In a culture where shows like Jersey Shore, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo engross TV viewers everywhere, it's important to acknowledge programming that engages audiences with clever writing and stimulating material. Every so often the networks get it right and support a series that is a breath of fresh air with clearly developed characters, perfectly cast actors, and a luring and often intricate plot. In appreciation of such shows, I have started this commentary.

Monday, January 13, 2014

AHS Coven: Best. Guest Star. Ever.

Happy New Year!  After quite a break we can finally get back to the drama and suspense of American Horror Story: Coven. As the season is starting to wind down (the finale is scheduled for the end of the month), we’re getting close to finding out who is going to outsmart…or at least outlast the rest. Here’s where we are:  
 
 
Keep Your Friends Close...
Fiona and Marie have a heart to heart over her hair salon massacre. Fiona thinks the voodoo witch is crying over her comrades, but in reality, Marie is touched by Fiona’s kindness. She leaves Marie to rest, telling her they will form a truce and plan for the battle ahead in the morning. Poor Marie can barely lay her head down before she is visited by Papa Legba, a spirit who serves as the gateway between the living and the dead. He’s also really effing creepy.  

We finally learn now how Marie has stayed alive for 300 years. I had assumed she made herself some sort of potion like she did for Madam LaLaurie (where is she?), but this magic is much darker. The liquid she gave Madam LaLaurie was simply her tears. Marie’s price to live though is through sacrifice. Not a goat or chicken…Marie must sacrifice a baby to Papa Legba in order to keep her immortality. She steals one from the local hospital and coldly tells the child: “Shut up. I’ll give you something to cry about.” Hmph. And just when I was starting to feel sorry for this bitch...
 
When Fiona tries to plea with Marie to help her live the way she helped Madam LaLaurie, Marie reveals that she sold her soul to Papa Legba. She tells Fiona that in her young days she thought she was invincible and wanted to stay that way. Marie also explains that sold her soul without fully understanding the consequences. She found out the hard way as she had to sacrifice her own baby as part of the deal. She makes a baby payment once a year. The wheels start to turn in Fiona’s head…
 

Stupid Cordelia
Our “blind but now I see” witch is just finding out that Hank was responsible for the hair salon shooting. And you thought he was just a douchebag…he was so much more than that, Cordelia. Your second sight gave you the ability to see him banging Kaylee, but not killing witches. Probably just as well that power was short-lived.

Marie explains how she hired Hank, what his mission was, how he hated Fiona and the coven and so on. The Supreme dashes across the room and I figure she’s about to bitch slap Marie, but instead she backhands Cordelia. “You brought a viper into this sacred house!” Fiona realizes that Hank is part of an ancient order of hunters and suddenly the witches’ battle just turned into a long-existing war.

The witch hunters come from The Delphi Trust, which you can find on the internet if your second sight is useless, and if you click through the pictures on The Delphi Trust website you’ll find pictures of Hank and his daddy. Neat. Seriously Cordelia – WHAT did you know about this guy when you married him? Anywho, The Delphi Trust evolved from the family business. Hank’s family had been carpenters and furniture makers but evolved into private equity businessmen. They make a shit ton of money, y'all.
 
Marie is ready to high tail it to Atlanta to confront The Delphi Trust dudes, but after some consideration, she and Fiona come up with another plan. Using a maze, a trap and some money, the witches are able to simulate the corporation to lure the mice into their trap. Suddenly the company is taking an enormous financial hit…and Hank’s daddy knows it’s time to finish off the coven.  
 

Edge of Seventeen
Misty receives the surprise of her life when Fiona gives her a new Stevie…literally. Stevie Nicks has arrived at Ms. Robichaux’s Academy. Misty promptly faints upon seeing her, causing Fiona to tell Stevie “you owe me five bucks.”  Hell, I probably would have fainted too, and I also probably would have peed myself if Stevie sat behind a piano in my living room and played “Rhiannon.” Instead though, Misty launches into a shawl twirl that is just fantastic.

