Welcome to the third episode of American Horror Story, the show for all your minotaur sexin’ needs!
I feel like this show is so next level crazy, there does not exist sufficient vocabulary to describe it. So I’m just going to start making up words. Cool? Cool.
This week’s word is: Ughpsetting. It’s the combination of “ugh” and “upsetting.” Embrace it.
We open in Fiona’s bedroom, where the Supreme is tossing and turning.
Dreaming about A-Camp
Fiona goes downstairs for a drink and some pills when she has a flashback to 1971. We see Young Fiona drinking in the parlor room, where she is busted by then Supreme Anna-Lee. Anna-Lee wonders why Fiona isn’t burning her bra with the rest of the witches, because it’s the 1970’s and that shit is happening everywhere.
“Are you kidding? Nobody burns Agent Provacateur”
“And you always hand wash it. I’ve taught you well”
We find out that Young Fiona is the rising Supreme, and her powers are already manifesting. To be named the new Supreme, she must perform the seven wonders for the Council. I assume this includes a flute solo, a hula hoop contest, and some freestyle breakdancing.
“So, tell me about your talent portion”
“I’m doing stand-up comedy. What’s the deal with men leaving the toilet seat up, am I right Ladies?”
“I hate it”
They also talk about how witches manifest their powers when they “flower”, which is my least favorite metaphor for women’s developing bodies ever. Basically, the rising Supreme sucks the life force out of the older Supreme, eventually overtaking her powers and the old Supreme dies. Young Fiona is ready to ascend the throne, but Anna-Lee isn’t giving up without a fight. She slaps her across the face and calls her a “vicious little gash,” which might be my new favorite insult.
“Well the joke’s on you, because my gash is huge!”
Anna-Lee has seen the future, and that future holds Fiona being a shitty Supreme. Anna-Lee plans to stay on the throne for as long as possible, but that turns out to be only a few seconds, as Young Fiona pulls out a knife and slits her throat.
“Working those cheekbones even after a murder”
The only witness to the crime? Young Creepy Butler!
“Should have taken that job at the Eastland School instead “
We flash back to the present, where Fiona looks at the portrait of Anna-Lee hanging on the wall. She is watched by Creepy Butler, silent as always.
“Fetch me another whiskey!”
“This kind of thing never happens to Mr. Belvedere”
Fiona looks at him and says, “cat got your tongue”, so I think it’s safe to assume that something terrible happened to Creepy Butler’s tongue that’s kept him silent all these years.
We follow Fiona to a jazz club, where she talks in voice-over about her glory days. Fiona reminisces about dancing with every kind of man, but she was always the lead. Sounds like someone is a top.
Cruising
She laments that it used to be all fun and games and casual banging, but in her later years it’s just Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” on repeat. Fiona is ignored at the bar, which is crazypants because she’s Jessica Lange.
She goes to see a plastic surgeon, who shows her a video of a face-lift. Fiona wants to know exactly what she’s in for, and by the look on her face it’s obviously not pretty.
Never saw an episode of Nip/Tuck
Zoe goes to visit FrankenKyle’s mother, who is mourning the loss of her son by smoking his last stash.
You wanna get high?
No thanks. I’m high on life.
Mrs. FrankenKyle tells Zoe that Kyle became the man of the house after his father left, and took care of the family. Zoe nods like she knew the guy for more than five minutes. Turns out Mrs. FrankenKyle just wanted to say goodbye to her boy. I think we know where this is going…
Meanwhile at Witch Academy Prep School for the Performing Arts, Queenie, Nan and Madison watch the new neighbors move in next door. They are mainly watching the hunky young shirtless guy unloading boxes.
Flash us your dick and we’ll throw you some beads!
But it’s already Lent
Shirtless’s mom shows up, and it’s Broadway diva Patti LuPone! She tell Shirtless to put a shirt on for modesty/Jesus/etc, so we know she’ll get along great with the witches next door.
My Jesus sense is tingling…
Inside, Delphine LaLaurie is watching Obama on TV and weeping hysterically, what with the black president of it all. This is pretty hilarious, actually.
