Posts tagged: American Horror Story Hotel

American Horror Story: Hotel S05E11 “Battle Royale” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on FOX, Tuesdays, 10pm
Writer: Ned Martel
Director: Michael Uppendahl

Essential Plot Points:

• Okay, BIG week this week. Everyone ready? Deep breaths aaaaaaand go!

• Liz and Iris arm up, kick the door in and open fire. Donovan sacrifices himself to save the Countess. She’s badly injured anyway but escapes. Donovan, on the verge of death, begs his mother to take him outside. If he dies in the Cortez he’s there forever. She, reluctantly, agrees.

• Donovan dies outside on the street.

• The Countess is rescued by Sally who digs the bullets out of her and reveals her back story. She came to the Cortez in 1993. A friend of – and pusher for – two upcoming musicians, Sally came there to get high and sleep with them both. Way off the deep end, she suggested they get sewn together so they’ll always be close. The others agree, then OD, leaving Sally sewn to two dying humans.

• She remains there for 5 days, during which time Evers pops in to cheerfully point out how difficult it will be to wash the stains out of their sheets and how much she’s looking forward to it. Sally also sees the Addiction Demon for the first time and it tortures her for days until she finally tears herself free.

• Back in the present day she makes it clear that she’s only saved the Countess because she wants her to kill John, in the Cortez, so they can be together forever.
• Meanwhile back at the worst family EVER, John brings Alex, Scarlett and Scarlett’s terrifying vampire younger brother home and tries to be normal. Scarlett, who is having none of this nonsense asks how they’ll feed. John and Alex realise that their family puts the “undead” in “unconventional”.

• Back at the Cortez, Sally is worried. The Countess isn’t healing and she needs blood. She asks for Donovan and Sally takes just a little too much delight in pointing out that her lover’s dead. Instead, she brings some of the Countess’ “children” to her. The Countess resists but the children volunteer and, reluctantly, she feeds on them.

• Upstairs, Iris is given Donovan’s ashes by Liz and spreads them out. Evers arrives and Iris tells her to vacuum it all up. Iris then goes to the roof and faces the Sun, fully human and finally at peace with herself.

• With no good options left, Iris and Liz let Ramona out. They’re horrified to find the vampire children that the Worst Parents In History lured in there last episode. They’re even more terrified when they find Ramona loose and out for blood. They manage to persuade her that they’ll get her a new victim and head downstairs with no idea what to do.

• And they find Queenie from American Horror Story: Coven! She’s in town to appear on The Price Is Right. Liz recognises her and seems like a fan but that doesn’t stop them leading her upstairs to the room where Ramona is waiting.

• Ramona’s expecting an easy kill. What she gets is an asskicking the likes of which she’s not had before as Queenie uses her ability to transfer physical harm to herself onto her opponents to beat the vampire senseless. She’s finally killed by March who, as he’s already dead, is exempt from Queenie’s abilities. Ramona feeds on the young witch and March explains he needs someone to kill the Countess in the hotel. It can’t be him and Ramona is the most powerful person left so she gets the job. She, of course, accepts.

• John returns home with “dinner” – a man with clean blood. He finds his family missing, and a Hotel Cortez key left behind. He races to the hotel, where he finds Sally waiting for him. She explains that March needs one more kill and then he can have his family back.

• Upstairs, a still badly hurt Countess comes back to the ruins of the penthouse. Ramona confronts her there and the Countess compliments her on the power she’s gained. Ramona explains she’s fed from a witch and the two women argue, both clearly itching for a fight, an emotional connection or both. The Countess agrees to let Ramona kill her on the condition they sleep together one last time.

• The next thing we see is the Countess, dressed for travel, leaving the penthouse. Ramona’s fate is unclear. The Countess summons the lift, the doors open and…
• A smiling John guns her down. He has his last kill.
• John mounts her head as the final trophy and a jubilant March congratulates him. Sally tries to kill John and March stops her, clearly eager to have his protégé free to kill more people out in the world. John leaves to search for his family and March gets ready for dinner.

• We next see a clearly nervous March waiting for the Countess to arrive. She does so, newly reborn as a ghost but distant and cold. She complains about the passion being gone now she’s dead and Evers blows up. She points out the passion has always been there in March and the two women bicker.

• March forgives his wife for turning him in all those decades ago and she tells him she didn’t do it. A stunned March refuses to believe her until Evers confesses. She turned March in because she loves him and wanted the pair of them to be together forever.
• March banishes her. A newly free Evers takes her apron off and leaves.

• The Countess weeps as she realises she’s trapped with her monstrous husband for eternity.

Review:

WOW. The homestretch is upon us and Hotel spares no time, or expense, in putting on a show. Let’s check in with every major plot shall we?

The Countess is on top form this week and Gaga turns in even more top class work. Her numb, horrified response to feeding on her kids is one highlight. The other is the clear discomfort, and sincerity, in her final scene with Ramona. She wants to make amends for the hideous things she’s done. But it’s the one thing she isn’t good at and that annoys her. It’s a really smart combination of embarrassment, grief, anger and rage all mixed in the adolescent flush of a decades long adrenalin high. Brilliant work from her all the way through especially in the silent final moments of the episode.

The 10 Commandments Killer has finished his job. Which means another will be along just as soon as March thinks of it. I’ve gone back and forth on John and Alex this season but this episode feels like we needed more time with them. They’re such perfect, broken monsters. Like the Countess, a pair of arrested adolescents. Unlike her, they have a support system in Scarlett, the unluckiest, most normal kid in this show’s history. Maybe she and Lachlan can team up and fight crime. Or maybe they should just RUN. Either way, John, Alex and family have become much more interesting now they’re being honest with one another. Here’s hoping they get a chunk of time in the finale.

Liz and Iris continue to be magnificent. The scene with them in the elevator discussing how to get Ramona fed is flat-out hilarious and O’Hare and Bates have wonderful natural chemistry. I doubt we’ll get the Iris & Liz: Hoteliers To The Stars And Recently Deceased sitcom I desperately want but hopefully we’ll get more screen time with them in the finale. Their scenes with Ramona are especially great and Angela Bassett is on top form this episode, even as she’s getting her ass soundly kicked by Gabourey Sidibe’s hugely fun Queenie.

But the real stars this episode are two side characters. Sally’s been benched, by and large, for a little while now. Here, Sarah Paulson is centre stage and shows us just how good she is. There’s almost something good in Sally but it’s been hollowed out by her terrifying experiences in the hotel. The scene with her sewing herself to her lovers is possibly the nastiest moment we’ve had this year. It certainly made me wince the hardest.

But what’s fascinating about Sally is that she’s the closest the show gets to innocent. Whether the Addiction Demon did something to her is unclear and, worryingly, may not be made any clearer before we’re done. But her desperate, savage need to not be abandoned is heartbreaking and Paulson gives it all the sincerity and rage it needs. She’s a broken human in a building full of broken monsters and that makes her the weakest, and most terrifying, of them all.

But in the end, this is Mare Winningham’s episode. She’s as brittle and broken as Sally but when March rejects her, he helps her put herself together. Every line Evers has shines and Winningham gives her power and dignity that no other character shares. The final scene deserves to be Evers’ curtain call; finally honest, finally spurned, finally free. Except of course, once you die in the Cortez you can never leave…

There’s a vast amount going on this episode and as you can see, most of it’s brilliant. It’s not all good news, though. Lachlan has disappeared altogether, which is untidy rather than bad. However, the Addiction Demon has one episode to become something more than a cheap and often needlessly unpleasant visual gag. Even worse, everyone else is on such top form you actually resent the character the time it needs to register.

That aside, this is a hell of a piece of TV. Roll on the grand finale.

The Good:

