More story-soaked goodness in this episode.  This season continues to impress me.  The plot moving can be encapsulated as follows (not in chronological order):

• Chloe served handsome cop (John Lowe) with divorce papers. She still loves him, but every time she looks at him she sees her missing kid, which I totally get.  Sad. But then Chloe got to see their dead kid at the hotel to close out the episode.
• Lady Gaga’s ex, Donovan, HATES his mom (Annie Wilkes Kathy Bates Iris) and sort of explained it in an argument which he ended by telling her she should kill herself. Which she then did with the help of 80’s junkie ghost (Sarah Paulson Lana Winters Bette Dot Hypodermic Sally).
• After getting kicked out of the hotel, Donovan (the ex) found himself in the lair of Angela Basset (whoo hoo!), who gave her whole backstory in one shot.  She was a B-movie Blaxploitation actress in the 70s who got turned into a vampire by Lady Gaga. When Angela made her own vampire (an up and coming rapper), Gaga was having none of that and shut it all down. And by “shut it all down” I mean she killed basically everyone. So now Angela Basset wants revenge and is on the search for how to get it. Watch this space.
• It turns out Gaga is broke. Bernie Madoff stole all her dough so she is going to marry the handsome dude who bought the hotel (Will Drake), get all his money, then kill him.  That is her big plan.
• Donovan went back to the hotel and the bartender gave him one of those succinct, bartender-y pieces of advice that makes him go looking for his mom. He finds her dead (or almost dead) and gives her his blood to bring her back.  So that’s a big deal.
• The junkie that Sarah Paulson and turkey skin monster sort-of killed in the opening episode ended up killing the fashionista, making three characters whose names I couldn’t be bothered to look up.  Then the junkie ended up in the hospital and I am not sure how that all happened.  I think I must have looked away for a minute.
• Tristan, the  model and new Lady GaGa boyfriend, learned more about Evan Peters James March, the builder of the hotel. Tristan is totally down with reopening the place as Murder Castle after March showed him the “black closet” which seems like a terribly inefficient way to kill people but was gory nonetheless.

The only story I am not getting yet is the serial killer angle.  The 10 Commandments Killer is out there ,and his latest murder (nailing the tongues of writers at a gossip rag to their desks so they would stop bearing false witness) was fun but I think the parallels to the main story of what’s happening at the hotel are more interesting so far.  Not all have been touched on so far, but a few have been main themes:

1. Honor your father and mother – This is definitely being explored with Donovan and Iris. We haven’t seen anything else specifically related to “honor” issues but they are playing the mother/father/kid angle hard with the Chloe/Lowe/Holden situation, and also with the vamps Lady Gaga has made. She is their mom, which means she should be honored, no? And Angela Basset knows the baby vamps are the way to get to Gaga!
2. Don’t murder – They blew that one in the first 10 minutes!
3. Don’t commit adultery – Also blown (pun only sort of intended). AHS is always hyper-sexual and this season is no exception.
4. Don’t steal – Gaga wants to steal the new owner’s money. And it was implied she did the same thing with the old owner, Marsh!
5. Don’t covet – Pfft – the entire show is based on coveting.  Always.  Every season.

Since we are only three episodes in I can’t really nail this theory into place, but it still feels to me like bringing the 10 Commandments into the show would be a huge miss if the main story line doesn’t address them all.  What do you think?

Categories: Reviews

Tags: AHS, American Horror Story, halloween, horror, hotel, hotels, Television, tv