Episode Title: “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks”
Writers: Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, James Wong
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Previously on “American Horror Story”:
“She’s innocent…mostly. She killed the neighbor, but the bitch had it coming.” -Fiona Goode
Who the hell is the next Supreme!?! It’s so hard to freakin’ tell with the way “American Horror Story: Coven” keeps jerking you around, especially in the most recent episode, “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks.” But that’s one of the reasons we keep watching, right?
In case you don’t remember, the last five seconds of “Head” went pretty balls-out nuts, with witch-hunting husband Hank busting up into Marie Laveau’s voodoo palace and hair salon to shoot up the place. Now, wounded, but not dead, thanks to Queenie’s seemingly-fatal sacrifice, Marie crawls to Fiona’s school of witches for some respite, which makes total sense. The first place everyone thinks to go for safety and rest is the group you’ve been trying to exterminate for decades. Well, the witch academy lets her in, not because it makes much sense, but because it leads to an awesome scene of Fiona, Marie, and Cordelia sitting at a table confessing secrets like sorority sisters. During this sorority secret hour, they come up with a plan to take down the witch hunters, and Fiona yells at Cordelia for not just being absolutely useless this whole season, but also being blind to the fact that her husband was a witch hunter. She’s got you there, Cordelia.
Marie may have been looking for rest, but finds little of it since this is the very night that Papa Legba decides to visit her. This Haitian voodoo spirit is the reason Marie is 300 years old, but doesn’t look a day over 30. She sold her soul to him in exchange for everlasting youth, and now he visits her one day a year to collect an innocent soul. What qualifies as an innocent soul, you ask? Babies. Apparently, once you talk and walk, no one can maintain their innocence (which also confirms my theory that kids are secretly evil). So, we find out that Marie’s been stealing one baby a year to hand over to Papa Legba, putting her pretty firmly on my Crap List of Meany Jerk Doodooheads. Just when I was starting to warm up to her, too!
The stuff with Papa Legba drags pretty hard, and much of it feels like “AHS” is just treading water until they’ve killed enough time, which is pretty annoying, then we finally see the point of all this. Fiona wants to make a deal with Papa Legba to trade her own soul for eternal life. Of course, that’s assuming this cold-hearted witch has a soul, and you know what they say about making assumptions? Papa Legba confirms our suspicions and drops a baby grand piano’s worth of reality on Fiona: she has no soul to give, so the deal ain’t happening.
Ha! It’s not a huge surprise, but it is a nice affirmation to have. Since Fiona’s soul searching comes up short (due to her lack of soul and everything), she decides she’ll just kill all the witches herself so that she’s bound to get the Supreme, prolonging her life. Who needs witch hunters when the witches are so good at destroying themselves? Fiona’s spiral into Desperate Town is making her become the most dangerously evil villain of the season, and it’s splendid.
Meanwhile, Misty Day gets a visit from the real Stevie Nicks! Bringing Ms. Nicks on board is a really fun way to break up this episode, but, overall, it feels like a bit of a waste. With as obsessed as Misty Day is with Stevie Nicks, the writers could have done something shocking, or revealing, or something other than present us with the most typically mundane guest star performance. Nicks sings a couple of songs, which is awesome, and gives Misty some twirling lessons, but that’s it. THAT’S IT! The possibilities are endless with a bizarre show like “AHS” but, alas, it’s not to be. Stevie Nicks made like a one-winged dove and flew away before doing anything useful.
To counter some of the disappointments in the other storylines in this episode, we get a really fun storyline involving the three junior witches. Obsessed with who the new Supreme will be, the trio argues why each of them is the best candidate. Nan can mind control people now, Madison no longer has a heart murmur, and Zoe… is a great wet blanket. Hmm…who could it be? Honestly, Zoe has done basically nothing for most of this season other than have a threesome with two dead people, so if she’s not the Supreme it begs the question as to why she’s even around. Maybe she and Cordelia can start a “Pushed to the Sidelines Club” and hang out there together.
One of the best parts about “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks” is Nan getting revenge for poor Luke, whose mother abused and then killed him. Since mommy dearest was so obsessed with cleansing everyone, Nan helps cleanse her a bit by mind controlling her into chugging bleach. Vindication for everyone!
Nan gets a little too cocky and brags about her deeds and that she’s the next Supreme to Marie and Fiona, who decide to solve both of their problems with one simple solution- kill Nan. Nooooooo! Nan is one of the best characters on this show, and I hate to see her go. Well, Fiona’s one step closer to her mission to wipe out the competition now that she’s drowned poor, sweet, mind-controlling Nan. Meanwhile, Marie offers Nan’s soul to Papa Legba so she doesn’t have to hand over the baby she took.
Despite a few bumps along the way, “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks” is one of “AHS”s better episodes, with tons of great OMG moments like the reveal that Fiona has no soul, Nan’s victory over Luke’s mom and then her untimely demise Oh, and Madison knocks Misty out and buries her in a casket. Girl, you’re just all kinds of bad. When the witch hunters finally strike again they won’t have to do much, seeing as how all of these witches keep taking each other out. And while all this is happening, I can’t help but wonder: What happened to Delphine? Is she still stuck watching “Roots” or listening to Dixie Land since Queenie (probably) died? I’d like to think so!