• Michael Uppendahl’s direction is claustrophobic and playful in a way that suits this show like a glove. Look at John clearing the corridors on his way back into the hotel, or the Liz/Iris/baseball bat scene in the lift. It’s always tense and closed-in but there’s the constant threat of a laugh just as much as a scream. Brilliant, witty direction throughout.
• A never-ending parade of gorgeous dialogue this week from Ned Martel’s script too. Including:
• “You’re not going to leave me, right?” Poor Sally, summed up in a single line.
• “Has there ever been a more aptly named style of music than grrrruuuunnggeee?” Denis O’Hare purrs dialogue like no one on Earth. Except, perhaps, Angela Bassett.
• “And for the record, Shout At The Devil was an underrated masterpiece.” This is such a lovely little moment with Liz that you almost miss it. She actually likes these kids, enjoys the fact they verbally spar with her. It’s a sweet character note that ties with her scenes with her son last episode. Liz is a fundamentally decent person, even after her time in the Cortez. She’s changed but that decency is still in there and it’s starting to surface again.
• “Post mortem excrement is the biggest challenger of them all!” Just the first of several brilliant moments we get with Evers this episode.
• “I want him back in the hotel. And I want him dead. Here with me FOREVER.” Sarah Paulson has done quietly brilliant work all season and this is her finest hour. Sally finally has power. She has it through the exact thing that’s crippled her, her dependency issues. And she doesn’t care because this time she gets to WIN. Except of course, she doesn’t.
• “As long as we take our medicine, we’ll be healthy.” “You mean drink blood?” I’m getting the increasing feeling Scarlett is going to get shortshrift in the finale. That’s a shame as she’s great. But seeing her take none of her mother’s naïve mega-nonsense is still a pleasure.
• “Big hotel. Big furnace.” Another note-perfect moment. Liz is just a little perky, still happy that things are actually happening. But she’s not unkind about it either. Complex, subtle interplay of emotions, in the same episode as three people being sewn together. This show really does cover a lot of ground.
• “How are you feeling?” “…LEAVE ME ALONE.” Gaga really has been the MVP this year and, given the stunning quality of this cast, that’s saying something. She does so much here with stillness and calm and it’s one of the most truly chilling scenes of the season.
• “So we’re desperate.” “Just out of options.” The Blackadder/Baldrick esque dynamic between Liz and Iris here is just wonderful.
• “But mama IS on a course correction.” Angela Bassett relishes every syllable of this dialogue and it pays off so damn well. Ramona has become what she used to play; a raging rampage of revenge in human form.
• “We can’t just go out on the street and bash someone in the head!” “If you’ve got another idea I AM ALL EARS.” It may be wrong but I would watch an entire season of Liz & Iris Start Some Trouble.
• “Bitch, when’s the last time you saw a dermatologist?!” Everyone else on the planet would scream. Queenie trashtalks. This is the most fun the series has been since Iris vs the Hipsters.
• “I ain’t nobody’s protein shake, bitch!” Oh Queenie, we’ll miss you most of all. Well, you and Liz.
• “I’m not letting some raggedy-ass red-dotted bloodwhore FREAK take up another second of my time.” This is how great Gabourey Sidibe is in the five minutes she’s onscreen. She shares scenes with Kathy Bates, Dennis O’Hare, Angela freaking Bassett and Evan Peters and OUT-ACTS ALL OF THEM! Queenie is amazing: a laconic, ruthless unflappable witch and she deserved so much better than being taken out by a cheap shot. But damn if it isn’t fun watching her effortlessly kick Ramona’s ass.
• “You swear you haven’t taken any drugs in the last 30 days? I’m a cop. I can test you. You want me to test you?” I love this scene. John is still the absolutely strait-laced Dudley Do-Right type. It’s just that he’s being like this with a man he’s brought home to feed to his vampiric family…
• “I’ve never known another woman whose blood smells like walnuts.” One of the many perfect pieces of dialogue in this episode. It tells us a lot about how the vampires perceive their surroundings without being the slightest bit expository.
• “I’m weak but I’m still THE CHAMP. You may beat me but you’re not getting out of here without at least a severe lifelong limp.” The Countess baring her teeth one final time. She even threatens politely.
• “I AM a curse. Nobody who gets within 10 feet of me survives.” This is an amazing script, arguably the best since Jennifer Salt’s brilliant “Devil’s Night”. This final confrontation between the Countess and Ramona is especially great. The tension, the barely contained lust and rage in the room, paints these two characters as something much more, and much less, than human. Amazing performances from Gaga and Bassett too.
• “I’m trying to apologise. I’m NOT USED TO THIS. Cut me some slack bitch.” Her final seconds of sort-of life include the Countess trying to grow as a person. No one gets off easily this year; no one’s entirely good or bad. But it’s still not enough to save her.
• “Can you see me now?!” I’m so pleased they found more to do with Evers, as Mare Winningham has been amazing all season. Her final scene here is especially great. Pleading with March to see her is just heartbreaking.
• “Get out.” All the dapper, charming gentlemanly trappings fall away and Evan Peters shows us the real March; a cold, flat, dead-eyed monster of a ghost. No wonder the Countess is weeping in the final shot.
• “There are more stains in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” This is the only show in history that could conceivably combine Hamlet with housekeeping and make it work. Hats off to Ned Martel’s wonderful writing and Winningham’s staggering performance.

The Bad:

• Queenie going out like that leaves a bad aftertaste. Especially as she’s so brilliant when she’s onscreen. Maybe we get some more of her as a Hotel Ghost?
• Evers’ love for March could, arguably, have been made more overt. That being said, she’s helped cover up his murders and washed the sheets in his Hotel Of Awfulness for decades after dying. If that’s not love I’m not sure what is.
• The Addiction Demon could really, really do with an origin. Soon. Like in the next 20 minutes of screen time.

And The Random:

• Gabourey Sidibe kicks all kinds of ass as Queenie and was one of the very best parts of American Horror Story: Coven and FreakShow. You’ve also, odds are, seen her in Empire. If you haven’t seen Precious, her debut, do so. It’s a tough watch at times but, given it was Sidibe’s first ever acting experience her performance is flat-out stunning.
• I’m really enjoying how the AHS seasons are gradually tying together. The Countess’ side trip to the Murder House was fun as was the way Freak Show tied to Asylum through the presence of Pepper last year. Ryan Murphy’s talked openly about how all the seasons connect and this being the first year that becomes apparent so it looks like the metafictional fun is only just beginning.
• This week’s Music To Watch The Increasingly Frantic Inhabitants Of The Worst Hotel In History Go By includes “Seconds” by The Human League over the opening scenes and “I Wanna Be Adored” by The Stone Roses over the final Countess/Ramona confrontation.
• Shot of the week: this is every aspect of John finally united. The stance and training of a police officer, the vengeance of a man long past due being messed with. The quiet smile of a killer finishing a design. Amazing work from all involved.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other reviews of American Horror Story: Hotel

American Horror Story: Hotel S05E11 “Battle Royale” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on FOX, Tuesdays, 10pm
Writer: Ned Martel
Director: Michael Uppendahl

Essential Plot Points:

• Okay, BIG week this week. Everyone ready? Deep breaths aaaaaaand go!

• Liz and Iris arm up, kick the door in and open fire. Donovan sacrifices himself to save the Countess. She’s badly injured anyway but escapes. Donovan, on the verge of death, begs his mother to take him outside. If he dies in the Cortez he’s there forever. She, reluctantly, agrees.

• Donovan dies outside on the street.

• The Countess is rescued by Sally who digs the bullets out of her and reveals her back story. She came to the Cortez in 1993. A friend of – and pusher for – two upcoming musicians, Sally came there to get high and sleep with them both. Way off the deep end, she suggested they get sewn together so they’ll always be close. The others agree, then OD, leaving Sally sewn to two dying humans.

• She remains there for 5 days, during which time Evers pops in to cheerfully point out how difficult it will be to wash the stains out of their sheets and how much she’s looking forward to it. Sally also sees the Addiction Demon for the first time and it tortures her for days until she finally tears herself free.

• Back in the present day she makes it clear that she’s only saved the Countess because she wants her to kill John, in the Cortez, so they can be together forever.
• Meanwhile back at the worst family EVER, John brings Alex, Scarlett and Scarlett’s terrifying vampire younger brother home and tries to be normal. Scarlett, who is having none of this nonsense asks how they’ll feed. John and Alex realise that their family puts the “undead” in “unconventional”.

• Back at the Cortez, Sally is worried. The Countess isn’t healing and she needs blood. She asks for Donovan and Sally takes just a little too much delight in pointing out that her lover’s dead. Instead, she brings some of the Countess’ “children” to her. The Countess resists but the children volunteer and, reluctantly, she feeds on them.

• Upstairs, Iris is given Donovan’s ashes by Liz and spreads them out. Evers arrives and Iris tells her to vacuum it all up. Iris then goes to the roof and faces the Sun, fully human and finally at peace with herself.

• With no good options left, Iris and Liz let Ramona out. They’re horrified to find the vampire children that the Worst Parents In History lured in there last episode. They’re even more terrified when they find Ramona loose and out for blood. They manage to persuade her that they’ll get her a new victim and head downstairs with no idea what to do.

• And they find Queenie from American Horror Story: Coven! She’s in town to appear on The Price Is Right. Liz recognises her and seems like a fan but that doesn’t stop them leading her upstairs to the room where Ramona is waiting.

• Ramona’s expecting an easy kill. What she gets is an asskicking the likes of which she’s not had before as Queenie uses her ability to transfer physical harm to herself onto her opponents to beat the vampire senseless. She’s finally killed by March who, as he’s already dead, is exempt from Queenie’s abilities. Ramona feeds on the young witch and March explains he needs someone to kill the Countess in the hotel. It can’t be him and Ramona is the most powerful person left so she gets the job. She, of course, accepts.

• John returns home with “dinner” – a man with clean blood. He finds his family missing, and a Hotel Cortez key left behind. He races to the hotel, where he finds Sally waiting for him. She explains that March needs one more kill and then he can have his family back.

• Upstairs, a still badly hurt Countess comes back to the ruins of the penthouse. Ramona confronts her there and the Countess compliments her on the power she’s gained. Ramona explains she’s fed from a witch and the two women argue, both clearly itching for a fight, an emotional connection or both. The Countess agrees to let Ramona kill her on the condition they sleep together one last time.

• The next thing we see is the Countess, dressed for travel, leaving the penthouse. Ramona’s fate is unclear. The Countess summons the lift, the doors open and…
• A smiling John guns her down. He has his last kill.
• John mounts her head as the final trophy and a jubilant March congratulates him. Sally tries to kill John and March stops her, clearly eager to have his protégé free to kill more people out in the world. John leaves to search for his family and March gets ready for dinner.

• We next see a clearly nervous March waiting for the Countess to arrive. She does so, newly reborn as a ghost but distant and cold. She complains about the passion being gone now she’s dead and Evers blows up. She points out the passion has always been there in March and the two women bicker.

• March forgives his wife for turning him in all those decades ago and she tells him she didn’t do it. A stunned March refuses to believe her until Evers confesses. She turned March in because she loves him and wanted the pair of them to be together forever.
• March banishes her. A newly free Evers takes her apron off and leaves.

• The Countess weeps as she realises she’s trapped with her monstrous husband for eternity.

Review:

WOW. The homestretch is upon us and Hotel spares no time, or expense, in putting on a show. Let’s check in with every major plot shall we?

