American Horror Story: Hotel Adds Another Permanent Resident

R.I.P. ...?

After the fun of a reprise of Liz Taylor and Iris storming the Countess's suite, a moment we all so loved at the end of the last episode -- which, to be honest, I would enjoy watching from every other conceivable angle for about half the episode -- we find out exactly what they struck.

First: the Countess, a few times.

And then Donovan, trying his best to be her human shield. Once Iris sees that the Countess is no longer in the path of their bullets, she demands that Liz stop shooting and runs to Donovan, probably not really thinking he'll survive this, but certainly hoping.

As Iris soothes Donovan, Liz tries to draw Iris's attention to the trail of blood the Countess left when she crawled off, but Iris has lost her taste for murder, at least for now. More pressing is dealing with Donovan, who begs Iris not to let him die in the Cortez: "I can't be trapped here with her other lovers."

And because Iris is a good mother and Liz is a good friend, they put their Countess-murdering plan on hold for a hot second to bring Donovan downstairs, through the lobby, and onto the actual street in front of the hotel; apparently, even the sidewalk is too close.

One second after acknowledging the woman who sacrificed basically her entire life's fulfillment and/or happiness for him, Donovan dies. The real tragedy is that even when he was a degenerate junkie, he probably never performed sexual favours on anyone that might have resulted in a pregnancy, and that those cheekbones really are lost forever.

There's Clingy, And Then There's Hypodermic Sally

It doesn't take long before we find out where the Countess took off to: she's with Sally, who is apparently quite expert at extracting bullets and even bullet fragments. And the Countess needs the attention: one of the bullets nicked her femoral artery. Fortunately, she's in the hands of someone who's a true student of the human vascular system.

But Sally's not doing the work for free. When the Countess compliments her stitchery -- "You're certainly Edward Sexton with that needle and thread" -- Sally quavers, "You're not going to leave me, right? They always leave. Promise me you won't leave me." "I'm not going anywhere," the Countess croaks, not adding that she...kind of can't, at the moment.

Since there's nothing to do but lie there waiting for the Countess not to die, Sally decides it might as well be story time, and brings up a kid she grew up with named Lon Moaconda. Some time after Sally gave him his first handjob, he became a major drug dealer, and Sally sold it to him, in which capacity she made a lot of...well, she says "friends," but she would -- she has attachment problems, AS WE KNOW. Among said friends were Nick Harley and Tina Black. The Countess recognizes the names as belonging to musicians: "I saw them once at The Troubadour. They were almost good." "HEY," yips Sally. "They were good. They were good to me." Ugh, does this HAVE to launch us into a flashback? At this late stage, does any of us care to know more about this needy bitch? No, but it's happening anyway.

Nick and Tina are being extremely unprofessional in a recording booth, just going to town on each other all over furniture that other people are eventually going to have to use, (sort of) recording a song Sally has written for them, and sort of not as Tina audibly climaxes in the middle of the track. The poor engineer, doing this in a time before Purell, suggests that maybe they should do another take, but Sally likes it. "Sally, you damn pervert!" crows Nick. "I love you! You holdin'?" "Always," she purrs. At this, Nick announces that they're done recording for the day. Presumably this leaves the engineer to go buy out a whole Ralphs aisle's worth of Clorox.

Nick takes Tina and Sally to the Cortez, asking Liz for a room for himself and his nieces. Liz is not impressed by any of them -- "Has there ever been a more aptly named style of music than grrrrrrrrunge?" -- and demands that they put down towels wherever they sit: "Poet skidmarks stain as much as us commoners." Ew. I love hotels so much and, for real, the biggest test this season has subjected me to is confronting the reality of all the disgusting horrors that must happen in any room before I check in. I just would rather not think about it.

Speaking of disgusting horrors: our throuple wastes no time getting down to their drug-fueled orgy, in the course of which it seems Sally even shoots Nick in the cock. She's so happy to be doing this with her two very favourite people that she announces, "I just want to crawl inside your skins and masturbate." But since that's not practical, she has a fun alternative that's nearly as good...

...which is: Sally's going to sew the three of them to one another. It makes sense given what we know about her that she'd put herself in the middle, but these other two must really be addled if they're not asking to be next to each other and WHY AM I TRYING TO IMPOSE LOGIC ON THIS INSANE SITUATION. Anyway: they are, in fact, really out of it, and just as Sally starts begging them to tell her they love her...

