AHS Coven: The Perfect Man?

The second episode of American Horror Story: Coven provides a bit more background to our characters as the budding (and former) rivalries between the big divas of the show. We also witness the reappearance of a few dead, but not really dead, but mostly dead characters and I’m completely relieved by their return. Here’s where we are…

 

Stupid Cordelia (that’s her name for now):

Cordelia is having reproductive problems. She and her husband (who knew she had a husband?) consult with their doctor who tells them that the fertility drugs she’s been taking aren’t working. Cordelia’s man apparently knows all about her magical background and wants her to just use a spell to get knocked up. It’s easier, cheaper, less stressful, and she might be able to use that extra fertility treatment time keeping her students from killing people. Just sayin. So Cordelia does some sort of a dark spell complete with a pentagram, and she and her husband proceed to have evil black magic sex while covered in snakes. Chances are she now has a demon baby in her oven. Stupid Cordelia.

 

The Youngins:

We learn that Precious Queenie arrived at Miss Robichaux's Academy via one nasty customer service incident. She was formerly a manager at a Popeye’s or something like it. Holy stereotypes, Batman! Really? The heavy African-American girl worked at a fried chicken place? Classy stuff, AHS. Anywho, there was a dude there who acted incredibly rude, calling Precious Queenie awful names while trying to secure an extra piece of chicken. The lengths to which some people go to for good soul food… She retaliated by shoving her arm in a fryer and scorching the dude up. As Precious Queenie explains this story she also lets us know she’s descended from Tituba, a very famous house slave from Salem. I assume we will hear much more about this in the episodes to come.

When we first see Zoe in the hour, she is reading the obituary for our dearly departed frat boy, Kyle. Madison interrupts, apologizes (but doesn’t really mean it) and says it was for the best. After all, if they were to take their relationship too much further, he would have succumbed to her toxic vagina. Again, sucks to be Zoe.

The girls’ conversation is cut short when they are called into Stupid Cordelia’s office for questioning. Seems the local police are onto the young witches. One of the detectives calls Zoe out on visiting the douchebag fraternity guy who survived the bus accident. He links her visit and douchebag’s death to the death of Zoe’s former boyfriend, Charles.  Zoe freaks out almost immediately and tells the detectives everything. Oh good lord. Can I punch her? Can someone? Thankfully, Fiona steps in does better than that. She employs some pretty phenomenal brainwashing and the two detectives forget everything and are allowed to leave (mostly) unharmed. Fiona then throws both girls against the wall and tells them “The weakest of us are better than the best of them. The only thing you have to be afraid of is me.” Duly noted. I’m still waiting to see how much strength it’s going to take her to send Queenie flying…

 

And how do the two young witches handle their scolding? Do they lay low? Take the day to help Queenie get over her distressing Popeye’s experience? Nah. Zoe and Madison break into the morgue with a resurrection spell. Throughout the room they find various parts of the fraternity boys on the bus, including Kyle’s. And yup, they think this is the perfect opportunity to make their own Frankenstein. Frankenkyle maybe? Yeah, I like that. This is really Zoe’s only chance at love. I imagine her toxic vagina will have no effect on a dead man.  

 

The Frankenkyle spell works, but only after Madison thinks it failed and leaves Zoe alone with all of the dead bodies/parts. As Zoe drives off with Frankenkyle, Misty Day pops up in the back seat of the car. Lily Rabe is back! Yaaaaaaaaaaay! Sure, she’s only really haunting the land, but I was SO pissed last week when I thought she had just made a cameo. Misty takes the young lovebirds home to her shack and vows to nurse Frankenkyle back to health.  They listen to “Rhiannon” and Misty tells Zoe that Stevie Nicks is “The White Witch. The only witch before you I've ever known.” Oh how she makes me smile.

 

The Divas:

Fiona has quite the smell coming from her chambers….tends to happen when you have a woman who’s been buried for almost 200 years tied to a chair in your bedroom. After Nan shoos Madame LaLaurie from the house, Fiona finds her sitting outside her old home, and Madame LaLaurie finally tells her story.  She’s not dead at all. She’s immortal after being tricked by “The Black Devil.” You see, Angela Bassett (I now know her character name is Marie Laveau, another real person) didn’t poison her after all. Instead when Madame LaLaurie woke up from the love potion slumber, she found Marie outside of her house with a mob. They had hung Madame LaLaurie’s family, and I was surprised to see her display such grief over these deaths...well, just her daughters. She had apparently planned to kill her husband anyway. Having murdered Madame LaLaurie’s family, Marie explained that she had given her everlasting life, not a love potion. Madame LaLaurie was then buried alive but wishes nothing more than to die at this point.

Somehow Marie Laveau bestowed immortality (or one hell of a youth spell) upon herself as well. She now owns a salon nearby. Fiona shows up to get her hair did and the two engage in perhaps my favorite discussion in all three AHS seasons. Fiona claims the white witches are superior. Marie claims those witches learned everything from the Voodoo witches…with Tituba starting everything with her power of necromancy. Fiona is offended. Marie continues to do Fiona’s hair and they go back and forth oh so cordially as if they were simply discussing competing fast food chains (shout out to Precious Queenie). The high point for me is when Jessica Lane interjects “no more spray” then continues on without missing a beat. Amazing.

 

Neither woman wins the argument, but Fiona does threaten to set the place on fire before she leaves. Marie knows Fiona has the upper hand and a battle is coming…or so she tells…the MINOTAUR!!! Whoa! He’s still around too?! I have to hand it to Angela Bassett – Tina Turner has nothing on her.

 

The episode ends there and I’m pretty satisfied. We now have some longevity for Lily Rabe and Evan Peters, we know Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett have been around a long time and have quite the score to settle, and we have Jessica Lange just being fantastic. I’m not sure that I care at all about Cordelia’s storyline just yet, but I imagine as her demon baby (seems we need one of those every season) takes shape, she’ll get more interesting. For now though I just giggle in anticipation of the Bates/Lange/Bassett grouping and can’t wait for next week.