AHS Apocalypse: The Morning After

For the folks tuning into Episode 2 of American Horror Story: Apocalypse thinking this would be the week of an explosive Coven/Murder House crossover...sad to say tonight is not the night. BUT we do kinda, sorta see another familiar face in this hour as the inhabitants of Outpost 3 find out a little more about Wilhemina and Matrix Miriam's motives and meet creepy ass Michael Langdon for the first time. Do they all survive this second week of the series? Do they once again become purple people eaters? Here's where we are after "The Morning After."

Dreams That Had Never Come True

We begin the hour with Emily in her underwear preparing for bed. This nightly routine is ruined by the appearance of snakes in her closet. Yes, snakes in a secure underground bunker. They must have traveled a long way...with creepy ass Michael Langdon perhaps? No matter. Matrix Miriam rushes in and announces the group now has some fresh protein as if this snake invasion is an okay thing that's happening. "This looks like some good eatin'!" When the group assembles for their next protein meal, the snakes are still alive slither out of the bowls. Really. WTF is going on in this place?

Team Purple then meets their creepy new guest and he introduces himself simply as Langdon from The Cooperative. He explains that the other outposts have been overrun and he is there to select people to transfer with him to a totally impenetrable sanctuary. Why the outposts weren't totally impenetrable is beyond me, but here we are. Langdon also mentions that those who are left behind will receive a suicide pill for their trouble, and he delivers these details like an evil Willy Wonka. 

"The suspense is terrible...
I hope it'll last."

Gallant volunteers as tribute, offering to be interviewed first, and before they even begin, Langdon says: "I'm not going to tell you what criteria I'm using to grade you. Things you may feel are helpful may be hurtful. Things you may feel will compel rejection may be exactly what I'm looking for. If you hedge, I will know. If you lie, I will know. And if you try to trick me, I will know and this interview will be over and you will die here. Painfully." He asks about Gallant's sexual orientation and Gallant is quick to confirm he is gay. He is also quick to confirm he hates his grandmother's guts. Weird that he went home during the missile threat to pick her up and bring her to safety. Gallant tells Langdon that Evie essentially wanted him to be more of a Queer Eye For the Straight Guy gay than the person he actually was. Instead he would rebel, showing up to fancy dinners in leather vests, blasting club music and such. "So, you like leather?" Langdon asks. HA! I have to wonder what kind of effort it took to get Evan Peters in the rubber suit in Murder House. Looked very uncomfortable. Gallant is looking to break the "no sex" rule right then and there, but Langdon abruptly ends the interview. 

Do The Things You Want To Do

As I sit here wondering what the hell any of this has to do with a promised Season 1 and Season 3 mashup, Gallant receives a visitor. It's the Rubber Man! I guess Langdon took a few things from the Murder House with him before the apocalypse. Good for him. Even though Langdon knows the no copulation rule is bogus, Gallant doesn't, and yet he is bent over and moans super loud anyway. So loud, in fact, that Evie pops her head in the door to see what all the commotion is about. If she wasn't pleased with Gallant's representation of the gay community before, she sure as hell can't be happy about the rubber being pounding her grandson with reckless abandon. Just sayin. Evie goes running off to tell Matrix Miriam about what she just witnessed, hoping that Gallant will be executed and give her better odds of making the cut to the sanctuary. 

Meanwhile, Langdon pays Wilhemina a visit and it's time for her interview. He immediately calls her  out on her fake rules and mind games but she's not intimidated. Wilhemina goes all "men have ruined the earth" on him (I guess she doesn't sense the evil Willy Wonka thing the way I do), but her balls of steel disappear when Langdon asks her to unzip her dress...revealing a spinal mess that causes her to use a cane...that I assumed was a just prop to make her look more badass. Bummer. Wilhemina is hoping this intimate discussion will get her into the supposed sanctuary, but Langdon tells her she has not made the cut just as Matrix Miriam bursts in to tell the boss lady there's been some unauthorized banging in the outpost. 