Had her heart set on Ron Paul
Fiona is in no mood for 200 year old racist panic (or for explaining what a television is) and tells Delphine that the world has changed.
“There’s this thing called the Tea Party you might be interested in”
“I hate tea parties!”
Delphine then hisses “Liiiieeeessss” like she’s speaking Parsel-tongue. Have I mentioned how hard K. Bates is killing it on this show? So fucking hard.
Fiona then tosses her a maid’s uniform and tells her she’ll be working as a servant. Delphine freaks the fuck out about it, but agrees when she realizes it’s this or it’s back in the coffin.
“Fine, but next year we are doing a couples costume!”
It’s lunchtime, and the girls are gossiping about the hot new neighbor. Nan brags about hooking up all the time, while Queenie is saving herself for someone special.
One more round of the Electric Slide and then we’ll eat
Delphine, decked out in her maid’s uniform, wheels out lunch. Surely no one will recognize her in this cunning disguise.
Good afternoon, ladies I have definitely not assaulted before
JK, Queenie immediately calls her out as the bitch who clubbed her with a candelabra.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Play it cool, play it cool, dammit…
Queenie threatens to Frisbee her plate right into Delphine’s face, a scene I would love to watch. Delphine refuses to serve Queenie because racism, and just when Queenie is about to slap the shit out of her, Fiona arrives.
I knew I should have given you glasses and a wig!
Just pooped
As punishment for being basically the worst person who ever lived, Fiona makes Delphine Queenie’s personal slave. This will be fun to watch.
Meanwhile, in the swamp shack, FrankenKyle and Misty are cuddling and listening to Fleetwood Mac.
Both would rather be cuddling with Zoe.
Misty feels lonely, and tells FrankenKyle that you can’t be your best self until you find your tribe. Sounds like someone’s been watching Orange is the New Black. Zoe arrives, and Misty is super excited to show off Kyle’s newly healed body.
“All it took was some mud, alligator juice, and a bucket of ProActiv!”
“But he’s still a guy, so…”
“That’s what I wanted.”
“Yeah, totally, me too.”
FrankenKyle’s body may be healed, but he is still mute and paws at Zoe like a sad shelter dog. Zoe, who is full of good ideas today, wants to take him back to his mother in the hopes of rebooting his brain.
Misty gets super possessive and doesn’t want either of them to leave. Zoe literally drags FrankenKyle’s body out of the shack and promises Misty she’ll come back.
No one ever brings me on field trips!
Jesus Zoe, at least take her with you. If only to help drag around FrankenKyle, or tape him to a dolly or something. They leave Misty to cry and spin around.
I’m not the gal you’re taking home, oo oo. I keep dancing on my own
Nan and Madison welcome Shirtless to the neighborhood. Nan brought a cake, and Madison brought a skin-tight dress.
Cake and cleavage welcoming committee
Who’s at the door? This potato head
Turns out Shirtless’s name is Luke, and he is dumber than a bag of hair.
Let’s get this three-way started!
Nan has used her psychic powers to figure out Luke’s favorite cake. Madison takes the classy road, and basically demands that he take his pants off.
I have a slice of something else you might like. It’s my vagina.
They are interrupted by Joan aka Patti LuPone, who smells witchy seduction a mile away. She is not amused by Madison’s attempts to deflower her son. She’s also not amused by Madison calling her religion bullshit.
It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Some Trashy Bitch!
She tries to pry the cake knife out of Madison’s hands, but Madison uses her witchy powers to zing that knife into the wall!
So I guess we’re not having cake?
That was an eggshell finish!
Joan bans the witches from her house, which sucks for poor Nan who just brought a cake and didn’t blaspheme or anything. As they walk out, Madison sets the curtains on fire with her mind. Someone is developing some serious mojo.
It’s a FIRE….sale
Cordelia sits in a doctor’s office. Her spell didn’t take, and she can’t conceive a child.
But we had snakes and a ring of fire and everything!
In another doctor’s office, Fiona finds out that she can’t get a face lift. She’s dying.
So is a chemical peel completely out of the question?