The three remaining student witches arrive toward the end of the song, and Madison is seething. The teen queen thought for sure she was the next Supreme but Fiona shuts her down. She tells Madison she’s certain Misty will pass every test. Misty, at the moment, could care less about this shit because Stevie gives her a parting gift – her own shawl.

As Madison bitches some more about how she deserves to be the Supreme, Nan lets us know that her powers are strengthening. Before she could only read mind, but now she can control them as well. She makes Madison put out her cigarette…before telling her to put it in her vagina. Ha! Zoe reminds Madison that she has a heart murmur and can’t possibly be the Supreme. Apparently though when one gets their throat slit, sits in Spalding’s lair for a good long while and then returns from the dead, they do so with no heart murmurs. Who knew?

Madison, Misty and Misty’s new shawl have some girl time at a local cemetery where Madison boasts of her powers. She too can raise people from the dead and resurrects a recently departed man from his coffin just before entombment. Madison tells Misty to put the shawl in the coffin to signify that she is her own person – this is the only way she can rise to be a Supreme. Misty leans over the coffin, hesitates, then clutches the shawl close to her and turns to leave. Madison clocks her in the head with a brick, dumps her in the coffin, steals the shawl and walks away as Misty is put in a tomb. Um, I’m holding back my rage because this CAN’T be how Misty meets her end. I’m going to be devastated if it is.   
 

Better to have loved and lost…
Nan and Zoe make their way to the hospital only to find out that Luke had passed away the day before. Poor Nan. She just can’t catch a break. The two girls come up with an immediate plan to find Luke’s body so Misty can bring him back to life (duh), so the witches go to the Ramsey house to ask momma Joan which mortuary Luke is in.  Joan unfortunately tells her neighbors that she’s already had Luke cremated…and whips the urn out right there in the kitchen.
 
Nan can apparently hear ashes though? She suddenly loses her shit and screams that Joan smothered Luke with a pillow. Nan then uses her mind control powers to make Joan drink a container of bleach. With a wicked grin on her face, Nan sends Zoe across the room, looks and Joan and says “You have to be cleansed.” Oh my. The things people do for love.

Speaking of which, Fiona is doing her damnedest to summon Papa Legba. She thinks of her love, The Axeman, and she is re-motivated to continue her fight to live. Papa evidently likes cocaine, so spreading a few lines out on a mirror did the trick. He tells Fiona he will give her everlasting life in exchange for her soul…and a service one night a year. He doesn’t quite clarify, asking her only if she would murder an innocent or cripple her daughter. Still too vague for me but Fiona doesn’t care. She asks Papa to seal the deal. When he goes in for the kiss, he tells her the deal is off – she has soul! Oh snap! The Axeman appears and tells Fiona that all they need to do is find the young girl bringing her down. Fiona does a line of cocaine and says “I’ll just kill them all.” She wouldn’t, would she?

Nan is on cloud nine now that she believes her actions place her as a Supreme frontrunner. She wanders through the house searching for the source of a noise and finds the baby Marie had kidnapped. Marie is right behind her and demands she hand the baby over. Nan talks A LOT of shit about being the next Supreme and Fiona hears her….cut to Fiona and Marie drowning Nan in the bathtub. Papa Legba appears and he likes the Marie/Fiona combination. He leaves with Nan, and I don’t wonder about Fiona’s soul at all now. I believe she is just plain evil.

  


With Nan gone, Misty (hopefully just) missing, Cordelia feeling like a failure, has Madison created a scenario that puts her head to head with Fiona now? After all this Supreme BS, could it be Zoe after all? Where the hell was Kyle during all of this? Was he worried Stevie would cast a spell on his ass after he “broke” her? Oh, and is Precious Queenie actually dead? Seems that bit of information is still pretty foggy.

I had hoped we would have more of a Witches v. The Corporation theme on our hands tonight, but with the witches dropping off, I’m not sure who will be left to defeat the hunters. Maybe Kyle the guard dog? Will he serve a purpose this season after all? Time will tell.

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