Episode Title: "The Axeman Cometh"
Episode Grade: B-
Let's start with the truth: I'm not entirely sure what to say about "The Axeman Cometh," aside from the fact that I hate that title. It's more a collection of moments than a coherent whole. Or, perhaps put more accurately, the moments don't really cohere for me. A couple of moments are compelling, a couple of them are confusing.
But none of them are awful, and to the extent they promise some fun in the future, I'm willing to cut them some slack.
Before getting to that, however, I want to do a little touchdown dance, because I so rarely get to say:
Last week, I expressed some concern about the way the show was using Misty Day, the resurrectionist witch played by Lily Rabe. Giving a character the power to raise the dead is dangerous, insofar as she's a deus ex machina waiting to happen in just about every episode. When the witches burned Myrtle Snow last week, only to have Day resurrect her at the end of the episode, the effect of the proceeding plotline was significantly blunted.
Unfortunately, American Horror Story went back to that well this week. Yep, Emma Roberts is back, courtesy of Ms. Day. At least she got to play a corpse for a couple of weeks.
This is all sparked by yet another thoroughly unwise Zoe decision. Having come across a "spirit board" (which is clearly just a Ouija board someone with the show bought from a local Target), Zoe decides to use it to track down Madison. She doesn't get Madison, but she does get the spirit of a famous New Orleans serial killer, The Axeman.
Danny Huston, who plays Axeman, is one of the highlights of this episode, and I look forward to seeing him over the next couple weeks. Back in 1919, he sneaked into the coven's house with the intent of killing a few women (they refused to play jazz, as he demanded), only to be killed himself.
This being a horror story (see the show's title if you doubt me), the Axeman's spirit is trapped in the house, and he wants release. Zoe, being pretty stupid, doesn't listen when Queenie urges her to leave well enough alone, and makes a deal with Axeman's spirit: the location of Madison's body in exchange for his release.
To Zoe's credit, she's lying at the time, so she's not completely stupid. Just a little stupid. And petty.
It might be harsh for me to claim that Misty represents some sort of existential threat to the show. But at the moment, it seems hard to overstate exactly how troublesome I find this character. So long as Misty Day is hanging around, there are no consequences. Death isn't permanent, but even worse, it's not particularly dramatic.
The other major development this week is the revelation that Cordelia's husband Hank is actually a witch-hunter hired by Marie Laveau to track down and kill all the "descendants of Salem." That's the explanation for his little murder tryst with Kaylee, the adorable redhead played by Alexandra Breckenridge. She was a developing witch as well, a fact he discovered thanks to his marriage to Cordelia.
The end of "Axeman Cometh" is a little confusing. Laveau's pretty pissed that the witches still exist, and demand that Hank get his ass in gear and start killing them. Meanwhile, a blinded Cordelia, gifted with second sight thanks to the acid attack, is confronted by the Axeman's spirit: he was killed in her room, so he's trapped there.
Despite being a spirit, Axeman can still swing a mean axe, and threatens Cordelia, while mumbling something about a contract (was he also a witch-hunter?).The witches cast a spell...and then Axeman leaves and runs into Fiona at a bar.
The causality here is confusing. Is there a link between Hank and the Axeman? What was the point of the spell if the spirit can just leave anyway? Is it as simple as the girls opening the door and Axeman just invisibly sliding out?
More importantly, you can see the thematic links between Axeman and Hank, who both represent forms of male brutality against women. The witches taking a stand against Axeman back in 1919 is a reflection of their newfound power; his escape in 2013 is, equally, a reflection of the Coven's diminished strength. AHS is concerned this season with the ways in which women are oppressed and the ways in which they strike back against their oppressors.
Anyway, I don't know. But we get a new character played by an actor who clearly enjoys the role, so I'm OK for now.
Notes
- Not much Jessica Lange bitchiness this week, unfortunately.
- "When I plant a fat-ass cracker bitch in the ground, I expect her to stay planted!" Angela Bassett, on the other hand, does get a moment.
- Yet another cold open this week with some remarkably lame dialogue. "If we embody our feminine might..."
- Grace Gummer is the speaker of that particular line. You'll remember her as Hallie from The Newsroom.
- Misty's initially reluctant to revive Madison, pointing out, "She's missing an arm." But Zoe's got that covered: "I have it!"
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