Zoe drives a still dazed FrankenKyle to his house. Will seeing Mrs. FrankenKyle bring him back to life? Maybe. Will it scare the shit out of his mother? Most definitely.
We’ll traumatize your mom and then get ice cream, okay?
Zoe drags FrankenKyle up the steps and dumps him on the front door like a flaming bag of dog shit. She then rings the doorbell and runs away.
Best. Prank. Ever.
It’s like Ding Dong Ditch, only with the desecrated corpse of your loved one! Zoe hides behind a tree and watches like a creepster.
Just made a huge mistake
Back at Witch Prep, Fiona is double-fisting whiskey and pills, otherwise known as a regular Tuesday.
Madam, this uptight woman is here to see you.
Creepy Butler brings in Joan, who has come to complain about Madison rolling her vagina into a ball and pitching it at her son.
Straight down the middle like a fast ball
Joan has also brought Fiona a bible. Someone is barking up the wrong tree. Fiona calls her on her fundamentalist Christian hypocrisy, and tries to give her a drink.
Let me get this straight: you want a lady in the streets but a freak in the sheets?
She threatened to fist my son!
It’s just the four fingers, and you tuck the thumb under.
Joan is in no fucking mood, and tells Fiona to control her girls or she’s calling the police.
Madison shows up looking to start some shit. She taunts Joan by saying she conjured the devil and made her son jizz his pants using only the power of her withering stare.
And when I’m done with him, it’s just you and me, Evita
As Joan storms out, Fiona asks Madison to light her cigarette. Madison does it with her mind, capturing Fiona’s interest. Over at the FrankenHouse, FrankenKyle is tucked into bed when his mom comes in. She’s noticed his body is different (because it’s made of rapists) and he’s not talking.
If I’d known you were alive, I never would have smoked your weed
She doesn’t care though, as long as he’s still her son. And then this shit happens:
UGHPSETTING
FrankenKyle and his mother have been having sex, or more accurately, she has been sexually abusing him for quite a while. It is all of the gross. She feels up his Frankenpenis while he cries. I need a handi-wipe for my brain.
Cordelia goes to Marie Laveau’s salon to get a witch baby a’brewin. Sidebar, how amazing would it be if Lafayette from True Blood just wandered into this show?
Hello, I’m here to see the magic
Cordelia walks into the back room to find Marie sitting on a throne of bones and pelts. She’s chilling out and playing solitaire on an iPad like a badass. Marie offers her a Coca-Cola.
We also have Fresca, Coke Zero, and goat’s blood
Do you have goat blood zero?
Cordelia has come for a fertility spell, but Marie tells her it’s quite the procedure. There are drummers, dancers, animal skulls, and jizz in a mason jar.
I put the jizz in a Gladware container, is that okay?
NO.
So they toss the jizz into the fire and Marie eats the world’s hottest pepper.
Marie, you said I wouldn’t be the only white person here!
I lied.
There’s some singing, some dancing, and they cut a goat’s throat and let it bleed all over Cordelia’s vagina and stomach. Typical baby shower stuff.
No lie, I thought she was gonna fuck this goat
Despite the hefty price tag, Cordelia is ready to go. But not so fast. Marie cackles at her and tells her that she will never perform the spell. Since Cordelia is the daughter of her sworn enemy, Marie refuses to help her.
But I went to Vassar!
Bryn Mawr or die!
She says Cordelia was born in the wrong tribe, and Fiona messed with the wrong witch. Poor Cordelia can’t catch a break.
Zoe is back at school and pretending like she didn’t fuck with nature, when Mrs. FrankenKyle calls to invite her over for dinner. Nan wishes she would take her loud thoughts elsewhere.
How does Sookie Stackhouse put up with this shit?
Madison and Fiona have mimosas and soak up each other’s awesomeness. We find out that Madison had a cruel stage mom who forced her to be the breadwinner. It’s essentially every child star story ever.
What’s your mother like?
Her implants are hard as rocks
Fiona tells Madison that she was a terrible mother to Cordelia, and it’s too late to change, even though both of them are very much alive and living in the same house. Fiona laments that she has so much magic to teach and no plucky young witch to learn. Madison immediately volunteers.