The Countess is on top form this week and Gaga turns in even more top class work. Her numb, horrified response to feeding on her kids is one highlight. The other is the clear discomfort, and sincerity, in her final scene with Ramona. She wants to make amends for the hideous things she’s done. But it’s the one thing she isn’t good at and that annoys her. It’s a really smart combination of embarrassment, grief, anger and rage all mixed in the adolescent flush of a decades long adrenalin high. Brilliant work from her all the way through especially in the silent final moments of the episode.

The 10 Commandments Killer has finished his job. Which means another will be along just as soon as March thinks of it. I’ve gone back and forth on John and Alex this season but this episode feels like we needed more time with them. They’re such perfect, broken monsters. Like the Countess, a pair of arrested adolescents. Unlike her, they have a support system in Scarlett, the unluckiest, most normal kid in this show’s history. Maybe she and Lachlan can team up and fight crime. Or maybe they should just RUN. Either way, John, Alex and family have become much more interesting now they’re being honest with one another. Here’s hoping they get a chunk of time in the finale.

Liz and Iris continue to be magnificent. The scene with them in the elevator discussing how to get Ramona fed is flat-out hilarious and O’Hare and Bates have wonderful natural chemistry. I doubt we’ll get the Iris & Liz: Hoteliers To The Stars And Recently Deceased sitcom I desperately want but hopefully we’ll get more screen time with them in the finale. Their scenes with Ramona are especially great and Angela Bassett is on top form this episode, even as she’s getting her ass soundly kicked by Gabourey Sidibe’s hugely fun Queenie.

But the real stars this episode are two side characters. Sally’s been benched, by and large, for a little while now. Here, Sarah Paulson is centre stage and shows us just how good she is. There’s almost something good in Sally but it’s been hollowed out by her terrifying experiences in the hotel. The scene with her sewing herself to her lovers is possibly the nastiest moment we’ve had this year. It certainly made me wince the hardest.

But what’s fascinating about Sally is that she’s the closest the show gets to innocent. Whether the Addiction Demon did something to her is unclear and, worryingly, may not be made any clearer before we’re done. But her desperate, savage need to not be abandoned is heartbreaking and Paulson gives it all the sincerity and rage it needs. She’s a broken human in a building full of broken monsters and that makes her the weakest, and most terrifying, of them all.

But in the end, this is Mare Winningham’s episode. She’s as brittle and broken as Sally but when March rejects her, he helps her put herself together. Every line Evers has shines and Winningham gives her power and dignity that no other character shares. The final scene deserves to be Evers’ curtain call; finally honest, finally spurned, finally free. Except of course, once you die in the Cortez you can never leave…

There’s a vast amount going on this episode and as you can see, most of it’s brilliant. It’s not all good news, though. Lachlan has disappeared altogether, which is untidy rather than bad. However, the Addiction Demon has one episode to become something more than a cheap and often needlessly unpleasant visual gag. Even worse, everyone else is on such top form you actually resent the character the time it needs to register.

That aside, this is a hell of a piece of TV. Roll on the grand finale.

The Good:

• Michael Uppendahl’s direction is claustrophobic and playful in a way that suits this show like a glove. Look at John clearing the corridors on his way back into the hotel, or the Liz/Iris/baseball bat scene in the lift. It’s always tense and closed-in but there’s the constant threat of a laugh just as much as a scream. Brilliant, witty direction throughout.
• A never-ending parade of gorgeous dialogue this week from Ned Martel’s script too. Including:
• “You’re not going to leave me, right?” Poor Sally, summed up in a single line.
• “Has there ever been a more aptly named style of music than grrrruuuunnggeee?” Denis O’Hare purrs dialogue like no one on Earth. Except, perhaps, Angela Bassett.
• “And for the record, Shout At The Devil was an underrated masterpiece.” This is such a lovely little moment with Liz that you almost miss it. She actually likes these kids, enjoys the fact they verbally spar with her. It’s a sweet character note that ties with her scenes with her son last episode. Liz is a fundamentally decent person, even after her time in the Cortez. She’s changed but that decency is still in there and it’s starting to surface again.
• “Post mortem excrement is the biggest challenger of them all!” Just the first of several brilliant moments we get with Evers this episode.
• “I want him back in the hotel. And I want him dead. Here with me FOREVER.” Sarah Paulson has done quietly brilliant work all season and this is her finest hour. Sally finally has power. She has it through the exact thing that’s crippled her, her dependency issues. And she doesn’t care because this time she gets to WIN. Except of course, she doesn’t.
• “As long as we take our medicine, we’ll be healthy.” “You mean drink blood?” I’m getting the increasing feeling Scarlett is going to get shortshrift in the finale. That’s a shame as she’s great. But seeing her take none of her mother’s naïve mega-nonsense is still a pleasure.
• “Big hotel. Big furnace.” Another note-perfect moment. Liz is just a little perky, still happy that things are actually happening. But she’s not unkind about it either. Complex, subtle interplay of emotions, in the same episode as three people being sewn together. This show really does cover a lot of ground.
• “How are you feeling?” “…LEAVE ME ALONE.” Gaga really has been the MVP this year and, given the stunning quality of this cast, that’s saying something. She does so much here with stillness and calm and it’s one of the most truly chilling scenes of the season.
• “So we’re desperate.” “Just out of options.” The Blackadder/Baldrick esque dynamic between Liz and Iris here is just wonderful.
• “But mama IS on a course correction.” Angela Bassett relishes every syllable of this dialogue and it pays off so damn well. Ramona has become what she used to play; a raging rampage of revenge in human form.
• “We can’t just go out on the street and bash someone in the head!” “If you’ve got another idea I AM ALL EARS.” It may be wrong but I would watch an entire season of Liz & Iris Start Some Trouble.
• “Bitch, when’s the last time you saw a dermatologist?!” Everyone else on the planet would scream. Queenie trashtalks. This is the most fun the series has been since Iris vs the Hipsters.
• “I ain’t nobody’s protein shake, bitch!” Oh Queenie, we’ll miss you most of all. Well, you and Liz.
• “I’m not letting some raggedy-ass red-dotted bloodwhore FREAK take up another second of my time.” This is how great Gabourey Sidibe is in the five minutes she’s onscreen. She shares scenes with Kathy Bates, Dennis O’Hare, Angela freaking Bassett and Evan Peters and OUT-ACTS ALL OF THEM! Queenie is amazing: a laconic, ruthless unflappable witch and she deserved so much better than being taken out by a cheap shot. But damn if it isn’t fun watching her effortlessly kick Ramona’s ass.
• “You swear you haven’t taken any drugs in the last 30 days? I’m a cop. I can test you. You want me to test you?” I love this scene. John is still the absolutely strait-laced Dudley Do-Right type. It’s just that he’s being like this with a man he’s brought home to feed to his vampiric family…
• “I’ve never known another woman whose blood smells like walnuts.” One of the many perfect pieces of dialogue in this episode. It tells us a lot about how the vampires perceive their surroundings without being the slightest bit expository.
• “I’m weak but I’m still THE CHAMP. You may beat me but you’re not getting out of here without at least a severe lifelong limp.” The Countess baring her teeth one final time. She even threatens politely.
• “I AM a curse. Nobody who gets within 10 feet of me survives.” This is an amazing script, arguably the best since Jennifer Salt’s brilliant “Devil’s Night”. This final confrontation between the Countess and Ramona is especially great. The tension, the barely contained lust and rage in the room, paints these two characters as something much more, and much less, than human. Amazing performances from Gaga and Bassett too.
• “I’m trying to apologise. I’m NOT USED TO THIS. Cut me some slack bitch.” Her final seconds of sort-of life include the Countess trying to grow as a person. No one gets off easily this year; no one’s entirely good or bad. But it’s still not enough to save her.
• “Can you see me now?!” I’m so pleased they found more to do with Evers, as Mare Winningham has been amazing all season. Her final scene here is especially great. Pleading with March to see her is just heartbreaking.
• “Get out.” All the dapper, charming gentlemanly trappings fall away and Evan Peters shows us the real March; a cold, flat, dead-eyed monster of a ghost. No wonder the Countess is weeping in the final shot.
• “There are more stains in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” This is the only show in history that could conceivably combine Hamlet with housekeeping and make it work. Hats off to Ned Martel’s wonderful writing and Winningham’s staggering performance.

The Bad:

• Queenie going out like that leaves a bad aftertaste. Especially as she’s so brilliant when she’s onscreen. Maybe we get some more of her as a Hotel Ghost?
• Evers’ love for March could, arguably, have been made more overt. That being said, she’s helped cover up his murders and washed the sheets in his Hotel Of Awfulness for decades after dying. If that’s not love I’m not sure what is.
• The Addiction Demon could really, really do with an origin. Soon. Like in the next 20 minutes of screen time.