...they both start foaming at the mouth. Before long, Miss Evers appears, cheerful as ever, to let Sally know her companions are nearly dead. Sally begs her to call them a doctor, but of course Miss Evers has no intention of doing so and is thrilled about what's to come: "Post-mortem excrement is the biggest stain challenge of them all!"

Give the lady this: she found her passion and she lives it every day, even in death.

"On Day 2, he showed up." After three days of torture from the skinfaced gimp, Sally finally decided she'd done enough lying with her flesh sewn to that of two decaying corpses, and with a blood-curdling scream...

...she sat up and tore up the stitches. WELL, GROSS.

But after that, the room was her spot, says present-day Sally: "It's the only place I had ever experienced any real belonging or happiness." ...No wonder she thought it would be a good idea to kill herself? But then, I've been thinking it was.

Shooting The Breeze

Who called the meeting? Sally.

What's it about? The favour she's going to extract from the Countess in exchange for saving her life.

How'd it go? The Countess's understatement of a response to Sally's truly revolting story -- "You have serious abandonment issues" -- allows Sally to segue to next steps: she fully agrees about her issues, and says she's set her sights on Lowe. She wants him to die in the Cortez and stay with her forever, but he's left and reunited with his dumb family -- including Holden, the Countess's "sweet angel child." Sally can't leave the hotel, so she's nursing the Countess back to a sufficient level of health that will permit her to help Sally enact a plan to get Lowe back to the Cortez. Sally's going to bring her as much blood as she needs, but the Countess says human blood's no good: "I need blood like mine. Would you bring Donovan here? I can feed off him, just a little bit at a time, until I'm well." "Donovan is dead," says Sally, not unkindly, but not with very much ceremony either. "He was very beautiful." Recognizing that she doesn't really have any options, the Countess nods. Good meeting for Sally! She can't have racked up many of those in her shitty waste of a life, so good for her, I suppose.

R.I.P. "Angel Children"

With Donovan gone, Sally has to supply the Countess's "virus" blood from the only other source she knows of within the walls of the hotel: the two remaining VampMoppets. Even as she writhes in pain, the Countess rejects Sally's suggestion that she feed off her babies: "I'd rather die." "You're not saving anyone," Sally real-talks. "What do you think's gonna happen to your children? Hm? It won't take long for Iris and Liz to mow them down." "It's okay, Mommy," says one of the VampMoppets. "Let us help you!"

This is sweet but it can't be much help to Mommy in her current state for your vamp asses to be crushing all her traumatic bullet wounds.

And the Countess is, in the end, not as noble as her title would suggest. Which is fine; no one is going to miss those little creeps.

Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Bagless Vacuum Cleaner

Offscreen, Liz, at Iris's request, brought Donovan's soul-free corpse inside the hotel and cremated him in the furnace, and brings Iris his cremains in a small coffee can. Iris is grateful -- "I just couldn't have him going down that chute like so much trash" -- and after Liz has reported on the Countess (no sign of her since they shot her up, so Liz is hoping she "crawled into a corner and died"), she gives Iris and Donovan one last private moment together.

Poor Iris sits on her bed, pours a small mound onto the blanket, and starts spreading the cremains around as she reminisces about Donovan's "orneriness," which she knows he got from her, and how they might not have gotten along because they were so similar. "But I did love you. I swear to God I did."

And then apparently she spreads his cremains everywhere and rolls around in them. Way to make a sweet moment weird, Iris.

The Hateful Three

Since Liz and Iris together weren't equal to the task of murdering the Countess, Liz convinces Iris that it's going to take a vamp to kill a vamp: they're going to have to venture into the Secret Bricked-Up Soundproof Hallway Of Getting Eaten By Ramona Royale. When they arrive, they see that...a shitload of people have made it in since they were last there and gotten eaten the fuck up by Ramona, as the area's name promises. Liz thinks she can trade on her former friendship with Ramona to bring her on side, but Ramona is -- reasonably -- suspicious of Iris's motives. But that's not her only issue at the moment.

The Queen's Visit

Ramona vs. Queenie

Though Iris initially balks at the idea of serving up an innocent person for Ramona to eat, it doesn't take much time in Queenie's presence to change her mind, as it would any of us: Gabourey Sidibe is annoying in this role and easily my least favourite member of Ryan Murphy's repertory company. To wit, when Liz recognizes Queenie from CNN and excitedly tells Iris about the coven:

Iris cheerfully assists Liz in helping Queenie into her room, where Ramona is waiting in the tub to pounce on her. There's one slight problem, though, which is that Queenie is a "human voodoo doll," meaning that any violence Ramona does to her will just be visited on Ramona herself.

