AHS Cult Episode 10: Charles (Manson) In Charge

Well kids, the season finale of American Horror Story: Cult is next week and the characters are not just dispensable at this point - their exits are reckless. Episode 10 continues the bloodbath and takes us one step closer to...I'm not sure. I guess we are prepping for some kind of showdown and based on tonight's events, we deserve a payoff. Who didn't make it out alive this evening? Here's what went down in "Charles (Manson) In Charge."

Neurotic To The Bone

The episode opens on October 19th, 2016 during the final presidential debate. Winter and two of her friends are sitting on the couch in the Anderson living room talking about how no one is buying the shit Trump is selling. Kai sits at the kitchen table on his laptop, posting comments on websites like "I want him to win just to shut these dumb bitches up!" Kai tells the ladies that people hate Hillary and she'll never win because people won't turn out to vote for her, but Trump supporters would stand out bleeding in the rain or snow to vote for him. One of Winter's friends baits him and he slaps her in the face. He looks genuinely startled and apologizes quickly, but the girl says she is going to press charges and runs out of the house. Winter tells her brother he has crossed the line and then we fast forward...

Two weeks later Kai is sitting in anger management therapy as part of his probation and Bebe Babbitt is his therapist. She immediately asks him if he is familiar with the work of Valerie Solanas and he makes a joke. Instead of being frustrated with her new patient, Bebe encourages Kai to get into politics because of his charisma. "I think if you had a purpose, you would change the world." What?!? How did we get there already? Bebe explains that she is an old school feminist and her favorite politician of all time is Donald Trump because he is the first world leader to start hammering away at the dam of female rage. "With every Tweet, every eye roll, every pussy grab, he is slowly releasing the fury." Bebe calls Kai special and tells him he can be a spear in this movement. She believes he will drown in all that rage but "you will die knowing you saved us all and you'll be famous for it." Yikes. Isn't it wonderful that there are women like Bebe to help the mentally unstable? 

Do You Have The Time To Listen To Me Whine

We go now to the present day where Councilman Kai is holding a rally to talk shit about Senator Herbert Jackson, the dude he is hoping to unseat (with no clowns?) in the 2018 election. There are an array of protesters shouting behind the crowd of supporters and they start moving toward Kai and his crew. Both sides are screaming at one another and one protester throws a container of piss at Kai while another one blasts him with pepper spray. What a mess. Senator Jackson even gives a news interview saying if anyone should be taking Kai seriously, it should be the Department of Justice, and this does not go over well with Kai and the man army. 

Kai now believes the feds are out to get him and he's eager to start getting rid of clown posse evidence. He tasks Winter and Ally with revamping the ice cream truck to look more like an ice cream truck than a pedophilemobile. Winter asks Ally about Ivy because she doesn't believe Kai's story about Ivy taking off and going to cooking school in Paris (check your parents' room, kid). Winter says what she had with Ivy was real and she thinks Kai killed her. Ally's response? "If something did happen to Ivy...what makes you think it was Kai?" She smirks then walks away. Winter. Please. Slap this bitch. 

It's now story time at the Anderson house and the man army gathers their sleeping bags as Kai tells them about Charles Manson. We get a very, very graphic re-enactment of August 8th and 9th, 1969 when actress Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski's pregnant wife, and four others were murdered by "Manson Family" members Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian. Manson's followers left the word "Pig" in blood on one of the doors and Manson himself had hoped this night would kick off some sort of apocalyptic race war...though that was definitely not the case. Kai tells the man army they need to follow Manson's lead but go bigger this time. 

About Nothing And Everything All At Once

Kai's bigger and better plan involves poor handless Gary, a Kai loyalist to his very last breath. Gary is lured to a Planned Parenthood location under the impression he and the man army are stealing a list of women scheduled for late term abortions. Once inside the building, Kai and the clown posse (with unknowns in Ivy's and Gary's costumes) let Gary know that he is going to make a great contribution to the cause before stabbing him repeatedly. When a Planned Parenthood employee shows up for work in the morning, Gary's dead bloody body is leaning against the door with a sign that says "Stop The Slaughter." Some of his guts are hanging out too. Gross. 

A visibly shaken Beverly Hope is live on the scene and she interviews Kai in front of the Planned Parenthood building. Kai tells the camera that Gary was his supporter and a dear friend - a kind, gentle man. He then blames this crime on "the leftist terrorists and Senator Jackson, who supports them." Kai says an anti-life group killed Gary for being pro-life and my palm smashes against my forehead. When the interview finally ends, Kai gives Beverly a bunch of shit for not selling the story and Beverly looks scared and defeated.