And The Random:

• Gabourey Sidibe kicks all kinds of ass as Queenie and was one of the very best parts of American Horror Story: Coven and FreakShow. You’ve also, odds are, seen her in Empire. If you haven’t seen Precious, her debut, do so. It’s a tough watch at times but, given it was Sidibe’s first ever acting experience her performance is flat-out stunning.
• I’m really enjoying how the AHS seasons are gradually tying together. The Countess’ side trip to the Murder House was fun as was the way Freak Show tied to Asylum through the presence of Pepper last year. Ryan Murphy’s talked openly about how all the seasons connect and this being the first year that becomes apparent so it looks like the metafictional fun is only just beginning.
• This week’s Music To Watch The Increasingly Frantic Inhabitants Of The Worst Hotel In History Go By includes “Seconds” by The Human League over the opening scenes and “I Wanna Be Adored” by The Stone Roses over the final Countess/Ramona confrontation.
• Shot of the week: this is every aspect of John finally united. The stance and training of a police officer, the vengeance of a man long past due being messed with. The quiet smile of a killer finishing a design. Amazing work from all involved.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other reviews of American Horror Story: Hotel

American Horror Story: Hotel S05E10 “She Gets Revenge” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on FOX, Tuesdays, 10pm
Writer: James Wong
Director: Bradley Buecker

Essential Plot Points

• Liz watches the guests come and go at the Cortez and begins to realise just how sad she is. Helping Iris clean up after an old couple kill themselves on site, she breaks down and admits she wants to kill herself. Iris agrees to join her. Liz bribes Evers with detergent to help out after Evers tells her that her son is coming to the hotel.
• John has killed again, and is admiring his work. He talks to March in one of the murder rooms and March agrees to arrange a reunion with Alex. The former couple snipe at one another until Alex tells John about the vampire children and how badly she needs help.
• Elsewhere, Valentino’s wife confronts the Countess at the hotel and Donovan visits Valentino at his motel. No one is present at a Holiday Inn, and therefore, ‘Say what?!’ is not uttered at any point. However, both the Valentinos die in very similar ways, as Donovan and the Countess gun them down.

• Downstairs Liz is reunited with her son. Douglas is revealed to be a gentle, softly spoken man trying to work out how to go into business for himself and mildly apprehensive about meeting with his father. Liz, thinking she hasn’t been recognised, bonds with him.
• Out in the real world, the Worst Parents Ever track the vampire kids down and persuade them to come to the hotel. They get most of them to enter the fortified wing voluntarily but when one smells a rat, they throw him and lock the door. This not only proves them worthy of their title but gives Ramona a light snack.
• Upstairs, Will’s ghost embarrasses the Countess as she declares him missing. She covers her tracks and the two argue over his murder. Will points out the Countess isn’t named in his will. The Countess points out Lachlan is. Will leaves, fuming.
• John and Alex sleep together, Alex commenting that her husband is more attractive now he’s at peace with himself. She leaves, admitting that she may be reconsidering the end of their relationship. Sally appears, tries to seduce John back to her but fails. She attacks him, is disarmed and screams tearfully that he’ll be back as he leaves to be with his wife and son and their long neglected daughter.
• Iris and Liz buy Evers a washer and dryer as a going away present and she’s beside herself with joy. Evers mentions Liz’s son is back in the bar and the two men meet again. Douglas admits that he knows who his father is and makes it clear he’s happy to have Liz in his life. The bartender, newly hopeful, is too moved to speak.

• Upstairs Donovan and the Countess have dinner and he mockingly makes it clear he murdered Valentino. The Countess goes to the motel, finds the body and breaks down.
• Liz and Iris get ready to die, Iris even making her own tribute video. When she sees Liz’s new-found hope she accuses her friend of backing out. Instead, Liz suggests they take the hotel for themselves and make it something genuinely worthwhile.
• John and Alex rescue Holden and leave with him as Sally screams that she’ll kill John.
• The Countess returns to find Donovan celebrating. She explains she’s been trying to remake Valentino for decades. Donovan explains that he’s happy dying if that’s the only she can love him. Then, just as they’re about to reconcile or murder each other, Liz and Iris burst in, guns blazing.

Review:

Remember how we were worried that there wouldn’t be time left in the episodes remaining to fit everything in that needs fitting in.

We’re not worried anymore. Even better: Liz is in the spotlight this episode! Hurray!

Everyone’s favourite bartender has been in the background since Tristan was killed but is back in a big way here. Also a subtle, clever way. She and Iris are the two forgotten victims of the Cortez; women who have been trapped there because they’ve felt there’s nowhere else to go. Now, suddenly they have a way out; suicide.

It’s dealt with in such a head-on manner that what could have been “A Very Special Episode” of American Horror Story becomes a genuinely impressive and clever one. There’s a lot of comedy in the suicide plotline – especially Iris’ magnificent tribute video – but there’s real darkness too. These ladies have come to the end of the road and death really seems to make the most sense.

Until Liz’s son reconciles with her. This is where the episode sings, Josh Braaten and Denis O’Hare finding real subtlety and emotion in the middle of an episode featuring vampire children and Rudolph Valentino being shot in the face. Even better there’s no tearful reconciliation, just two men who are both mature enough to try their relationship again getting ready to do so. Which throws Operation Suicide into chaos. But does lead to the best closing shot this show will ever do.

Elsewhere life continues to be awful for the two central couples in the show. John and Alex have been the weak link at times but here, at last, the show is giving them a chance to see just how awful they are. The fact they’re more functional as a vampire and a serial killer than they ever were as a cop and a doctor provides a constant bass note of horror for their scenes.

They’re together, focused, interesting and not human. It’s a smart evolution for what was the show’s weakest plot for a time and having them head off the vampire childpocalypse is great. Having them throw the kids into the locked wing and hope no one ever goes in is better and the kids serving as Ramona’s snack is flat-out inspired.

Finally, the Countess and Donovan are still awful people but awful people who are increasingly fun to watch. Donovan’s near-perfect mirror of the Countess’s murder style is a lovely visual tic showing how in sync they are but it’s their final scene together that really sparks. The revelation that the Countess has been trying to recreate Valentino is especially clever but, yet again, she isn’t the winner. That’s Donovan, whose inspired game playing has brought him to the same destination as Liz and his mother; he needs to be set free and he’ll die for it if he has to. And, based on that final shot, he might…

This is a great episode that hits the accelerator and never slows down. We get a ton of great Liz and Iris material, the best Evers scenes we’ve had all season and a very clear idea of what the end game will be. And honestly? My money is on Liz and Iris. Place your bets and we’ll see you back here in the New Year.

The Good:

• Every single moment between Liz and her son is perfect. This show has done remarkable things with a character who would have been ignored or ridden over anywhere else. It’s cleverly structured too, Liz’s reunion filled with the anger and resentment that her son feels but also the distance of age and maturity. Even cleverer is how it becomes the way out Liz thinks suicide will be. A chance not for her life at the Cortez to end but to improve. Hope, for the first time in far too long.
• John being more attractive when he’s “together” is chilling. And accurate – he’s way less whiny now he’s accepted his dark side.
• Liz and Iris bribing Evers with modern cleaning tools is maybe my favorite thing this show has ever done. It’s sold by Mare Winningham’s absolute glee and by the delightful shot of awful that runs through the comedy. These are two broken down, angry women bribing a dead friend for help with a new washing machine. And it works. The Cortez may be on the street but it’s a long way from home.
• It’s just struck us how much the Countess enjoys formal dining. That’s oddly sweet and a subtle throwback to the time period she grew up in.
• March’s remarkably chipper murder of the contractor is the most casual homicide we’ve seen of all season.
• “I lost interest long ago in whatever you claimed to be.” This line is a standout in an amazingly choreographed scene. In the space of minutes it goes from friendly to spiteful to well-meaningly bigoted and back again. Just amazing work.
• “I have better cheekbones anyway.” Donovan lashes out, ironically, in the exact same way as his creator. Matt Bomer has been weirdly underserved at times but he’s done great things with what he’s been given. This line is no exception.
• “You told me Holden was a hallucination.”
  “That was a lie.”
  “You tried to make me think I was going crazy.”
  “Well, that was the truth.” The confrontation between the world’s worst parents is surprisingly cordial but there’s rage and hurt behind every one of these perfectly chosen words.

• “No excuses. We abandoned her. We’re the world’s worst parents.”
  “At least that’s one thing we can agree on.” This is a lovely moment because it’s a rare acknowledgement by these two monsters of just what they are. Plus Scarlett may actually get to live. Just two episodes, kid! You can do it!
• “I don’t kill children but I could make him a blood relative.” So much threat and hypocrisy in one tiny, again perfectly turned out, line of dialogue.
• “You’re a lot smarter than you ever were alive try and keep it that way.” And again here. Will gets his little moment of victory and then gets shut down, hard. The Countess may be embattled but she’s still the nastiest shark in the tank.
• “Mama smells appetisers.” Ramona’s only line in the episode is three words long and still one of the best.
• “Dad. It’s not difficult. Or…it doesn’t have to be.” Again such a lot of emotion behind such a small line.
• “Plenty of room for another woman in my life.” And this too. Plus O’Hare’s reaction is perfect. Shock, gratitude, joy and embarrassment all in a few second of pitch perfect silent acting.
• “I wasn’t sure what we landed on so I just put out a selection.” Iris there, treating suicide like a finger food spread at a dinner party.
• “I wanted it to be a beacon of hope for my three followers of Instagram.” Bless your heart, Iris.
• “He’s exactly how I remember him.”
  “And that’s exactly how he’ll stay.” This episode is crammed full of beautiful lines and this, hinting that Alex has started to realise just how hollow immortality is, is no exception.
• “I do care. I just don’t mind. Dying is the only way you’ll let me love you.” Donovan the games player. Getting away, just maybe, with killing the love of his love’s life by being just like her.

The Bad:

• “Hotline Bling” by Drake is the song Donovan is dancing to at the end because sometimes even very smart, very switched-on drama series run headlong into a hideous reference that will date them massively inside a year.
• No Lachlan or Scarlett although the episode seems to suggest both will be front and centre in the final act of the season.