Speaking of unauthorized banging, Timothy and Emily use Langdon's late night visits to sneak into his room to look for clues as to who he really is. His laptop is half closed and they are able to...check his email? How is that even possible? There's wireless internet in the bunker? He has a mobile hotspot in the rubber suit? There's a technology center next to the decontamination room? Anywho, Langdon's emails reveal that Wilhemina is making shit up and her rules do not coincide with The Cooperative's instructions. They leave the room before Langdon returns (not really searching anywhere else for anything else) and as they are getting ready to depart, we see the Rubber Man just sort of chillin' on the ceiling. So wait, if the Rubber Man is, uh, stuck to the ceiling, and Langdon left the room looking like Langdon before these two arrived, who is in the suit?

I feel like Timothy and Emily have several options now that they know they are stuck in an outpost with a shady leader and an evil Willy Wonka that somehow sends and receives emails. Several options. But their first action item is to get it on since, you know, technically they are allowed to. And they aren't even that discreet about it. Matrix Miriam finds them in post coital snooze and drags them to Wilhemina because this bitch is still in charge and her rules stand. The youngins could have used this opportunity to tell the ladies what they found, but nah... better to whine about the punishment. 

Just To Spend Time With You

There's plenty of punishment to go around tonight as Wilhemina has Gallant chained up and tortured for information. She believes Gallant and Langdon knew each other before the apocalypse and are somehow out to get her. Gallant doesn't have anything to say to his captors and when they leave, Langdon enters. Gallant assumes his knight in rubber onesie is there to save him, but much to Gallant's disappointment, Langdon claims he was not his late night visitor. "I wouldn't fuck you if you were the last man on earth. And you almost are." Before he leaves the room, Langdon also informs Gallant that his grandmother is the one who turned him in. Ouch. And here I thought Gallant and Langdon were about to get creative with the torture instruments.... 

Gallant is released from the torture room and he ponders the state of things in the library. The Rubber Man appears and slowwwwwwly leads him to a bedroom. Gallant pushes the Rubber Man down on the bed (I didn't think the Rubber Man was the submissive type) and climbs on top of him. He then reaches for scissors that are for some reason right nearby, and he begins to slash the Rubber Man's abdomen while screaming "NOT IF I WERE THE LAST MAN ON EARTH?!" When the stabbing stops, Langdon peers in from the doorway. Gallant sees him and now realizes he hasn't murdered the man who rejected him. He looks back at the bed and realizes he has slaughtered his grandmother instead. RIP Evie. 

The violence is not quite over. It's time for Timothy and Emily to pay the price for boning even though there isn't supposed to be a boning ban. The duo is taken to the decontamination/execution room and before the young lovers meet their doom, Timothy grabs a gun from one of Matrix Miriam's henchmen and starts shooting. He hits Matrix Miriam and she stumbles into the next room to assess the damage. Funny thing though - Miriam puts her hand over the wound expecting blood and flesh (pretty sure we are all expecting that), but instead there's just a hole with some kind of non-blood fluid leaking out. She's a....robot? An alien? A Westworld host? A mannequin on the move? This shit is getting really weird. 

The episode ends there and I already miss Joan Collins. But if Langdon isn't in the rubber suit...is ghost Tate somehow in Outpost 3? Is the Rubber Man someone Langdon can just conjure because he's an evil Willy Wonka? Is he really there to take people to a more safe "safe zone" or is he there to manipulate the group into killing one another? We didn't see snakes until Langdon arrived. We didn't see the Rubber Man until Langdon arrived. No one hallucinated and killed their kin until Langdon arrived. If I wasn't promised a legit CROSSOVER, I would assume we were entering an And Then There Were None scenario. (Side note: Evie even refers to the rest of the purple people as the "Ten Little Indians" which is one of the book names And Then There Were None was based on. Neat!). But on the other hand, Kathy Bates' gooey non-blood wound is a curveball I was absolutely not expecting tonight. The Cooperative seems to have a whole lot of stuff going on...employing the anti-Christ, building a race of robots to enforce made up rules, shopping for the most fabulous purple clothes ever...they are busy bees. One thing's for sure though - if Miriam truly is a Westworld host on loan to Ryan Murphy, I'm not sure how productive my blog will be. Season 2 of that show was a total mind-fuck that I have not yet recovered from.