Ramona is not put off, though, and in fact is super-psyched about the idea of guzzling Queenie's blood -- "You're a damn witch! Witch's blood will make me strong!" -- but Queenie's not having it: "I ain't nobody's protein shake, bitch!" They battle back and forth for a while, but just when it seems like Queenie's going to get the jump on Ramona and finish her with a shard of broken mirror...

March appears and finishes her. How can he pull this off without suffering injury himself? "Your magic has nowhere to go, my dear! You see, I'm not alive! You may be a witch, but I'm a ghost." Oh. Okay? Does that only apply to fatal wounds, though? WHY AM I TRYING TO NAIL DOWN THIS MYTHOLOGY IN THE SEASON'S PENULTIMATE EPISODE?! Anyway, March has a reason: "I need you to kill the Countess." "Looks to me you qualify for the job," says Ramona. "And ruin my one chance for happiness? Oh no. She must die in this hotel, but she can't suspect I had anything to do with it. You're the only one strong enough. Then she'll be bound to the Cortez. She's on the verge of absconding forever and I will not allow it." That's actually pretty solid reasoning. And while some might say that the truly unselfish act of love would be to release the Countess to whatever happiness she can find in this life instead of trapping her, she's already had literal decades of happiness in this life, and no one expected March to be unselfish anyway, I am sure.

Winner: Ramona, with a major assist from March.

The Lowe Gets Lower

Who called the meeting? Sally.

What's it about? Lowe's family, which she's taken hostage, and what he'll have to do to get them back.

How'd it go? It starts pretty rough. Lowe's just returned home after grabbing up some dude for Alex and Holden to eat...

...when he comes home to an empty house...

...and a familiar key dangling from a sconce. He obviously heads straight to his old suite at the Cortez...

...where Sally's all done up and waiting for him. He, somewhat logically, assumes she's already messed with the other Lowes, but she says she wouldn't; he then guesses, correctly, that she's trying to position him to die in the hotel so that he has to be her boyfriend for all eternity. "I would have taken a hammer to the back of your head the second you walked in, but he wouldn't let me," Sally drawls. "He" is, of course, March, and the reason he doesn't want Lowe killed -- or not killed yet, at least -- is that he hasn't done all the Ten Commandment killings yet, and has to add a "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder" to complete the set: "One last kill, and then I can take you to your family! They're safe...for now." Lowe pretty readily decides that March isn't going to rest until Lowe gets this done (there's only one more episode left; people can't be all dithering about justice and morality and shit anymore), and declares, "I need to find a murderer." "Well, that shouldn't be too difficult," Sally grins. She's right. But since Lowe's doing it for his stupid faaaaaaaamily now, it obviously can't be himself. Lame.

True Love Never Dies

The Countess, looking slightly wan and unsteady on her feet but otherwise as beautifully turned out as usual, returns to her suite. (Given how much effort it's apparently taking her just to walk down a short flight of stairs, one wonders exactly how she overpowered two perfectly spry vampires and brought them wherever the female and/or vampire Lowes currently are, but whatever, I guess that's why it happened offscreen.) She picks her way through the wreckage to the bar and is pouring a drink in an intact glass when she senses someone behind her. She calls, "It's not the Shalimar that gives you away," before turning and adding, "It's your blood. I've never met a woman whose blood smelled like walnuts." "Yours still smells like black licorice," replies Ramona, stunning in one of Liz's gowns. "You look incredible," enthuses the Countess when she finally turns. "What have you been eating?" "I just had me a witch," says Ramona. "I feel like grizzly bears are running through my veins. I feel strong." "Strong enough to take me down?" teases the Countess. "I could have Yogi Bear running through my veins and I could take you down," snarls Ramona. Really incongruous pop culture reference for this scene but WE'RE IN THE PENULTIMATE EPISODE, NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO START PITCHING WILD ALTS!

The Countess purrs that she assumes her having locked Ramona up hasn't dampened Ramona's homicidal intentions toward her, and Ramona confirms that she has been fantasizing a lot about how she'd do it. Flirtatiously, the Countess asks what she settled on: "You always did like to...take your time." Ramona says she hasn't decided yet. "I'm weak, but I'm still the champ," murmurs the Countess. "You may beat me, but you're not getting out of here without at least a severe lifelong limp."

