Episode Title: “The Axeman Cometh!”
Writers: Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, Douglas Petrie
Director: Michael Uppendahl
Previously on “American Horror Story”:
Episode 3.05: “Burn, Witch. Burn!”
The Axeman and a witch walk into a bar…and we learn how the rest of that goes in next week’s episode of “American Horror Story.” This week we get introduced to the Axeman, based on a very real person from 1919. “The Axeman Cometh” marks the sort of halfway point through the thirteen episode season, dishing out some of the larger pieces which have been missing from the Coven puzzle.
Before we even get into the story details, though, let’s talk camera work. This episode’s cinematography stands out above the rest, taking the unique “American Horror Story” style and kicking up the twisty, turn-y, surreality more than usual. Some of it is so subtle you may even realize you’re watching that the person speaking is laid out diagonally across the screen. And the blurred vision effects + sound effects combo added a weirdly disorienting feeling to everything, really enhancing the experience without going overboard on the turn-y camerawork, Battlefield Earth-style.
It’s really interesting that the show takes these monstrous people from real life, shifts the truth ever so slightly, and fits them in to the show’s reality. The Axeman is a real murderer from New Orleans in 1919, and the flashback featuring him is mostly real stuff… up until the part where a bunch of witches gang together to murder him in the Witch Academy house.
Speaking of which, back in the present, Zoe tries to track down Madison by using a Ouija board. Her idea kind of works, but she doesn’t end up communicating with Madison… she dialed X for Axeman. In exchange for his release from the house, he tells her where Madison’s body is. Speaking of which, what can of air freshener does Spalding use? Because if it can hide a corpse in an attic for weeks it can definitely handle making my apartment smell better.
Some viewers might feel tempted to feel sorry for Spalding, so I’d like to remind everyone that he kept a flipping corpse for his own funtimes, so he’s not exactly one to feel sorry for. As Nan, Queenie, and Zoe torture him for information, he confesses to murdering Madison so that he could have fun “sliding myself into her cold, stiff, unyielding mound.” Sweet Jabba! I thought we were going to go a full episode without referring to necrophilia! But I was wrong.
Speaking of necrophilia, Kyle returns! Touché, “AHS”. He finds Misty Day and when she tries to give him a bath, it triggers some horrible memories of his molesting mother. He goes ballistic and smashes the radio playing Fleetwood Mac. No! Damn you, Kyle! Misty Day’s Fleetwood Mac obsession is why I was so obsessed with her, and now you’ve ruined everything! Misty gets pissed-y, too, and decides that she ain’t helping him anymore; she’s too busy watering her Myrtle mound (Myrtle appears to be recovering beneath a mound of soil). It’d be easy for Kyle to be some boring, grunting monster, but Evan Peters’ powerful acting skills really bring this undead dude to life marvelously.
Zoe finally seeks Misty Day out to do the thing that I’ve wanted them to do from the beginning… bring Madison back to life. They basically perform a two-man Heimlich maneuver, bugs come pouring out of Maddy’s mouth, and viola! Our bitchy queen bee is back from the dead. So Madison didn’t have a case of the deadsies, she just swallowed a bunch of bugs and needed her stomach pumped? Lucky for Fiona, a side effect of being dead is that Madison can’t remember anything about what happened, leaving the young detective witches in the dark about her true killer… at least, for another episode.
Over on the dark side of the Academy, Fiona longs for love as she gets chemo and a very blind Cordelia comes home. Cordy may have lost her eyesight, but she gained the sense of insight. If someone touches her, she starts Dead Zoning it up and sees flashes of their lives- an awfully convenient way to deliver plot information, if you ask me.
After Cordelia discovers her husband’s evil ways and throws the scumbag out, he goes to visit Marie Laveau. Hmm, that’s peculiar. Why does he need to see her? Maybe it’s because he’s a professional witch hunter who’s been running a long con on Cordelia for the past six years! OH SNAP WE GOT DOUBLE AGENTS UP IN THIS COVEN! Laveau sent him on a mission to seek out and destroy all the witches, which explains why he murdered the redhead from a previous episode. In an impressively vitriolic performance from Angela Basset, Laveau spits out an order for him to hurry up and kill the other witches lest he get burned by her voodoo power.
When the Axeman comes to collect on his deal with Zoe, she pulls another new magic trick out of her ass, which pretty firmly cements the thing we’ve all known for a while now… this chick’s the new Supreme. Anyway, this magic trick releases Axeman from the house, but he doesn’t move on to the afterlife; he gets released into current day New Orleans to do whatever he pleases. Turns out, he pleases to walk into a bar and hit on Fiona. So far the Coven has managed to bring back two nasty, turn-of-the-century serial killers and loose them on the world. Way to go, ladies!
Let’s see, we’ve got: plot twists, crazy flashbacks, Angela Basset snarling her ass off, and, of course, icky necrophilia stuff. All in all I’d say this was a damn solid episode of “Coven”. It looks like these disparate plot threads are starting to weave together to make an evil little sweater, and I, for one, am looking forward to slipping that sweater on again next week.
