Tonight on American Horror Story: Hotel we raise the body count and meet even more new characters. Alex and Iris are faced with their separate mommy issues, we learn what The Countess has planned for the future of the hotel, and we see the return of Angela Bassett - only this time with two breasts instead of three. The things Lady Gaga could have done with three breasts...anyway, there's a lot happening in this episode and many of our existing characters only make cameos. Here's how "Mommy" played out.
I Want Your Horror, I Want Your Design
The episode opens with Tristan on a search for James March. He's a fan. He's wandering through the usual haunted spots in the hotel, calling out to James and paying him tons of compliments for all of his "work." Finally Mr. March appears and asks how Tristan has all of that information. "I Googled you." That's fantastic, but James' response is even better. "That sounds obscene." Ha! It sure does, my friend. James then shows his fanboy the black closet...another secret compartment for torture and murder. I'm guessing James is about to take Tristan under his wing and teach him the various methods and locations for murder in the hotel.
This play date is cut short as they hear Will Drake walking through the hall and discussing the many changes he intends to make to the hotel with his colleague, Claudia. These changes include tearing up the floor where James and Ms. Evers reside. Tristan assures James that he's "got this." He doesn't quite get the chance to exact revenge though - that night when Claudia is getting ready for bed in her room, she clearly doesn't realize she's lying down in the bed where diva-dude Gabriel is sewn into the mattress. He emerges (looking like a very scary Billy Idol) and stabs Claudia to death. It's a shame too - I rather liked her nightgown.
Tristan may have missed the boat with Claudia, but he does pay Will a visit on his one man tour of the hotel. He apologizes to Will for causing a scene at the fashion show but assures his former boss that he is clean. Will doesn't seem too angry with Tristan anymore and shows him the original blueprints of the hotel. Tristan acts very interested in the designs and begins to seduce Will with the intention of cutting his throat. However, The Countess appears, shaking her head and stopping the bloodshed before it starts. She has her own plans for Mr. Drake.
Elizabeth entertains Will in her room, sharing some wine and conversation. He reminders her that he's gay but that doesn't concern her. She's pretty set on arousing Mr. Drake anyway and she's successful until Tristan walks in and acts like a douchebag. I wonder if she's sorry she turned him yet... Anyway, Elizabeth gives Will a rain check (that's all she gives him) and takes Tristan to another room. She reveals that she is no longer rich thanks to Bernie Madoff. Ha! I guess his trickery extended to the undead. Because of her need for wealth, she intends to marry Will and kill him later for his money.
I Want Your Ugly, I Want Your Disease
While Donovan has moved out of Elizabeth's bed, he has not yet moved out of the hotel. Iris sees him walking through the lobby and offers to help him pack. She's thinking they are going to get an apartment together and she's printed out some Craigslist ads for Donovan to look at. He's just terrible to her and tells her she should go kill herself.
Donovan wanders the streets looking for his next meal. After ignoring one of Elizabeth's rules and feeding on some junkies, he encounters Ramona Royale (Angela Bassett), another of Elizabeth's bitter former lovers. She stuns Donovan and tosses him in the trunk of her car. Ramona is hoping to make Donovan her partner and crime as she plots revenge against The Countess. See, Ramona had been a badass actress in the 70s and Elizabeth was a huge fan. She turned Ramona and things were wonderful for a while, but the relationship began to deteriorate in the 90s. Ramona took another lover, a rapper named Prophet Moses. She turned him in the back of a recording studio...only to find Elizabeth on the other side of the door. She had massacred Mo's entourage. Elizabeth then took a gun and blew the guy's head off...so apparently this strand of vampirism can be ended if you're missing a large portion of your skull. The lesson? Elizabeth's "creations" are not allowed to create. Ramona now wants access to Elizabeth's children so she can dispose of them. Donovan reveals that he was dumped last week and she lets him go. He's of no use to her.
Iris, meanwhile, gets right to work on killing herself, enlisting Sally and her heroin to help. Sally asks Iris if she has any unfinished business "because I am stuck in this place, thanks to you, so I want to be 100% sure that when I do this I am done with your miserable old ass. In other words, don't haunt my hallways, bitch." Hmmm, so if you die in the hotel but do not have unfinished business, you're not hanging out there forever? Interesting. Iris says she wants the dark silence of death and not to linger in the Hotel Cortez any longer. Sally injects her with a dose lethal enough "to kill and entire marching band" but somehow the old lady is still alive. Okay, onto Plan B. Sally takes a plastic bag and suffocates Iris.