Beverly has tea with Winter at The Butchery (how are they even paying the water and electric bills there to make tea?) and Winter apologies for trying to frame Beverly for Detective Jack's murder. Winter notes that the Beverly in front of her is broken and needs to escape. She even gives Beverly a train ticket to Montana to try to atone for the hell Beverly went through in the Anderson house version of solitary confinement. Thinking this is a test, Beverly pledges her support to Kai and says she will be his loyal follower to the end.  

Grasping To Control

Kai is unhinged at this point, checking the light fixtures and other areas of the house for bugs and wires. He tells Ally that he knows there is a mole in their group who is talking to the feds and he runs into the master bedroom mausoleum to get away from the buzzing sound he swears he hears. He sees Vincent sit up and the dead doctor asks Kai how he can turn that frown upside down. Ha! Kai admits he probably shouldn't have killed his brother and with that, Charles Manson appears because what not at this point? Manson is also played by Evan Peters and he tells Kai to identify the Judas...Manson says he trusted too much and that was his mistake. "It's always the bitches, man. Can't trust the bitches."

This conversation, if we can call it that, is interrupted when Ally bangs on the door. She's found a bug (I think?) and Kai flips out. Another interruption - Bebe is at the front door now and she needs Kai's attention. Down to the basement they go and she's super pissed. Kai was supposed to incite women's rage so they would go on the same kind of rampage as Coach Beiste's Valerie's far fetched Zodiac Killer group of women, but instead Kai has enraged everyone and created chaos everywhere. Bebe scolds him for allowing his sister to be defeated, for allowing Ivy to be killed, and for "breaking" Beverly. She even goes so far as to say "If only your mother had aborted you." Kai claims none of this is his fault because those people are/were weak. He says he had no intention of becoming a martyr to some dead bitch's cause...that he wants women enraged so he can break them down and lead them because they are too emotional to run things. "Women need to be grabbed by their pussies and lead, preferably to the kitchen to make me a sandwich." Oh shit! Bebe knocks Kai to the ground and aims her gun at him. Instead of pulling the trigger, she first wants to quote Valerie Solanas, allowing time for Ally to but a bullet through Bebe's head. No more crazy Frances Conroy...

When we next see Kai, Winter is giving him a buzz cut and blue locks of hair fall to the floor. She's very gentle with him and he hands her a razor to shave his face. Winter has an opportunity here but she just begins shaving. She tells her brother that when everyone gets what they need from Kai and leave him, she will still be there. Winter also says the only way for her to be with him in the end is to get away from him now. "I love you, but when I look at you now, all I feel is terror." He suggests that leaving would be a sign of betrayal, and when she starts to respond, Kai shifts in anger and she (barely) cuts him on the throat. Again, she has an opportunity but doesn't take it. Kai tells her she is the only person who really talks to him and really knows him and says he doesn't want to lose her, but he would be willing to let her go. He wants her by his side later when he's President and giving speeches to Congress and stuff. The exchange is sweet...until Kai pulls out that train ticket to Montana and beckons to his man army to take her away. I'm thinking Winter will end up in whatever solitary confinement area that once housed Beverly, but no. Ally has framed Winter and convinced Kai that Winter planted the bug in the house. He now believes Winter is the mole and she has betrayed him. Despite her best efforts to try to bring Kai back to reality, he chokes Winter to death with his bare hands and I'm done. Come to find out, there actually is a mole and it's someone in the man army. He runs and jumps in a car after he sees what happened to Winter and Ally follows him. She hops in the passenger seat of the car and he knows he is caught. 

The episode ends there and I feel like I am in a perpetual state of "what the fuck?" Really? Really with killing Winter? I was a little confused about sacrificing Gary, and Bebe kinda came out of nowhere tonight, but Winter? Are manwiches that potent that Kai would do anything for the bitch who makes them? He had JUST apologized to his dead brother for killing him and here we are? Sigh. The next episode is the final American Horror Story: Cult episode and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Beverly regains her balls of steel and takes care of Kai and Ally. I'm over Kai's delusions and Ally's smirk. I think I actually prefer her in annoying emotional breakdown mode, which I never thought I would say about any character played by Sarah Paulson. We'll see what happens to these fools next week, but in the meantime, they better start spreading lye in one of the guest rooms. We're nearing overflow status.