The Random:

• The double murder is conducted to “This Corrosion” by The Sisters Of Mercy. Which, as a gothtastic theme song for the elegant corruption of The Countess and Donovan’s souls, is pretty spot on.
• You’ve seen Josh Braaten who does such great work as Douglas here, in any number of other places. He’s appeared in CSI: Miami, That 80’s Show, Spin City, Boston Legal, Psych, The Ex List and Criminal Minds amongst others.
• The episode is written by James Wong. Wong is one of the architects of some of the best series drama of the last two decades through his work with writing partner Glenn Morgan on The X-Files, Millennium and Space: Above And Beyond. He also directed Final Destination and Final Destination 3 as well as Jet Li alternate universe punchfest The One.
• Shot of the episode can only be this; Liz and Iris going in, or maybe out, all guns blazing.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other reviews of American Horror Story: Hotel

American Horror Story: Hotel S05E09 “She Wants Revenge” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on FOX, Tuesdays, 10pm
Writer: Brad Falchuk
Director: Michael Uppendahl

Essential Plot Points:

• The Countess reflects on how she’s been done wrong and comes to two conclusions: she is very, very angry and things are going to change.
• She talks Will into having the wedding almost straight away and is surprised and offended when Liz refuses to help.

• She gets a call from a private eye who’s found Valentino and is reunited with her original love. She’s also reunited with Donovan who it turns out is actually working for her. OR IS HE?
• Meanwhile Iris has a new-found lease on (not quite) life. She cheerfully murders two amateur pornographers working in the hotel and is amazed and delighted when Donovan interrupts her. He says that he’s pretending to be back but is still working for Ramona.

• Donovan takes Ramona the one porno actor still standing and they get talking. She explains that the 20 years between the Countess throwing her out and her seeking revenge were taken up with her going home. She lived with her parents again and, when her mother died and her father began to lose his mind, she turned him to save his life.
• However, instead of making him better it only stopped him getting worse. Unable to hunt or fully understand what he was, her father was “trapped in amber”. She euthanised him and returned to her revenge plot. Donovan tells her that he’s drugged the Countess and the time is rife for revenge.

• At the Cortez, the Countess instructs Iris to find Batholomew. Elsewhere, Will explains to his son that he’s marrying the Countess and Evers tries to warn him off. She explains she was in love with March and the Countess stole him. Will orders her to leave and she does so, telling him he will be in immense pain at some point soon and she will enjoy refusing to help.

• The Countess reveals her plans for the wing that March imprisoned Valentino inside. She’s turning it into a panic room and March is horrified when she tells him their time together is finally done. He’s enraged.
• Meanwhile, the worst Nanny in human history realises that the homeless man killed by a gang of kids that the news has been talking about might be something to do with her. She tracks the kids down, in mid-murder spree and realises just how magnificently she’s screwed up. She persuades them to come to the Cortez where something could possibly be done.

• Ramona and Donovan go to kill the Countess. Except she’s not drugged! TWIST! Donovan tasers Ramona and puts her in the weird neon feeding cages from episode one (we’ve missed them). Iris is horrified at her son’s choices but he’s unrepentant.
• The Countess reunites with Valentino and immediately begins plotting to remove his wife. She also admits that she’s been trying to recreate him for decades.
• Back at the Cortez the wedding begins with no guests and no fanfare. The Countess gives Liz, still terrified and furious at her, her bouquet. March visits Will and takes him upstairs to see Bartholmew. Horrified, Will is disgusted by the baby and the Countess knocks him out.
• Will and Ramona wake up in the newly sealed “vault”. Ramona cuts Will’s throat and feeds on him. Evers appears and smiles as Will dies. The Countess watches on the newly installed CCTV

Review:

There’s a wonderful visual tick that defines this episode. For about the first 20 minutes, scenes either start or finish with the Countess, looking off shot, seething. Rage comes off her in waves and combined with the articulate and hypocritical monologue it gives you a real insight into this woman. Yes she’s been horribly wronged. Yes she’s been misled for decades.

Yes, she’s a monster.

That monster, sitting at the centre of a web of violence and lies, is starting to lash out, too. War comes to the Cortez this week, waged on multiple fronts and, so far, with a modicum of civility. That won’t last.
Gaga is phenomenally good here and Falchuk’s script gives her a huge amount to do. As well as the Donovan quadruple cross and the world’s least romantic wedding we get a reunion with Valentino and the two scenes with Liz. There’s a lot of plot there but there’s also a huge amount of character work and this episode gives us the most complete version of the Countess we’ve seen. It also shows us her one weakness, the one she simply cannot see: she believes she’s right.

In the Countess’ eyes she’s a tragic heroine. She’s partially right too. But looked at from the point of view of Liz, or poor doomed horrifically underwritten Will, she’s a monster. The strength of the script lies in its willingness to show us everything. The strength of the character is in how morally complex she is and how blind she is to that fact.

Elsewhere we get some fun stuff too. Ramona’s flashback seems a touch self-indulgent at this point but it’s genuinely heartbreaking and real in exactly the way the amazing vanishing vampire kids haven’t been. It makes perfect sense for her to go home and even more sense for her parents to just assume she had “plastic surgery”. Most cruel, and sad, of all, though, is the limitations of the virus. The scenes with her father, not quite dying but certainly not living, are among the series’ most poignant.

But while everything in this episode is good, a lot of it also feels rushed. The bizarre choice to tease the 10 Commandments Killer plot out means that everything that’s been mostly ignored for the last couple of episodes comes crashing back in. As a result the episode is incident-heavy but feels a little like it’s playing at double speed. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but with several episodes still to go here’s hoping every plot gets a decent amount of screen time. Because if not the next three weeks are going to be exhausting.

But hey, at least Evers will be busy. Because all the dirty laundry is about to be aired…

The Good:

• Will, who has had very little to do at times for a character so central to the main plot, has a beautiful moment with his son this episode. Lachlan, perhaps confused by his own lack of screen time, points out this his dad is marrying a woman. Given that Will’s made it pretty clear he likes guys, this is confusing. Will explains, with real tenderness and patience, that he’s bisexual and what that means. Like John calling Liz “she” last episode it’s understated and subtle and, like that moment, it’s the most progressive and welcome thing you’ll see on tv this week.
• This entire episode is about women kicking ass. The Countess’s refusal to let her life be the sham it’s been, Liz’s refusal to fall back in line, Evers telling the truth about her love for March, Alex cleaning up her mess and BatIris, the heroine the Cortez both needs and absolutely deserves. Nicely done.

• “Get your own damn flowwweeerrsss!” The delivery on this line has to be heard to be believed. Just amazing venom.

• “Sorry, douchebag convention’s over at the Hilton.” Iris giving not one single damn. Awesome.
• “No one survives her… So be it. One day very soon you will understand. You will know nothing but pain and I will be there. And you will reach out to me for help and mercy and in return I will watch you die with a smile on my face, Because I will know when you are gone I will get the chance to clean the blood and shit out of that pretty formal wear of yours.” This whole scene was amazingly well done and Evers’s back story now seems both complete and even more tragic. Plus, Evers and Liz really should hang out more. They’re both strong, tough women who’ve struggled with the consequences of being in the Countess’s orbit.
• “But neurons are not cuts and a diseased brain is not a broken bone.” Again the extended flashback worked beautifully and, like the reveal that the Countess has been trying to remake Valentino, gave real emotional weight to Ramona.
• “You killed the pizza delivery guy! In about 30 minutes they’re going to know he went missing!” Alex, it turns out, is an idiot, as her accidental child vampocalypse shows. But this line is AMAZING.
• “We’ll starve!” “I won’t.” Never, ever mess with a hungry vampire.

The Bad:

• Great as last week was, this feels like shifting up two gears without bothering with the one in the middle. The vampocalypse stuff in particular really needed to be dealt with a couple of weeks ago and the counterpoint between Valentino, patiently waiting for plot to arrive in a dingy motel, and the Donovan/Ramona/Iris plot felt clunky and forced.
• Hey remember Will! HE’S DEAD NOW. That sort of abrupt tonal change feels untidy and this show, at its best, is anything but untidy.

The Random:

• What will Sally and the 10 Commandments Killer have to say about all this?
• The episode is named after She Wants Revenge, who’s song “Tear You Apart” played over the first Countess and Donovan scene. Awww, bless.
• Speaking of music, “Blue Monday” by New Order is playing over the scene where Stormcock (whose first name, we choose to believe, is Rupert) is shooting his movie. A touch on the nose but always a pleasure to hear. Later, New Romantic ultra anthem “Fade To Grey” by Visage is playing in the bar too.

• Shot of the episode is the very first one. The Countess surrounded by the dwindling lie of her time in the Cortez and faced with the black void of the unknown. Or at the very least, the world’s most horrifying fixer upper opportunity.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other reviews of American Horror Story: Hotel

American Horror Story: Hotel S05E07 “Flicker” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on FOX, Tuesdays, 10pm
Writer: Crystal Liu
Director: Michael Goi

Essential Plot Points:

• Will Drake (remember him?) and his son Lachlan (seriously, it’ll come to you), are overseeing the renovations to the Cortez. Will is alerted to a large plate of steel built into the walls and orders it to be removed. The two workmen who cut through it find a corridor beyond, that, “smells like death”.

• They go in.

• They are almost instantly killed.

• Meanwhile, John is checking into a psychiatric hospital and a fairly cruddy one at that. Alex tries to dissuade him but he’s adamant. He’s also clearly even more unwell than before. In the first of numerous flashbacks this week, we see why. John burst into the case room, got into a fight with his former partner and found they had a lead; the hospital he’s just got himself admitted to.

• At the Cortez, the Countess and Iris find the dead workmen and the opened wall. Iris is in awe as she realises, for the first time since she’s known her, the Countess is frightened….

