Episode Title: "The Dead"
Episode Grade: B+
Tonight's edition of American Horror Story features Zoe having a threesome with the dead guy she resurrected and stitched together out of the body parts of her fraternity brothers and the dead actress Lily Rabe resurrected last week.
So, yeah, "The Dead" is kind of about sex.
More precisely, it's about sex, connection and feeling, and the way those things are all tied together. It's about a desperate longing for some sort of companionship at difficult times in our lives. This being American Horror Story, those difficult times include trying to find one's bearings after being resurrected from the dead.
Fiona isn't dead, of course, but chemotherapy's a bitch, even when it works. Her hair's falling out, and for a woman who has largely defined herself by her beauty (as dictated in large part by the society around her), this is a particularly devastating moment.
So along comes The Axeman, and damn, is Danny Huston enjoying this role. What he's offering, and what Fiona accepts in spite of her obvious reluctance and better judgement, is not just great sex, it's that sense of connection, that feeling of being desired that she so strongly values.
She values it so highly, in fact, that she ignores the dead body in the bathtub of Axeman's apartment. She values it so highly that she spends the night after first trying to leave. And she values it so highly that she shows up once more at the end of the episode, even after he tells her that he had spent decades watching her in the coven's house (he was trapped there, you'll recall).
I'll admit, there were no moments during this whole elaborate seduction routine that made me wary. At one point I even wrote in my notes, "Why can't she 'smell the bullshit' on this guy?" But by the end of "The Dead" I had fallen on the thumbs-up side for this particular storyline. Part of that is just the fun of seeing Lange and Huston go round-and-round in a small room.
But in a larger sense, examining Fiona's vulnerabilities and the understandable resulting weaknesses makes for more compelling television. It is, of course, tremendously gratifying to see Lange glide through rooms insulting people, and I certainly don't want to see that element of the show disappear. But a strong character is a character with some weakness, and I enjoy seeing Lange act the hell out of Fiona's desperate longing for some sort of bond at this late point in her life.
That search for a connection is Madama LaLaurie's downfall in this episode. Her plot takes on a different form than Fiona's and Zoe's, of course, but everything is tied together with the same thematic threads. For LaLaurie, her connection with Queenie is her lifeline in an unfamiliar age. But more importantly, it's her shot at redemption for the blood in her past, a way of re-connecting with some basic level of humanity.
Queenie's sudden decision that she's isolated from the other witches is...well, just that: sudden. She thinks it's because of her size, while LaLaurie (not unkindly) attributes it to her race. Introducing that particular dynamic now is a little convenient, and doesn't jive with what we've seen so far; the witches in this coven are fucked up, but there's no hint of racism in them. Hell, Fiona even got a big speech proclaiming her hatred for racists.
All of this is basically an excuse to drive Queenie to Marie Laveau, and, as expected, Angela Bassett is compelling and persuasive. She plays on Queenie's (new-found) sense of isolation and offers her a home where she can experience a true connection with those around her, and all for the low, low price of one Kathy Bates.
It's a price Queenie decides to pay once Bates admits a particularly grievous sin (killing the bastard child of her slave and her husband and using the child's blood for a beauty product). The episode ends with Queenie leading LaLaurie to Laveau, exploiting the former's hunger for friendship in order to deliver her into the hands of her greatest enemy.
As for Madison, FrankenKyle and Zoe...well, this plotline is a wee bit less subtle. The resurrected Madison just wants to feel something, anything, even if it's pain. And as much as Zoe might try to help Kyle recover some humanity, she's not having much success.
Of course, Zoe's not exactly covering herself in glory this season. This week, she leaves Kyle alone with Madison, only to return to find them having sex. Some credit to FrankenKyle, who managed to recover his fine motor skills awfully fast once sex with Emma Roberts was on the table.
I actually don't hate this. Based on what little we see in this episode, the connection Madison is trying to forge with FrankenKyle seems real, and it's about as reasonable a development as we can hope in a story that involves two resurrected dead people having sex. Roberts does solid work here conveying the quiet misery of her new existence, and in an odd, fucked up kind of way it's actually sort of touching watching these two confused, miserable creatures find each other.
Bringing Zoe into it for a threesome...that's less touching (or more, I guess, depending on one's usage of "touching"). Still, the thematic logic to that particular development is sound: Zoe has her own issues with connection, what with the whole "killer vagina" handicap. Finding two people who aren't in danger from simply being with her is meaningful for Zoe.
What I like even more about this episode is how it seems to instigate what one suspects will be the central plot going forward: the splintering of the coven. Queenie has defected to Laveau (though previews indicate she might have seconds thought already). Cordelia discovers tonight that her mother killed Madison, and she ropes Zoe into a conspiracy against Fiona.
We've sort of worked around the edges of that so far this season, but for the first time it's possible to see the outline of a larger arc. A battle between mother and daughter for the future of the coven, a reluctant potential supreme forced to fight for survival, all while a powerful and immortal voodoo priestess plots their destruction.
Oh, and dead people having sex.
Notes
- Zoe kills Spalding tonight. Normally I'd advise you to say goodbye to Denis O'Hare, but Lily Rabe's character is still hanging around, so hold off on that for a bit.
- Fiona tells Axeman that "I don't believe in ghosts," which seems to be one of the most hilariously on-point examples of arbitrary skepticism that I can recall.
- Speaking of on-point, American Horror Story would like you to know there are similarities between playing music and having sex. You're welcome for the insight.
- Madison is given a cringe-worthy voiceover at the start of the episode, comparing her inability to feel anything (what with being a walking corpse) with her generation's supposed similar handicap. This section of AHS brought to you by David Brooks.
- I actually really like the cold open, which features Kyle in better days hanging around with his frat brother in a tattoo parlor. The line "I only have one life" is rather on-the-nose, but showing his friends' tattoos, then cutting to the present day and revealing that he has those body parts...creepy and effective.
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