuck you, she says (not literally), her late husband funded the whole thing so she gets what she wants, ya hear?
This next scene is just fantastic. This is what literally happens: Fiona is in her place, dim lights, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is blaring, she’s doing huge lines of cocaine, chain smoking, and dancing around like none of the fucks were ever given. Suddenly, Dr. Un-Dylan MacDermott enters. “I’ve been injecting your shit for five days and nothing’s changed!” she screams. He threatens to resign, but then she uses her witch powers and tosses him across the room. THEN, then…then she kisses him, and pulls some dementor shit and sucks his entire life essence out of him until he’s basically a husk. She looks into the mirror and success! no more wrinkles! But only briefly…awkward. She smashes the mirror in disgust.
Back at Hogwarts The X-Mansion Robichaux’s, the girls are having dinner, having a discussion about their powers. Madison is telekinetic – she killed her director by dropping a stage light on his head after he told her he was missing her mark (she’s a bit touchy. Noted.). Nan tells Zoe that she’ll meet a “strange, unexpected love”, revealing to the viewers that she is clairvoyant. Nan is seriously so adorable. I love her. Madison is, of course, a total bitch to Nan, and Queenie basically tells her to can it. Madison provokes her, and Queenie shows us her power. She stabbed herself in the hand with her dinner fork, causing Madison to scream in pain and start bleeding. “I don’t feel a thing, I’m basically a human voodoo doll!” YES GIRL. nan breaks up the fight, and her and Queenie split for a breather.
Downstairs, Cordelia is in her laboratory being all witchy and making potions and things. Fiona saunters in, and OH MY GLOB YOU GUYS, DRAMA BOMB! – she’s Cordelia’s mother! AND THE SUPREME! OH MAN! If that didn’t get you amped up enough, Madison gets a tweet…there’s a frat party! She enlists Zoe has her soiree buddy.
YOU GUYS LOOK IT’S TATE HE’S BACK TATE IS BACK! SWOON! Evan Peters returns as Kyle, a frat dude (boo). He tells his fellow frat boys on their frat boy bus that tonight’s gonna be awesome, so let’s party! His frat bro, who is instantly recognizable as a total scumbag, spots Madison and lurks his way over. Kyle, however, has a total cinematic moment as he sees Zoe standing shy and alone. He’s totes in love already. Zoe is looking around, and finds herself in front of a giant ice sculpture. She looks through it, and sees Kyle gazing from the other side. Romeo and Juliet much? I died at the cute. They start talking and it’s true loooove Tate plus Violet 4ever y’all. Meanwhile, Madison and Scummy McFrat are on the stairs, and Madison demands another drink. BAD IDEA GIRL.
Sure enough, she gets roofed. The room spins, Scummy McFrat is there to catch her, and…this was really hard to watch…he and a bunch of his frat brothers gang rape her on a bed while she has no idea what the fuck and they’re recording it on their phones. I stared wide-eyed, shocked at what I was seeing, but I do commend the writers for being so brazen about it. Zoe totally hearts Kyle, but sadly, they can never be (remember, Death Vagina),and she says it’ll never work. She realizes she has no idea where Madison went, and Kyle heads upstairs to look. He comes across the frat boys and madison, and totally flips his shit on the other guys and chases them out of the house. YAY KYLE! Zoe finds Madison, covers her with a blanket and runs downstairs to chase after Kyle and the frat boys. Before she reaches him, Kyle is kicked out cold on the bus, and the guys attempt a speedy getaway. But suddenly, Madison shows up on the street…and with a casual flip of her hand, the bus screeches to a halt, flips over, and bursts into flames. YES! But wait, no! Kyle is on the bus! This totally sucks but at the same time it doesn’t.
We go into the next day where the bus crash is on the news. Zoe overhears that there were two survivors. She (and we) hope it’s Kyle. He doesn’t deserve to die! Madison angry shuts off the TV. Fiona comes in, stating that nobody cares about “a bunch of douchebags in Ed Hardy shirts”. HAHA BURN. PUN SO INTENDED. Madison makes a snarky remark, and Fiona promptly flicks her wrist and sends Madison flying into the wall. Snap. Time for a field trip, girls.
Fiona takes the girls into downtown NOLA, recounting tales of their destination, Popp’s Fountain, a former witch haven that was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. Nan hears something in her mind (she’s a clairvoyant, remember), and wanders into a tour of…DUN DUN DUNNNN…Madame LaLaurie’s home. The other girls join her, and learn about the crazy things that happened in the past. The main one, being LaLaurie’s death. Turns out Bastien (the slave from the beginning who had the bull head placed over his own, and we learn now, had his pancreas removed to be made into a poultice for LaLaurie’s youth cream (IT ALL MAKES SENSE! Also Fiona’s super into this information) had a lover. That lover was Marie Laveau (also a real person, played by Angela Bassett). She’s PISSED, and rightfully so. She poisons LaLaurie, under the guide that she is giving her a potion to prevent her husband from straying. Take that, torture lady.
Zoe has wandered into the hospital where the two bus survivors are. Please be Kyle, please be Kyle, please be Kyle…DAMMIT. Not only is it NOT Kyle, but it’s the ringleader rapist, Scummy McFrat! FUCK THIS. Zoe is not having any of this shit. She mulls over her thoughts for a moment, and, like any star-crossed lover should, closes the door, mounts the guy, beings to ride him with a look of disdain, and watches satisfyingly as his brain hemorrhages and he dies at the hand of her killer vagina. OWNED, MOTHERFUCKER. Everyone watching the show rejoices, but still feels awkward about it. Admit it, you did too.
Fiona notices Nan sitting in the backyard of the LaLaurie home, alone. Something’s up. She goes outside and approaches Nan, asking what she hears.
“The lady of the house.” OH SHIT, SON.
Cue a montage, and a voice-over by Zoe. She explains how the girls are all quite human after all, and have their flaws just like anyone else – Zoe wanders up the memorial, seeing Kyle’s photo (noooo), Madison is curled up crying in the shower, Queenie steals a turkey leg from the fridge (seriously) and Nan happily makes a paper string of people…one missing a head. Not sure where that’s going to come back in, but you know it will.
Fiona has hired two men to dig up the backyard. She hits paydirt, and guess who’s in the coffin, ALIVE AND REALLY AWAKE? Madame LaLaurie! She clearly doesn’t know what the fuck, but Fiona dusts her off, and in true Jessica Lange fashion, says “Come on, Mary Todd Lincoln…let’s get you a drink.”
And there we have it.
Questions for the viewers:
1) How do you think LaLaurie is going to adjust to the time period?
2) Kyle can’t be dead forever, can he? I mean, witches.
3) Do you think Zoe has more power than she realizes?
I am absolutely STOKED for this season. The acting is so strong already, the storylines look solid. I’ll be back next week with Episode 2: Boy Parts (oh geez).
