Awakenings

Making your living by catching (very possibly poaching) alligators in a Louisiana swamp and selling their skins can seem like a win-win proposition, and for most swamp rats, it probably is, because most swamp rats don't cross paths with recently-dead witches, like Misty Day (Lily Rabe), whose power happens to be resurgence, and who can therefore revive all the gators you killed and strung up and let them take their bloody revenge on you. In conclusion: maybe don't be so quick to drop out of community college.

Facts Revealed Before "Morning Gathering"

• Madison (Emma Roberts) has no compunction about wandering around in her gitch
• Kyle (Evan Peters) is still dead
• Kyle used to volunteer for the United Way
• Madison doesn't distinguish between Kyle and the other frat boys who raped her
• Zoe (Taissa Farmiga) doesn't accept that

Out Of The Past

Mme. LaLaurie (Kathy Bates): still around; understandably scared of the modern world. Cordelia (Sarah Paulson): still oblivious. Fiona (Jessica Lange): still bitchy.

Queenie's Origin Story

Detroit 2012. Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) is managing a fried chicken joint, where some dude tries to tell her she shorted him a piece of chicken. She is pretty sure he's wrong, and tells him so, calling him "pencildick" in the process. He responds with "stupid fat-ass," and then her arm's in the fryer...

...and his arm is allllllll burned up.

Remember: literally any fast-food professional could be a witch in disguise, so just choke down your Quarter Pounder With Cheese And Beetle and leave with all your limbs. And remember: if you're a witch and trying to keep it on the DL, busting out your powers on a chicken fan could get you covered in the local news so that you come to the attention of the headmistress of a witch school, who'll recruit you and then start trying to control you. Will it be worth it just to get out of Detroit and learn that you're a descendant of Tituba? (So far: yes but mostly no.)

One More Thing...

Who called the meeting? NOPD Detectives Sanchez (Lance E. Nichols) and Stiles (Sam Malone).

What's it about? They want to talk to Zoe and Madison about the frat party; they suspect that something may have happened "in that back room" to give the girls motive to tamper with the party bus's steering or brakes or something.

How'd it go? Once the detectives reveal that they know Zoe visited Dalton (Grey Damon) in the hospital, right before he died in the same crazy-ass way Charlie (Kurt Krause) did, whereupon Zoe totally cracks under the pressure and blurts out that Madison was gang-raped, that she flipped the bus, that she has telekinetic powers, and that everyone at the school is a witch. Cordelia is in the process of trying to sell a story about Zoe having a "mental breakdown" when Fiona enters and witches the detectives into forgetting everything and handing over the evidence they have against the girls. SO: bad meeting for the detectives, who get no further in their investigation. But good meeting for Fiona in terms of reminding Cordelia who the Supreme actually is; and good meeting for Zoe, because Madison finds out that Zoe fuck-killed Dalton on Madison's behalf.

All The Most Devastating Shit Fiona Tells Stupid Zoe After Cleaning Up Her Stupid Mess

• "When strangers come asking questions, we close ranks."
• "I couldn't toast a piece of bread with the heat they were putting on you."
• "You are soft."
• "We -- even the weakest among us -- are better than the best of them."
• "In this whole wide wicked world, the only thing you have to be afraid of is me."

Bring Out Your Dead

One good turn deserves another, according to Madison, so she brings Zoe to the New Orleans morgue to present her plan to balance the scales after Zoe's murder-by-vag: she's dug up a resurrection spell, and she's going to sew Kyle's head to the best of the other dismembered boys' parts and "build the perfect boyfriend." And look, I know that New Orleans isn't the wealthiest city in this nation, but seriously, NOT ONE PERSON is in the building? (At least they could have thrown in a line about Madison doing a spell to clear the place out or something.)

I Want To Exchange An Egg

Impediments to the long-term survival of Cordelia's marriage: she's having a hard time getting pregnant; her husband (Josh Hamilton) thinks she should just forget about medical technology and use a fertility spell on herself; her husband's name is Hank.

Frenemies Forever (Maybe Literally)

Never let it be said that Fiona is heartless! She brings Mme. LaLaurie a plate of fried chicken to help soften the blow of telling Madame that she's been buried for 180 years. And while the two of them aren't exactly pals yet, at least they find they have something in common: sketchy youth serums!

Hey, What Happened After Madame Took That Fake Youth Potion/Apparent Poison?

I'm so glad you asked! She woke up hours later, all fucked up, to find a mob outside, led by Marie Laveau (Angela Bassett), the voodoo priestess who'd given her the potion. While Madame was out cold, Marie and her followers had lynched Madame's husband, and all three of her daughters. And then Marie informed Madame that she was now immortal, and buried her alive. Super-alive, in fact!

With A Little Help From My Friends

After sewing "Kyle's" body together (I mean, it WILL be his, now), Madison and Zoe attempt the spell Madison brought, but no dice; apparently, they're just not powerful enough. And as Madison goes outside for a cigarette, leaving Zoe to apologize to Kyle's head and miscellaneous other dudes' limbs, in walks the one and only employee of the New Orleans morgue, with a flashlight. He sees the Frankencorpse, and has just located Zoe, but before she can crack in front of an authority figure AGAIN...

...Frankenkyle awakens and attacks the dude. Good looking out, bro. He's already a better boyfriend than all the ones on Teen Mom 3 combined. (See what I did there?)

"You Think Too Loud!"

Madame's thoughts are loud enough to disturb Nan (Jamie Brewer), who's trying to read, so Nan has no choice but to stomp into Fiona's room (which Fiona hasn't secured with some kind of binding spell?), free Madame, and order her to get out. When she runs into Queenie in the hall, Madame calls her "slave" and knocks her out, because I guess she hasn't re-evaluated her attitude toward other races in the past 180 years.

Game Recognize Game

Who called the meeting? Fiona.

What's it about? She wants Marie's youth potion.

How'd it go? Poorly for everyone. Marie can smell that Fiona is a witch, and apparently witches and voodoo priestesses have been at odds since Salem witches screwed over Tituba back in the day, so insults are exchanged. Marie tries to eject Fiona with the help of her henchmen; Fiona responds by setting (magic) fire to a bunch of wigs, as you do.

Keeping The Spark Alive (And Then Igniting Some Kind Of Magic Shit With It)

After years of marriage, familiarity can set in and dampen a couple's ardor for one another, so kudos to Cordelia and Hank for shaking things up in the boudoir -- with magic powder, blood play, incantations, actual fire, and snakes -- in ways that make Fifty Shades Of Gray look like Barefoot In The Park.

Road Trip!

As Zoe is transporting Frankenkyle, in the morgue security guard's car, to ???, she decides the time is right to let Frankenkyle know that Madison killed him, that he's basically dead, and that she and Madison brought him back to life. Frankenkyle responds by beating his head hard against the passenger side window. That's when Misty sits up in the back seat, freaking Zoe the FUCK out; Misty says that Zoe drew Misty to her, but more usefully, she directs Zoe where to go, because seriously, where was Zoe going?

Stevie Nicks!

All experts in "resurgence" know that there's only one appropriate soundtrack for smearing mystical mud on a Frankenboy KIND OF brought back to life by a couple of novice witches: any Fleetwood Mac song performed by the white witch herself, Stevie Nicks!

...Yes, "from American Idol," Zoe. (Dipshit.)

Apparently at some point since the early nineteenth century, Madame's falsely-accused-of-rape houseman/Marie's lover has turned into an actual minotaur? And Marie keeps him chained up in the back room at her salon? MORE ON THIS STORY AS IT DEVELOPS.