Thursday, December 05, 2013

Recap/Review: American Horror Story: Coven - The Sacred Taking

It was gone for a week and FOX UK are now about two episodes behind FX, but either way, American Horror Story: Coven came back with a solid if not spectacular episode.

Written by Ryan Murphy
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon


Join Hands Now: Taking in the title of the episode, it seems that everyone - Cordelia, Zoe, Madison, Nan, Myrtle and Misty have all joined forced to perform the sacred taking in order to oust Fiona once and for all. Like various online petitions, this wasn't quite the success story the ladies had been hoping it would be but at least Madison and Myrtle got to have fun by wrecking Fiona's head for a good portion of the episode. Also, I'm not sure if this episode actually confirmed Misty as the new Supreme or if like Madison, it was just widely assumed/red herring. We've got five episodes left (and one of them for this year), so I wish they'd just answer that question and be done with it already.


Supreme In Waiting: This episode really wasn't Luke's, was it? Most mothers would be relieved that their son survived a zombie attack but Joan managed to be as reprehensible as Alicia was by brutally punishing her son. I'm glad we didn't have to see a too graphic depiction of that Ajax Enema scene because what was seen was gruesome enough. Then Luke was left bound and gagged in a closet until Nan rescued him and he got shot saving her. On the plus side, at least Joan was killed off (briefly though) and given what she subjected her son to, she pretty much had it coming. More to the point and on watching this episode again, did this episode allude to Luke having powers of his own? Could he now be a candidate for the Supreme?


Don't Lose The Head ... Oh Wait: Anyone else a tad disappointed that Queenie defected to Marie's side and declared open season on her former friends so quickly? It can't just be me then, right? I guess I'm kind of sick of seeing Queenie manipulated and in this episode, both LaLaurie and Marie still were trying to exert some influence over her with the latter coming out on top. I'm oddly relieved that LaLaurie let her mask slip with her pithy comments towards Marie but if Entertainment Weekly's recent cover hadn't spoiled it, the final scene where Fiona and Cordelia received a mysterious package in the mail would've been a hell of a lot more shocking.


Not Gone Yet: You gotta almost admire Fiona's stubbornness here. While she might have had her wavering moments of almost succumbing to her declining health, both Spalding and to a lesser extent, the Axeman managed to give her the fight to live on just that tiny bit more. It was oddly nice to see Fiona bounce back and confront her would be assassins and it did seem like her and Cordelia made some kind of progress at the end of the episode as well. Oh God - do I actually want Fiona to survive? Not sure, folks. Really not sure.


Triangle Tedium: Does anyone actually care about this whole Madison/Kyle/Zoe triangle? Anyone? Nope, didn't think so. Kyle is slowly getting better but both Madison and Zoe are better as reluctant allies than two girls fighting over the same boy to be honest. Not that it's much of a triangle anyways, considering that Kyle admitted he loved Zoe, much to Madison's despair in this episode. It's not the worst plot line on the show but it's so weak in comparison to everything else at the moment.

Next week, it's the winter finale and it seems like everything is coming to a head in some respects.

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