The Countess then switches gears to muse, "I think everyone in the world thinks they're either blessed or cursed. I've come to realize that I'm neither. I am a curse. Nobody that gets within ten feet of me survives. And god help you if you get right up close, skin to skin. Then you're really screwed." "Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you?" snips Ramona. "I'm trying to apologize," snaps the Countess. "I'm not used to this -- cut me some slack, bitch!" Great start.

"What if I gave you the hotel?" offers the Countess. "Severance pay for twenty years of hell?" laughs Ramona. "I liked staying here because it made me feel safe. But I see now that it's just because I was so comfortable living in heartbreak. I don't want to be here anymore."

In case it wasn't clear from her face -- which it was, because Angela Bassett is a goddess -- Ramona murmurs, "It's harder to kill you when I'm sitting in the same room as you," says Ramona with a mix of bitterness and arousal. "Easier to carve your heart out of your chest and eat it when you just a monster in my mind." "That sounds like a dream way to die," says the Countess throatily. "So erotic." Now that the Countess has made subtext text, Ramona seems pretty well primed for seduction.

"I want to go," says the Countess. "Just me and my baby boy. Kill me, but screw me first." And as "I Wanna Be Adored" plays in the background, it seems like the Countess is going to get the latter part of her request fulfilled in a very decisive fashion. Everything about this scene is so much fun to watch: Lady Gaga's performance is on point and convincing, and Bassett beautifully conveys Ramona's complete knowledge that the Countess is working her, as well as her incapacity to fight it...and eventually her total lack of interest in even pretending to fight it. This season wouldn't work at all if we didn't believe that the countess could pull off a manipulation of this kind, and the scene shows us how she can disarm basically anyone. Love it.

The Ghost Who Came For Dinner

Who's on a date? March and the Countess.

Where has he taken her? The same place he always takes her. However, he has dressed up for the occasion in a full tuxedo, the effect of which Miss Evers kind of ruins in advance when she announces that she's prepared chipped beef on toast. Oh hey, Countess! Welcome to the first meal of the rest of your purgatorial post-life existence! ENJOY YOUR SHIT ON A SHINGLE!

Are things headed in a horizontal direction? Not one tiny bit. The Countess shows up looking divine but acting like she just took four Xanax; she tells March she feels no pain, but no passion either. "The passion was in front of your eyes, fool lady, if only you'd opened your eyes to see it," snits Miss Evers. "At least I don't have to spend an eternity as a pear-shaped frump," the Countess shoots back. Ladies, is this really the kind of attitude you should be taking with each other on the first day of your literal eternity together? Find other ghosts to be friends with and shit-talk each other in secret, duh.

March tries to blow past this unpleasantness, telling the Countess, "We are blessed. We are together again, my love! That one fact already erases a multitude of sins. I may finally forgive you for turning me in to the police." Flatly, the Countess denied that she turned him in. Gritting his teeth, March tells the Countess there's "no further need for prevarication," but the Countess insists that she's not lying: "If I'd wanted you dead, I would have killed you myself." Lord knows we've seen the evidence of that. Everywhere. For weeks. Goopy, spurty evidence.

I guess Miss Evers either can't stand seeing March be so kind to someone he sincerely believes betrayed him, or can't stand keeping a secret from her one true love, because here's where she cracks, sputtering at the Countess, "You should have left! WHY didn't you leave? I knew you would eventually get bored. WHY did you have to die here?!" To March, she announces, "It was me, I did it. I wanted you for myself! I left the handkerchief for the police. I knew that you would come, and I knew that you would never allow yourself to be captured. I wanted us to die together, so that you could see the depth of my devotion, while this one resented every moment that she was obligated to be in your presence. I would happily stand behind you, waiting to serve, savouring your every word. Have you seen no evidence of my love? Do you feel nothing at all? Can you see me now?"

Miss Evers winds up her confession by falling to her knees: "I have laid myself bare! I've dwelt in silence for so long. Give me a word, Mr. March. Let me be happy."

He'll give her a word -- two, in fact.

March, with controlled rage, tells Miss Evers she is banished from his presence. "I feel strangely free," burbles Miss Evers, after a moment. "I will no longer wait on you and your whore." "You have nothing," sneers the Countess. "What else would you possibly do?"

Miss Evers having taken her permanent leave (though I guess that remains to be seen), March returns to the table: "A toast! How thrilled I am to have you across from me -- not once a month, but from now on. Until the sun falls from the sky, and the heavens burn in conflagration.

Almost makes you yearn for the days your enemies were coming straight at you and blasting their murderous intent right at your face, huh, Countess?

Me too, gurl. That was a much more fun way to close an episode.