5.10 She Gets Revenge Of all the characters who inhabit the hotel, the one most in tune with the audience is Liz. Like her, we’re not main players in the Hotel drama, just enablers like herself. When she has her love affair with Tristan, it works because we all like the character (even if it comes out of nowhere). All along, she’s been the sassy window into the world of the Hotel Cortez. She’s involved with all the characters, as are we, and as such, she brings about a lot of audience sympathy. With Liz at the center of the episode’s major plots, it’s not surprising that the episode works spectacularly well, especially when Denis O’Hare shows up on screen alongside Mare Winningham’s brilliant Miss Evers and the great Kathy Bates’s Iris. Liz, who was the A story, has a really touching reunion with her son. It’s a rare moment of sympathy and kindness for this sort of show from writer James Wong, and it’s counterbalanced by the comedy of Miss Evers. That character, as cleaning-obsessed as she is, expresses the most infectious joy at getting detergent and a nice washer and dryer from Liz and Iris. Even her turn-of-the-century ideas about sexuality—see the line about ‘fairies’ not having children, among others—get an indulgent laugh rather than becoming some sort of teachable moment, because Evers is ultimately damaged but harmless. She only wants to be helpful, and she even ends up helping Liz in some strangely touching ways. Director Bradley Buecker has a lot of fun with these two plots. Children in horror are generally creepy, and groups of children emerging from the shadows are even creepier. Toss in the fact that the kids are armed and dangerous (and, oh yeah, they’re also vampires) and you’ve got real trouble for Alex and John, and a spectacularly tense few scenes as John and Alex tend to a dying vampire child only for the rest of them to come out of the woodwork to try and kill the grown-ups for interfering. Those segments are great, but even more effective are the mirrored scenes of Gaga and Donovan committing murder. The way the two scenes are cut back and forth, Gaga and Rambova mirrored by Donovan and Valentino, show just how ruthless the two modern vampires are, and just how Rambova and Valentino aren’t prepared for the way the world is or for the cruelty of possessive lovers. It’s clever visual shorthand to remind us all that Donovan and Gaga aren’t that different at all, no natter how much like Dononvan might think he’s his own man or the Gaga isn’t the one running the show. US Correspondent Ron Hogan was wholly immused by the Gaga vs Dononvan dueling murder impressions. Now it’s time for a nice break for a week or two. Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi.