Staring contest in 3,2,1, go!
The first lesson is mind controlling some guy to wander into traffic. This doesn’t take magic; this takes a case of beer. Or twenty dollars.
Meanwhile, Queenie has forced Delphine to make her chicken pot pie. This is upsetting, as chicken pot pie is never a punishment and always a joy.
Now chop all the onions!
But my eyes!
Delphine tells her that peach cobbler won’t keep her warm at night. She has obviously never had peach cobbler, because that shit is delicious and will warm even the coldest of hearts.
Queenie tells her that she uses food to replace the love she never had as a child. This seems like something approaching a genuine dialogue about eating disorders, so they shut it down right quick.
Sorry, I forgot I was on a show with no fucks to give
Delphine sees something moving outside.
Scared that Obama is lurking outside the window
Who’s at the door? It’s the minotaur!
I forgot my keys again.
Minotaur tries to break into the house. Delphine confesses her real identity to Queenie, who understandably freaks the fuck out. It’s bad enough she was eating racist cobbler but serial killer racist cobbler? Too far.
Voodoo doll vengeance powers activate!
Delphine gets on her knees and begs Queenie to help her. Queenie cuts Delphine’s hand, puts her blood on a towel, and goes out to face the minotaur. I would have tossed her racist murdering ass out the door, but to each their own.
Queenie the Minotaur Slayer
Queenie goes outside and starts waving the bloody towel like she’s a Spanish bullfighter. Then things start getting weird. Queenie tells the minotaur that he just wants love. She wants love too. They aren’t beasts, they’re just people. Queenie starts downstairs DJing and the minotaur is into it.
Come on baby, we ain’t nothing but mammals
So let’s do it like they do it in a bestiality snuff film
UGGGGHHHHHPSETTING. This feels racist and wrong. We so rarely get to see women of color and women of different sizes express their sexuality, and we get this fresh hell instead. I want to throw Ryan Murphy down a well.
Back at the house that incest built, poor FrankenKyle is rocking in the corner. Mrs. FrankenKyle tries to talk to him, but he still won’t answer.
Uncomfortable
She then tries to have sex with him, but FrankenKyle snaps and bludgeons her to death with a trophy.
Madison and Fiona are drinking and playing pool in a bar. I would watch a show that was just these two as drinking buddies.
High schoolers really can’t hold their liquor
Fiona watches the boys watching Madison, and flashes back to her youth when she had the same sway over men. This sucks, as Jessica Lange is still crazy hot, but whatever.
Cheers bitch!
I will destroy you.
Zoe shows up to dinner, and finds Mrs. FrankenKyle’s bloody corpse and an equally bloody FrankenKyle right behind her.
Should have left him in the swamp shack
Madison and Fiona stumble back home after a long night.
Let’s go streaking!
Fiona tells Madison that she is the next Supreme. Madison is dubious, but Fiona knows it. As Madison is flowering(gross) and gaining her powers, Fiona’s powers are fading.
Most of these Supremes used two fingers…
But I got that shit done with one!
But you still used your mouth, right?
Fiona has cancer. Madison assures her that her agent can get the best oncologist in the country.
Has connections at CAA, WME, and Cedars-Sinai
Fiona is not interested in chemo, and wants to go out in style. She laments becoming the Supreme at such a young age and squandering her powers. She was a shitty Supreme.
And I never got the choreography right!
Fiona confesses to killing her predecessor, and takes out the same knife. Madison starts to freak, and rightly so.
Stay away from drunks with knives!
Fiona asks Madison to kill her. Her time is up. Madison refuses, having already filled her murder quota for the school year.
Um, I think it’s past my curfew…
Fuck your curfew!
They struggle with the knife, and Fiona accidently/on purpose slits Madison’s throat. Goodbye Madison, it was nice knowing you. Unless you get resurrected, in which case we’ll see you next week.
I have eight more episodes of Mean Girls quotes, fuck!
Guess who saw it all go down? Creepy butler!
Does this guy ever get a night off?
Fiona tells him to bury Madison deep. She lights a cigarette and collects herself.