• AAAAAAAAND FLASHBACK! 1925 Hollywood and the Countess is a young showgirl who attracts Rudolf Valentino’s eye on the set of Son Of The Sheik. The two fall for each other and the Countess becomes part of a mostly polyamorous relationship with Valentino and his wife.
• Shortly after this Valentino is apparently killed. The Countess hears this at the opening party for the Cortez. Numb and grief-stricken she tries to kill herself but is saved by March. She later marries him, discovers his murderous tendencies and enables them, fleeing from any hope she may have had in the arms of the Valentinos.

• Months later, Elizabeth visits Valentino’s tomb to lay a single rose on it. Valentino and Natacha meet her, and explain that they were turned into vampires by FW Murnau. Murnau, the director of original vampire movie Nosferatu, discovered the true vampires while filming. They turned him and in turn he offered to turn Valentino and his wife so they could escape the onset of the talkies and stay young and beautiful forever.
• Valentino and Natacha turn the Countess as, unobserved nearby, March sees everything. Later, he kidnaps Valentino and Natacha and walls them up in the Cortez hallway uncovered at the start of the episode.

• In the present day, John tricks his way into the secure ward at the hospital. He finds the room his partner visited and is amazed to see it inhabited by a young girl. He talks to her and she admits to participating in every 10 Commandments killing. In flashback we see her turned by the Countess after her father left her in a car outside the Cortez in 1986.
• John breaks out with the little girl, who introduces herself as Wren. He assures her he can stop, or kill, the 10 Commandments Killer.

• At the Cortez, the Countess has dinner with her dead original husband. March is in a jovial mood and responds to her news about marrying Drake with a cheery confession about Valentino and Natacha. Horrified and increasingly murderous, the Countess realises her first loves have lived in horrific squalor right under her nose for centuries.
• Nearby, the Valentinos murder a group of strippers and, newly refreshed, check out to go out on the town…
• Near the hospital, Wren asks for more assurance from John. He gives it and tells him she likes him one more time than sprints out into traffic and is killed.

Review:

This episode had the potential to be very annoying. AHS: Hotel’s pacing has been a consistent problem throughout the season, the show often going fascinating side roads but always doing so at the expense of the main plot. This episode – the secret origin of the Countess – looked set to do the same thing.

Except by and large it doesn’t.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way up front this week. The 10 Commandments Killer plotline has some major developments, all of which feel either two weeks late or two weeks early. Wes Bentley’s still turning in great work and this week John gets to do actual, if very unbalanced, detection – which is fun. But the sneaking suspicion that the 10 Commandments Killer and John are the same man really needs to stop sneaking and start being very, very overt. When what was the main plot of the season four weeks ago becomes a mild annoyance that gets in the way of the flashbacks, you know something’s gone a touch wrong.

That – aside from the horribly annoying Central Casting Australian strippers who get murdered off screen – is about it for the bad this week. The good is legion, and starts and ends with Gaga. For the last few weeks we’ve seen the awful side of the Countess; throwing Donovan out, murdering Tristan, abandoning Ramona, seducing Alex, naming her own son Bartholomew, the whole bit.

This week, we get the other side of the story. The Countess, we discover, was a chorus girl in Hollywood during the meteoric career of Rudolf Valentino. Seduced by Valentino and his wife, she falls madly in love with them both. Just in time for him to apparently die.

OR DID HE?

Because in the present day we get Will Drake renovating the hotel and discovering a large walled off section where Valentino and his wife, both turned into vampires by FW Murnau have been imprisoned for decades. The two faded undead starlets go on a rampage through the hotel that is, this being the Cortez, largely unnoticed until the closing scenes. Where two things happen.

The first is that the Countess discovers the man she loved and lost is still, kind of, alive and has been in her home for decades. The second is the Valentinos go out on the town, where, I like to think, they’ll fall in with the vampire children from a couple of weeks ago and fight crime. Or do crime. Probably both.

The Countess’s discovery of Valentino being alive is where the episode really flies, though. Not only is it the most effective since the heart-breaking Evers one, but it gives her the one thing she’s desperately needed; context. We see the Countess, young, innocent and mortal. We see the impact that losing Valentino had on her and the dark path it sends her careening down with March, who is on top moustache-twirling form this week by the way.

Most importantly though, we see what Iris sees. The Countess scared. The Countess off balance. For the first time this entire season, something has happened that is not in her control. And, worst of all, she’s FURIOUS about it. The end game for this season looks to be all out war between her and March, and everyone else and her. I doubt any of them will be standing by the time it’s done. But it’s going to be a hell of a fight.

The Good:

• The direction. Oh my God, the direction. Goi’s done good work on this series before but this episode is joyously, raucously inventive. The tango between Valentino, Natacha and the future Countess is a perfect example; sexy, playful, wildly over the top and just a little sinister as Goi switches between black and white and colour. The later sequence with FW Murnau stalking
  Valentino in the exact manner of an FW Murnau movie is even better. Just amazing, playful direction that always serves the script, never the director’s ego.

• Finn Wittrock! Owner of the second best name in showbusiness after Jack Noseworthy and as we see here, actually a very good actor. It’s been difficult to sit through most of his scenes as Zoolander 2.0 but, with Tristan very, very killed last week it’s nice to see him jump across to a new character. Especially as he’s so bloody good as Valentino. Suave, focused and playing noticeably older than he is.

• Gaga. Yet again, she steals the show. Derided as a piece of stunt casting when this season was announced she’s continually been the most impressive thing about the show. This episode is no exception, as we see the Countess as mortal, young and naïve, then old, embittered and furious in the present day. The show’s greatest strength remains her character and this episode in particular shows us that no one here is ever fully monstrous, even the Countess.
• Evan Peters. I would, at this stage, watch a period drama series about Evan Peters having fabulous parties and murdering or investigating the murders of the great and good. It could be like Dexter with more Charlestons. It’d be GREAT.
• Alexandra Daddario. Not just because she’s fun as the spiteful, venomous Natacha but because she’s in the middle of the oddest and most fun career trajectory I’ve seen in ages. She first got noticed as Annabeth in the Percy Jackson movies then rose to more prominence earlier this year in Dwayne Johnson disasterfest San Andreas where she played the smartest and most practical member of the cast. She’s done a ton of really fun, interesting TV work, including this and has the movie version of Baywatch up next. That’s going to re-team her with Johnson and in turn send her careening back onto the high-impact, high-cheese blockbuster side of things. It’s a rare treat to see any level of screen talent so comfortable in so many genres but she absolutely is.

The Bad:

• FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, JUST GET ON WITH THE DAMN 10 COMMANDMENTS KILLER STORYLINE ALREADY.
• SERIOUSLY.
• On a less block capital-y note, we do get a lot of interesting progress on that here. But the pacing on it is massively off. It either feels like the start of the endgame for that plot (which should land in an episode or two surely?) or like a mid-season big twist/reveal.
• The Australian strippers are, shall we say, somewhat on-the-nose in terms of characterisation. And by characterisation I mean they draw pretty clearly from the Big Book Of Australian Character Stereotypes. The fact no mention was made of Vegemite sandwiches and there was nary a “cobber” to be heard amazes me.

And the Random:

• “I couldn’t pick my butthole out of a lineup.” Liz is obviously still grieving this episode but Iris is there to pick up the sass slack.
• “I’ve just never seen you scared before.” There are a couple of really simple lines this week that are chilling. This is one of them.
• “I don’t understand. Why am I here?” “Because Gods have appetites.” This is another, especially given that Natacha and Valentino are mortal at this point.
• “Who is he?” “Just a hobo.” “You disapprove.” “I do. Why waste your time killing a destitute beggar?” The Countess embracing the different dark path to the one she was heading for is nuanced, tragic and again, told so elegantly here.
• “Nobody forced me to do anything.” Another perfect, tiny line that hits harder than us seeing Wren at the crime scenes.
• “You sound like my daughter, Scarlett. She’s around your age but she’s the oldest little girl I know.” Such a beautiful line that captures Scarlett perfectly. I hope we see her again before the end of the season.
• “But it’s him, not you. And it’s me, not her.” A lovely, ambiguous moment from John. Is he Wren’s dad? Probably not. Is he the killer? No clue. But this moment of clarity from Detective 1000 Yard Stare is both welcome and oddly touching.
• “Might I suggest when you murder him you do it off the property? It’d be damned awkward to keep running into him for all eternity.” “What makes you think I mean to do him harm?” “I’m dead dear, not stupid.” Never change, terrifying Ghost Quicksilver.
• Jessica Belkin does great, haunting work here as Wren. She’s also set to appear in the Scream Queens finale – proving that Ryan Murphy knows talent when he sees it – and, intriguingly, is listed as appearing in at least one more episode of American Horror Story…
• Rudolph Valentino, whose full name was the magnificent Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguolla was a star of the silent movie era. Best known for The Sheik, The Four Horseman Of The Apocalypse and his final movie, Son Of The Sheik, Valentino was an immensely popular figure. And yes, various Ladies In Black still visit the grave almost daily. One claimed to be the daughter of his unrequited love; another, more recent one is simply a fan. Regardless, Valentino still exerts a huge pull, even in death.
• FW Murnau was one of the pioneers of modern cinema. His Nosferatu remains one of the definitive versions of Dracula and vastly influenced every single vampire movie and story that’s followed it. The 2000 movie Shadow Of The Vampire takes a similar road to this episode, with Murnau (John Malkovich) enlisting an actual vampire (a scene-stealingly horrific Willem Dafoe) to play Nosferatu. It’s a slow burn, wildly eccentric movie but it’s worth tracking down.

