Thursday, October 24, 2013

Recap/Review: American Horror Story: Coven - The Replacements

So glad I decided to recap/review this series because this episode alone of American Horror Story: Coven certainly gave me a lot to mull over and then some.

Written by James Wong
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon


Fiona Must Die: Why is it that every single season that Jessica Lange has to play a character so monstrous that I end up wishing a painful death for her? I did with Constance, I did with Jude (though not as much as Asylum progressed) and after this episode, I really, really hope that Fiona dies horribly. I know Madison has been something of a bitch and a sociopath in these last three episodes but even I didn't think she deserved to die just because Fiona thought she was the new Supreme. I think despite Madison's growing abilities, she probably wasn't the Supreme (odds are it's either Zoe or Misty, maybe even Cordelia at a push) but Fiona did murder the last one (her predecessor Annalee in 1971) and will probably continue to stop at nothing in order to maintain her youth and her power now that we know she hasn't long to live. Personally though, I want her to suffer and I want her to suffer lots. I still think Lange is doing stellar work this season though. I also liked that we were given an explanation as to why Spalding has no tongue. The trailer for the next episode made it obvious too.


Mommy Creepiest: Oh dear. You can tell this is a Ryan Murphy show when it was revealed that Kyle was getting raped by his own mother, Alicia (Mare Winningham) and even when he came back to her, one of the first things she did was try it on with him again. Because of this, it's hard to feel bad when Zombie Kyle indulged in a little bit of matricide and Zoe had to witness him covered in blood. Although Misty did come across as a tad clingy this week, I think Zoe had been unwise to remove Kyle from her possession as quickly as she did. And yes, we got some more Stevie Nicks love ins (plus Fleetwood Mac's Sara this week) and a commentary about finding one's voice too. I do hope that Misty is brought into the coven soon, particularly to unnerve Fiona. Did I mention that I want Fiona to suffer?


Karma, Bitch: Any hope this show might have for me to feel bad for LaLaurie isn't emerging anytime soon. When the racist lady isn't weeping in despair over Obama being president (something which Fiona delighted in rubbing in), she's still hostile as anything to Queenie before Fiona punished her by making her into Queenie's personal slave. I did think this was a great episode for Queenie with the way she handled LaLaurie and the fact that she was brave enough to go out and confront the Minotaur as well. I really have a lot of respect for Queenie and her desire to be loved was rather affecting as well. As for LaLaurie, she did seem to soften a little towards Queenie but that racist behaviour of hers is unlikely to go away though.


Too Late For Tears: Another character on my shit list this week was Marie Laveau. I'm beginning to think she's just as much of a vindictive bitch as both Fiona and LaLaurie because her spite towards Cordelia was extremely uncalled for. Okay, she's mad at Fiona and that's fine enough but did she really need to humiliate Cordelia by denying her a ritual for fertility though? Personally I kind of hope we move away from Cordy's pregnancy plot soon and get back to her guiding the girls because a lot of shit went down in this episode with her charges and she wasn't there at all for any of it. That would be a far better use of the character at the moment in my own opinion.


New Neighbours: With a show about witches and the odd human character here and there, of course what we needed was to have a bible thumping character in the shape of Patti LuPone's Joan Ramsay, who took an instant dislike to Madison and Nan and butted heads with Fiona. As an antagonist to the latter, there's some potential here I think, though I enjoyed Fiona calling Joan out on on her hypocrisy towards sex though. On the totty front, we did get the lovely Luke (Alexander Dreymon) - Joan's sheltered son, who seemed to take a shine to Nan, despite being lusted by Madison in this one. I did like that the episode gave us a little more on Nan, though out of the four younger witches she still seems the least emphasized in the series so far. Hopefully that is going to change in the next few episodes though.

Next week, it looks like it's going to be a Halloween episode and we're finally gonna see some of the Council and Myrtle in action. Her hatred for Fiona is positively delightful if that trailer is anything to go by.

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