1.11 Battle Royale Christine Estabrook’s Marcie and Matt Ross’s Dr. Charles Montgomery were surprise visitors, but welcome ones. However, the other modern era tale of American Horror Story, Coven, has been strangely absent. Until this episode, of course. Liz and Iris left off with a hail of gunfire, storming into Countess’s penthouse like Jules and Vincent from Pulp Fiction. They kill an unintended target, poor Donovan, and severely injure the one they need to take care of, Countess. The episode will divide into two basic scenarios: the ghostly occupants of the Cortez are scheming for their own ends, a lot of which involve Countess, and Liz and Iris have to kill Countess before Countess can kill them. Of course, even with the miracle that is Hypodermic Sally with a needle and thread, Countess needs strong blood to heal such big injuries, and without Donovan, she’s left with a terrible solution at Sally’s urging. Meanwhile, Liz and Iris have an ace up their sleeve in the form of none other than Ramona Royale, who is trapped in the basement and wants to kill Countess even more than she wants to kill Iris for imprisoning her and ruining their initial scheme. But Ramona is sick with measles, having only had vampire children to feed off of. She’ll need strong blood too. Countess has her babies, and Ramona has, well… a new guest checking in. As for Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) popping up, well… that’s just fun, and it sets up one of the show’s most inventive fight scenes. Queenie, as you might remember, is a human voodoo doll, and Iris and Liz only recognize her as a witch, and thus, someone with very powerful blood. Little do they know that she’s probably the hardest witch to kill, but fortunately, as said earlier, there are a lot of ghosts in the Hotel Cortez who have their own mission and their own desires, and they need the help of those that can walk out of the hotel to get those accomplished. The brawl is one of the best of the season, with Queenie making the most use of her human voodoo doll powers to keep Ramona at bay until she runs into an opponent who won’t have damage reflected back onto him in the form of James March. It’s a brilliant scene, if only because Evan Peters is so great and the way Queenie’s magic confounds Ramona’s blood lust. It’s interesting to see a predator kept at bay by her own skill at killing, and it’s also a lot of fun to hear Evan Peters purr out, “But I’m a ghost,” in front of a dying witch. That was one of my favorite moments of the week courtesy of Ned Martel’s script. However, it was full of great little character interaction moments, like Miss Evers finally standing up for herself as far as James March and the Countess are concerned. Any time Ramona, Iris, and Liz share a scene it really works, and the fun twists and turns the episode takes are enjoyable. Sally’s back story is appropriately horrific, as you’d expect, and the return of the Lowe family to the story is going to make for an interesting finale, as it’s a bit more like Murder House in that we have a flawed hero looking to save his family from an evil place full of people who are also more or less evil. All the dramatic dialogue lands well this week, and the episode itself leaves just enough loose ends to frame things for a potentially satisfying finale episode. As usual, American Horror Story is a good blend of style and substance. At this point in the season, it also feels like it’s going to find a satisfying conclusion, which might be the first time in five seasons that the show manages to end on a high note, rather than, at best, a side-step. With only one episode to go, it feels like everything’s getting wrapped up in a shockingly neat package. Of course, there are a lot of ghosts hanging around, and the issue of the hotel to deal with, but perhaps Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk are going to stick the landing this time. US Correspondent Ron Hogan was very surprised by how pleased he was to see Queenie appear on the show. Indeed, all the crossing-over is working this season. Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi.