• This week’s music choices are the best in the show’s considerable run of good calls. The ending is set to “Circles” by The Soft Moon but it’s the use of “Lullaby” by The Cure as the music for the Countess’ wedding that’s perfect. By the way, when you go look that up on YouTube? Be warned. The video is essentially four minutes of an arachnapobe’s worst nightmare. Have “Love Cats” on standby for straight after. It’ll help.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other reviews of American Horror Story: Hotel

American Horror Story: Hotel S05E06 “Room 33” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on FOX, Tuesdays, 10pm
Writer: John J Gray
Director: Loni Peristere

Essential Plot Points:

• Flashback time – to season one! Turns out the Countess went to the Murder House for an off-the-books abortion. Her “son” was an horrific demonic creature that survived the process and killed one of Doctor Montgomery’s nurses. She named it Bartholomew. Awww.

• In the present day, John wakes to find Holden by his bed. The giggling boy leads him to the coffins where he sees Alex and blacks out. Alex goes to Liz for advice and they move the coffins before John wakes up. When he does, Alex claims John was hallucinating.

• Elsewhere, Liz and Tristan are, it turns out, very much in love. In a surprisingly tender and honest scene Liz thanks the world’s most thick-headed Zoolander-alike for “seeing the girl” and in doing so makes him infinitely more likeable than he’s been at any point prior to this.

• Meanwhile upstairs the Countess is having remarkably unsuccessful sex with Will Drake. It’s not really taking so she gets Tristan to “fluff” him up. Despite his reluctance, Tristan does so.
• Bartholomew the Demon Baby is kept in Room 33 and the Countess goes to see him before heading off to Paris with Will.

• Once she’s gone, Donovan and Ramona come to the hotel to murder the children. Ramona goes to the basement and is disgusted to find the coffins moved. She chats with Iris, impressed by her new lease on (un)life and disgusted by Donovan not wanting to murder the kids. Then, she heads up to Room 33 to kill Bartholomew.

• In the penthouse, Donovan runs into the ghosts of the two Swedish tourists from episode one. He explains to them that they’re trapped in the hotel now but can at least find a purpose there. He illustrates this with a story of Kara, a teacher who killed herself in the building and now enjoys eternity terrifying guests.
• Ramona gets attacked by Bartholomew who escapes. Liz tends her wounds and the two old friends chat, with Liz admitting that she’s in love.

• Alex meets the Swedish ghosts, both near-foetal with horror near a dead body. A flashback reveals they both killed him and had sex with him, enjoying both. Alex sets them on John. They have horrific, bloody sex which culminates in John fleeing the hotel in terror and returning home.
• This goes as well as you might expect. Scarlett barely talks to her dad, who barely notices that both he and his wife have abandoned one of their children. He’s hardly done reassuring her when he’s firing at Bartholomew the demon baby who stowed away in his suitcase. Scarlett freaks out, entirely understandably, and Alex asks John’s old partner to look after. He does so and, hopefully, the pair of them go off to a kinder, nicer series where they can fight crime or something.
• After being thrown out by John, Alex finds an injured Bartholomew in the bushes.

• Back at the Cortez, Liz admits she’s in love with Tristan. The Countess seems to take it well after some reluctance and agrees to talk to Tristan. She has drinks with the two of them, explains that she will not stand for betrayal and kills Tristan telling Liz, “He’s yours. Bury him.”
• The Countess leaves to visit her child and finds Alex tending him. Awestruck by the other woman’s kindness, the Countess thanks her for saving her child. Alex replies that she did the same.

Review:

We’re on the home strait now and stuff’s starting to fall into place. A couple of plots get major advances here and the rest run in place. Here’s how that shakes down.

The Countess’s fall from whatever she thinks grace is takes up the lion’s share of the episode. This is the Countess as we’ve not been allowed to see her before: cold-eyed and brutal. The scene where she intimidates Tristan into having sex with Will is one of the series’ more unsettling moments but it’s the final scene with Liz and Tristan where she kills it.

Literally.

The kind, compassionate woman of the last episode is revealed to be an amoral toymaker. A feline presence who builds new toys, bats them around until she gets bored then puts them away again. In an especially subtle moment it’s implied that Liz has lasted this long because she’s not opted for a sex change operation or vampirism. She’s incomplete, the Countess can’t get bored of her.

But she can betray her. I’ve been very hard on Tristan because he was both a bad character and frequently a part of the slowest elements of any given episode. Here, Finn Wittrock is finally given stuff to do and runs with it. We see Tristan’s painful awareness of who he is, what he’s done. We see him transformed by a relationship we’re in the presence of for precisely 50 minutes and it absolutely should not work. It does and you care desperately about him, right up until the point he’s killed.

That offhand slaughter in turn informs the Donovan and Ramona plot. The Countess really is a monster and, unlike Bartholomew, her monster children are coming home to kill her. It’s a nice touch that Ramona simply walks in, and an even nicer one that she and Liz are friends. The war is coming and I honestly expect none of these people to come out alive. Even if one or two of them, Liz in particular, might just deserve to.

So the centre of this episode is a really smart, improbably affecting tragic romance that shows us just what a monster the Countess is. The rest is honestly something of a mess.

John shows up to do the same thing John’s done for weeks now with the added bonus of a remarkably nasty sex scene. Alex gets even less to do, and for the first time Chloe Sevigny’s measured, level delivery hurts the character. She plays as flat rather than bored by what’s going on and that, combined with John’s shriek-o-rama makes what was once the central plot of this show a dull sideline. Some closure here soon, please, very soon.

The real honkers come with the ghost plots though. Donovan’s explanation of the hotel is great but the Swedish tourists seem to have no purpose in the series than to get naked and sexmurder male guests. The fact they at least seem horrified by this is interesting but it’s undercut by the vast majority of their behaviour. AHS is a series that’s never shied away from sex and it never should. But for the first time this series it felt perfunctory and vaguely annoying. To make matters worse, the Kara story, as discussed below, feels like an excuse to point and laugh rather than actually move any of the stories along.

Oh and no vampire child apocalypse this week either.

With four episodes to go the pacing is starting to pick up but it’s very uneven. There’s some great stuff here, especially the Finn (who knew!?) and Liz scenes but the rest feels like its marking time. Here’s to the pace picking up next week.

The Good:

• The Liz and Tristan love story has a near impossible job. It asks you to believe these two characters, who’ve barely shared screen time, are desperately in love. And, amazingly, it manages it. Wittrock and O’Hare do stunning work, especially in their first season together and Hu’s script gives them both plenty to work with.
• The scene between O’Hare and Gaga is amazing, Liz’s courage and sweet human honesty a stark contrast to the Countess’ apparent sweetness. The ending is, of course, what it was always going to be but the fallout from it should be intense. Likewise Lady Gaga does amazing work, especially in the final scenes.
• The explanation for what the Cortez does to the dead is really interesting, coding the transitional nature of hotels into the ephemeral nature of the ghosts that haunt it. Which makes the Kara story even more of a vast misstep.

The Bad:

• The show teases a full bore, Evil Dead-style Wes Bentley vs Demon Baby fight and then shows us nothing. NOTHING. BOO!

• John. Just get it done. Seriously. Wes Bentley, bless him, has been looking startled and strung out for weeks now. Give the little chap something more to do.

• Kara’s story is five straight minutes of bad. Here’s why:

• Firstly it’s a bad story. She killed herself in the hotel and… found purpose by doing what every ghost does? Wow.
• Secondly the reference to the water tasting funny is a thinly veiled nod to the death of Elisa Lam in the hotel the Cortez was based on. That’s a little close to the knuckle for a death that’s just over two years old.
• Thirdly, and most importantly, is there any reason for Kara to be a plus-sized lady besides fat-shaming? Because if there is I’m not seeing it and if there isn’t that’s a major misstep.

And The Random:

• “How hard is it to get some GOD DAMN KALE AROUND HERE?!” Darren Criss gets a single line this episode (well he is dead) but DAMN it’s a good one.
• “Until you find a purpose you will be stuck in an unbreakable chain. Repeating yourselves over and over again.” Ghosts as recordings. The hotel as a place to at least distract yourself. Subtle and nasty in a way that a TV show featuring a monstrous demon baby really isn’t expected to be.
• “Don’t take this from me! This is MY BREAKDOWN and I’m gonna have it!” John Lowe finally loses it. It’s about damn time.
• “John! Good to see you’re finally truly checking into the Hotel Cortez!” Thanks Evil Dead Quicksilver! Evan Peters is glorious in this series. I hope we see more of him before the end.
• “Time PASSES FOR ME. You mention decades by the changes in hemlines…” Just a glorious, well turned piece of dialogue.
• “When you are what I am you don’t feel things the way normal humans do. An emotion’s like flavour in my mouth I can taste it. Joy tastes like strawberries; hate tastes like ice chips in a martini; and love… love is water. I enjoy them all except one: Betrayal. That has the taste of char on a piece of burnt meat.” Again, the fact that the Countess is a sensation junkie is a lovely, subtle little grace note.
• “Judging by how quickly you turned your nose up at an evening of backgammon and rose, to welcome you no less, I’m really not your girl.” Never change, Liz.
• “It’s a whole new you.” “Damn straight it is.” Iris doesn’t get much this episode but her newfound bounce should make the last few episodes really good fun.
• “Thank you, for seeing the girl.” Line of the episode. So sweet and honest and so nuanced in its explanation of Liz, her place on the LGBT spectrum and how comfortable she is there.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other reviews of American Horror Story: Hotel
• Lady Gaga Reveals Striking New American Horror Story Hotel Image
• American Horror Story: Hotel – New Cast Portraits

American Horror Story: Hotel S05E05 “Room Service” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on FOX, Tuesdays, 10pm
Writer: Ned Martel
Director: Michael Goi

Essential Plot Points:

• Alex’s measles patient, Max, is taking a turn for the worse. As is Alex, desperate for blood and reduced to cramming blood bags into her face when no one’s around. Strung out and not thinking straight, she injects some of her own blood into Max’s IV.