Smoking kills…everyone else
Fiona says, “this coven doesn’t need a new Supreme, it needs a new rug.” ZING!
NEXT time on American Horror Story! Witch Police! Frances Conroy! Drunk Fiona! And a live performance by Fleetwood Mac!
Pages: 1 2See entire article on one page
I felt compelled to delurk to say that I’ll read anything Chelsea writes. Clicking on to page two now. Carry on.
Oh God page two has all the ughpsetting.
Eh. Still totally worth it.
We have the same name! Hello friend :)
Oh yay! Hi. :) This never happens. It’s like us and Genevieve Valentine.
I love AHS and I love this season because witches and ladies and WOC but I’m also traumatized by every episode? I wish Ryan Murphy would stop hating women so much.
Yes, I can’t tell you how much I love that a legit horror television show is on that isn’t centering around vampires or werewolves. However, as much as I like the show, certain elements can be a bit too much, you know?
I would love to watch Lafayette from True Blood Vs Madame LaLaurie
“Marie, you said I wouldn’t be the only white person here.”
“I lied.”
And I died.
But yeah, my response to Queenie x Minotaur (+ other horror) was just that. I think I may have actually said “oh Ryan Murphy why?” after that scene. Ughpsetting, indeed.
Honestly, I thought the Queenie/Minotaur scene was fairly well-done, but I had a completely different interpretation of it than it appears anyone else did. I saw this scene as a sad exploration of a girl who views herself as an outsider that no-one wants, offering herself up to another perceived outcast. As a woman who is very different herself (autistic, bizarre interests, unusual-looking), I am probably projecting my own emotions onto Queenie, but I completely understand the feeling that no-one will ever want you unless they are as weird or different as you. This being said, I think that a character as damaged as Queenie, who has received only negative reinforcement, would certainly identify with a character like the Minotaur, and think herself deserving of love only from one as “monstrous” as he.
Also, I perceived this exchange differently from other viewers, I think. I thought Queenie was voodoo-ing the Minotaur, trying to get him aroused, to get him to stop going all murderous on everyone, while at the same time showing him that she doesn’t think he’s a monster.
HOWEVER, this is all coming from a teratophiliac, so I may be biased. After all, I always have stopped “Beauty and the Beast” before the Beast transformed back into a human.
Either way, I will continue to watch this show because Jessica Lange is insanely foxy and fabulous, and Patti Lupone is forever my hero. Also, am I the only one who thinks Gabourey Sidibe looks incredibly hot (if under-utilized and horrifically stereotyped) in this show?
Yea, I’m really over Queenie being the fat, food-loving, beast-fucking, black girl BUT, I also feel the same you, Sarah Marae. She seems like the only one who wants to connect on a common level, even sexually, with a fellow outsider. I can’t quite shake the feeling of straight-up racism (Queenie=beast, Minataur=beast), so I hope Murphy explains all this is very good fucking detail in upcoming episodes.
Also, Kyle being sexually abused by his mother… I feel so bad and awful and yucky and am also happy that he killed her the way he did. Howeverrrr, is anyone sensing that the parallel/irony that Madison isn’t able to speak about her abuse and Frankenkyle, silent body of rapists, gets to assert his own autonomy with the source? Is that a good thing? I kind of feel like there was some inadvertent justice with all this…
“Goat Blood Zero”
*dies*
Dammit AHS, why do you have to be so effing problematic??? I want to like this season, and there are elements that are obviously awesome but seriously. Driving me crazy.
The Queenie situation is exhausting. Why is she the virgin nobody wants? Why is she the one that works in the fried chicken place? When she is told to order Cathy Bates around like a slave, why is she shown at the table demanding pie and cobbler at all hours of the night? Why does Queenie have to have a lack of love in her relationships which she substitutes with food? Why is it necessary? Every emaciated woman we see on TV (which is practically every woman) doesn’t have a scene where she explains it is because of an eating disorder brought on by childhood abuse and media brainwashing. It would be considered boring and reductive to make those assumptions about all thin women, but it is totally legitimate to pathologize fatness as something there must be a root cause for. Fuck you and your body shaming Ryan Murphy.