Donovan bursts in the room. He's just returned to the hotel and had a chat with Liz Taylor about the value of a mother's love. He starts to cry. "She's all I've got." Iris isn't completely dead yet and he is able to turn her. Uh oh. The created has just made his own creation.
I Want Your Drama, The Touch Of Your Hand
John is investigating another Ten Commandments murder. This time an array of office workers who support a gossip website are dead. Thou shalt not bear false witness. The killer even nailed the victims' tongues to their desks while they were still alive. Some of the workers tried to flee Saw style by leaving their tongues behind. They didn't make it far.
John sees the connection to the previous killings and as he walks into the hotel at the end of the day, he calls a colleague to check on evidence from those cases. A very bloody Gabriel grabs him violently...then passes out on the floor. Apparently he was not rape-murdered by the rubbery skinned guy after all. He has OD symptoms and John rushes him to the hospital. Gabriel tells John "I didn't mean to kill her. I thought it was the other one - that junkie whore." and then promptly dies. I wonder how Sally is going to feel about all this...
John returns to the hotel to look for Claudia but finds Ms. Evers applying fresh linen in her room (naturally) and Sally supervising. He grills Sally about the dead junkie wearing blood that was not his own, but Sally claims not to know anything about Gabriel and tells John not to waste his time on junkies. "We only hurt ourselves. It's not like breaking one of the Ten Commandments or anything." John is startled. He thinks he has a break in his case so he cuffs her and forces her into the elevator. Though Sally is being arrested, there's some serious sexual tension here. She has him in the palm of her hand (literally) but when the elevator doors open in the lobby, Sally is gone.
Don't Call My Name
We catch a glimpse into Alex's thoughts through flashbacks and we learn that she had a bond with Holden as a baby that she never formed with Scarlett. We also learn that she never loved John as much as she did her son. She's had a hell of a time dealing with Holden's disappearance too, taking pills with her pills and even getting to the point where John once found her in their bathtub with her wrists slit. Alex survived (obviously) and only soldiered on because of Scarlett.
These feelings were front and center at the most recent meeting with the family therapist. Alex told the doctor she's angry because Scarlett keeps swearing Holden is alive. "It's like you're trying to hurt me....us." I'm sure John appreciated the delayed "us." The therapist tried to explain Scarlett's claims as an effort to make the family whole. Scarlett was emotional at that point and told her story again. Her account of the big room with jelly beans and Nintendo started off innocent enough, but when she got to the part about how Holden sleeps in a glass coffin and the bottom of an empty pool, I cringe a little. "He didn't have normal feelings and he smelled like lavender like those candles we have at home." Oh hell. No wonder Alex constantly looks like she hasn't slept in years.
Tonight Alex visits John at the hotel to have a one on one discussion. She asks why he's so jumpy. He makes some excuses about being tired and focused on the murder case since he can't exactly say "oh I'm just trying to find the junkie who was jerking me off in the elevator before she disappeared into thin air." I guess he actually could have said that...Alex gives him divorce papers, so really the truth wouldn't have exactly ended their marriage. She explains that having John away from the house has been really good and she doesn't want him to come back. She thinks the divorce is necessary for them to move on and for Scarlett to stop making things up. John cries and begs Alex to stay. He tells her he thinks he's going crazy because he's been seeing things.
She escorts him back to his room and gives him some pills to help him sleep. I guess she had those handy in her purse. Alex tucks him in and he apologizes for everything that has happened. He says he knows Alex always loved Holden the most and he never minded. She kisses him and it looks like they might have break up sex (there is SO much almost sex tonight) but he ruins it. He whispers "let's have another baby" and Alex quickly jumps out of bed and leaves the room. I worry that she won't make it out of the hotel alive since we still don't know Sally's whereabouts; however, Alex runs into someone else instead. Holden stands at the end of the hallway and says "Hi Mommy."
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| I'm going to need more pills. |
Next week we will be treated (see what I did there?) to the annual AHS Halloween episode which is usually my favorite, or close to it, each season. Will the Ten Commandments killer strike again? Will Ramona get to go on her rampage? Will someone please go ahead and off Tristan? I'm starting to dislike this Finn Wittrock character more than I disliked Dandy Mott. Didn't think that was possible. Oh, and how will Alex handle seeing her son? My guess is she still won't want to make another baby with John. Regardless, here's hoping we get a lot more of James March in the coming weeks. This is my favorite Evan Peters character to date and I want to see the full extent of this guy's insanity. After all, where would the Hotel Cortez be without him?
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