• Donovan brings his mother to Ramona’s pad, informing her that she’s the perfect “inside man” and no one gets closer to the Countess. Ramona agrees to help.

• Donovan drops his mother back at the Cortez. Iris is in very, very bad shape and Liz attempts to help. Iris lies to Liz about what’s happened to her, and the world’s most relaxed bartender sees straight through it, feeding her blood from the Countess’s reserves. Iris is disgusted, but then asks for more.

• Meanwhile at Max’s home, Alex’s patient, the newly vampirised child, has murdered his parents. He then goes to school and turns his entire class who rampage across the school. When the police arrive, the vampire kids are the last people left standing and all of them describe the person responsible for the attack; a single, masked man. With no idea of the truth, the Police let them go.

• At the LAPD, to the surprise of no one but Detective John Lowe himself, John is fired.

• At the front desk, Iris is accosted by two astoundingly foul hipsters who check in and proceed to make her life hell. The previously unflappable manager is reduced to tears and Liz helps her out. As they talk, Liz reveals how she came to the Cortez.

• In the 1980s, Liz was a pharmaceutical rep in a loveless marriage. Trapped by society’s attitudes towards her transsexuality, Liz used long trips away to let herself be who she really was. On one of these trips, at the Cortez, the Countess visited her. With remarkable compassion, the Countess walked the traumatised Liz through accepting who she really was and, as a start, asked her to fetch ice from the far end of the corridor.

• On the way back, Liz was spotted and assaulted by her two colleagues. The two men panicked, one demanding to know if Liz had AIDS and refusing to listen to her when she said she wasn’t gay. The other threatened to ruin her life at the office. Both were butchered by the Countess. She hired Liz as a bartender, allowed her to remain human and 20 years later, Liz is still in the same job.

• Newly inspired by her colleague’s honesty, Iris takes the hipsters their ridiculously complex room service. And murders them. Liz helps her dispose of the bodies.

• John wakes up in bed with Sally and has no memory of getting there. She claims he knows what he did and will do it again. Which sounds very murderer-esque doesn’t it?
• Alex arrives at the hotel and takes up her position as governess to the children. She sleeps in the same coffin as Holden, her wish fulfilled at last.

Review:

This is not the episode you might be expecting to watch. And, honestly, it’s so much better for that.

There are parts of this episode that behave. The bookends with Alex are nicely creepy and also subtly undercut the doctor’s previously established compassion and intelligence. This is a woman who not three episodes ago was dressing down an anti-vaxxer. Now she’s huffing blood like a desperate junkie. Clearly, the virus has major side effects, especially when you’re not prepared for it. And, based on this episode, Alex really wasn’t prepared for it.

What’s really interesting about her plot here is how little of it there is. She’s the instigator for another, major incident but by and large this episode sees her done. She’s back with Holden, will be with him forever and that’s all she ever wanted.

And that’s the point.

Whether it’s the Countess herself or the virus, Alex has become the purest, simplest version of herself. She doesn’t care about her work or the rest of her family, she just cares about spending eternity with her son. That level of obsession is horrifying all by itself but, as this episode shows, it also has serious repercussions for everyone else.

Because Alex may have ended the world.

At the very least she’s murdered a lot of people thanks to her desperation play with Max. That whole plot has been criticised elsewhere for being dumb but for us it plays as one of the most realistic beats in the show. Humans are irrational and odd and make stupid mistakes with no idea of the consequences. Here, Alex did a bad thing for a good reason and it’s backfired spectacularly. Worse still, what she’s done because of the virus and the obsession it creates. It’s a perfect little circuit of horror that’s going to be making everyone’s lives very difficult very soon and is one of the most interesting beats in the show to date. The sequence itself is horrific and untidy and shot with real menace by Goi. Plus, it looks like the virus has combined with Max’s measles which is the exact sort of, ‘You got peanut butter in my deadly virus!’ ‘Yeah! Well you got chocolate in my vampirism bacteria!’ situation no one wants.

But the real meat of this episode is in the last place you’d expect; Liz Taylor’s backstory. The way it’s revealed is lovely, as Liz steps in to help a floundering and newly vampiric Iris deal with a pair of awful guests. It’s subtle, and naturalistic and the fact that it’s taken Iris becoming a vampire to notice a colleague she’s worked with for decades is just one of several desperately sad moments.

What’s fascinating about this, aside from the amazing performances of O’Hare and Gaga in the flashback, is how nuanced and classy it is. Liz’s transsexuality is held up for ridicule by her colleagues but never by the show and, crucially, she’s never treated as a charity case either. Instead, the Countess, like a fairy godmother with one wing dipped in blood, simply helps her be who she’s always wanted to be. Gaga has never been better than she is here, the Countess becoming this huge wellspring of compassion and good humour that simply holds out a hand and waits for Liz to grab it. It’s touching and sweet and never once undercuts the agency of the character.

And then the Countess murders two men in cold blood.

That’s where the horror comes in and Martel’s script does an extraordinary job of balancing the two. The Countess’s compassion for Liz is genuine, her willingness to kill for her (and to feed her, we presume), just the same. The Countess is a monster. But even monsters have good sides.

This episode is a deeply odd combination of intimate and epic and all of it works. As we head into the back-run of episodes there’s a sense of the show escalating and accelerating towards its conclusion. The fact it can do this through what amounts to a bottle episode is a hell of an accomplishment and one that bodes well for the rest of the season.

The Good:

• Denis O’Hare. Liz has been one of the best parts of every single episode she’s been in and her turn in the spotlight here is exceptional. O’Hare’s mannerisms, posture, everything changes as we see Liz gradually get comfortable with herself. That makes the confrontation with her colleagues all the more horrifying as you feel the brittle confidence she’s only just built up shatter. Phenomenal acting from one of this show’s consistently most underrated performers.

• Lady Gaga. Gaga has never been less than good this season but her scenes with O’Hare this episode are exceptional. There’s such compassion and kindness to her that, for the first time, you can really see why the Countess is such a successful “vampire”. She cares desperately for the people around her, and Liz, based on this episode, may be her favourite.
• It’s a wonderful scene because unlike very nearly everything else in this show it’s immensely kind and takes huge pains to treat Liz’s transsexuality with the respect it deserves. Given Gaga’s long-held championing of the marginalised it’s no surprise that she brings her A-plus game to this but it doesn’t belittle the work she does, or make it unwelcome. Just a great performance from an actress who’s been given an impossible job with this series and is pretty much nailing it every time she’s on screen.
• The change in focus. The large scale Liz detour, not to mention the Iris plot, both move the über-plot along without really trying too hard. AHS: Hotel was criticised a lot at the outset for seeming scattered but it’s starting to cohere now in a really interesting way.
• I did not see the vampire school stuff coming and wow there is no way that’s going to end well. At all. For anyone.

The Bad:

• Much like the “Is Glenn alive or dead?” question on The Walking Dead, the “Is John the serial killer he’s pursuing?” thing needs to be answered pretty quickly now. Even Sarah Paulson can only throw out so many, “Or DID you?!”-style lines before the bloom comes off the rose.

And the Random:

• “Ramona Royale, is she in?” “Sir it is 4 am.” “I HEAR SHE’S A NIGHT PERSON.” Nice to see Donovan, perpetual victim, get his head in the game.
• “I don’t know if that’s oedipal or just mercenary.” Angela Bassett isn’t in this episode a lot but she certainly gets the best line.
• “DRINK! It’ll make you feel AWESOME!” King of the tweener vampires, ladies and gentlemen.
• “You see everything when the world doesn’t see you.” Although this is also a belter from Liz.
• “I’m not homophobic.” “I’m not gay.” And with that single line, this show does more to bring attention to the LGBT spectrum than very nearly everything else on air right now.
• “There’s nothing like whispering a secret aloud. If only to yourself.” Another beautiful line from Liz.
• “You dress like a man, walk like a man. But you smell like a woman.” “It’s Paco Rabanne.” “It’s not your skin. Your blood.” There’s such kindness here and it’s cut with that last moment reveal of just what the Countess is. Stunningly good writing.
• “Oh honey. Goddesses don’t speak in whispers, they scream.” There is a lot of great dialogue this episode. All of it in the Liz/Countess scenes.

• Darren Criss! Glee’s Blaine Anderson is tremendous fun in a brief turn here as a magnificently hideous hipster. As well as Glee, you may well have heard him do voice-over work on stunning anime movies The Wind Rises and The Tale Of Princess Kaguya. If not, go and watch them. They’re beautiful.
• Jessica Lu! Who is also gloriously dreadful here. When not being murdered by Kathy Bates, she’s been great in Red Band Society and Awkward.
• Robert Knepper! Best known for his magnificently hideous work as T-Bag in Prison Break, Knepper’s also been killed by Jason Statham in Transporter 3, voiced Kronos in Percy Jackson And The Sea Of Monsters and appears as Antonius in Mockingjay Part 2. He was also, like Affleck, the bomb in Phantoms, yo.
• “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes and “Just Can’t Get Enough” by Depeche Mode provide the soundtrack for Liz’s transformation and they’re perfect choices.

• Shot of the week is Alex and Holden in the coffin, an undead mother and son, forever together and forever the same.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other reviews of American Horror Story: Hotel
• Lady Gaga Reveals Striking New American Horror Story Hotel Image
• American Horror Story: Hotel – New Cast Portraits