You Mess Around With Witchcraft, You're Gonna Get Burned

"I Love The 1830s." - Madame

When Madame LaLaurie (Kathy Bates) throws a Hallowe'en party, she commits. Take her party in 1833, for instance: her chamber of horrors is an actual chamber of horrors! Jacques (Gabe Begneaud) thinks he's sticking his hand in a tureen of peeled grapes pretending to be eyeballs....

And what he hopes are sausage links...?

Hey Jacques, where are you going, don't you want your goodie bag?!

Don't Plot Against Your Sadistic Mother Where She Can Hear You

Is Borquita (Jennifer Lynn Warren) wrong when she says that Madame's antics are going to keep her from ever getting married? No. But if the thrust of her discussion with her sisters is that Madame's cruelty both to them and to her slaves is so out of hand that something must be done, maybe they should take the conversation off-site? Because when she gets her strongest slaves to rouse them out of bed and take them up to the attic, where they're going to be crucified or caged with a broken leg or threatened with a mouthful of Christmas shit for the next year...like, sometimes we bring heartache on ourselves.

Justice Is On Its Way To Being Served

Knowing what we now do about how Madame treated her daughters when they were alive (and the slaves, but we already knew about them), it's kind of hard to get too upset about a levitating Marie (Angela Bassett) summoning her army of zombies and sending them to attack Miss Robichaux's. It's too bad that Luke (Alexander Dreymon) misinterprets the siege as a prank, heads out to try to disperse the mob, and gets an axe to the back for his troubles, but then again, maybe he should have paid more attention to Zoe's (Taissa Farmiga) urgency, or to Nan (Jamie Brewer) saying she "can't hear them." Keep up, Luke, you live in Spookytown now.

Burnt Offerings

Whatever got thrown in Cordelia's (Sarah Paulson) face at the end of the last episode was no joke; the ER doctor thinks it was sulfuric acid, but who even knows. The point is: it burned through her optic nerves, and she's blind. At least we know her husband is a real stand-up guy who will definitely be equal to the task of taking care of her.

Now That's What I Call A Baby Nurse

After leaving Cordelia to lurch around the halls of this creepy-ass hospital in search of more pills (which: mission accomplished), Fiona (Jessica Lange) happens upon a young woman (Meg Steedle) left to lie in her own bloody sheets next to her stillborn baby. So, naturally, Fiona forces the woman to hold her dead daughter, promise to be her mother until the child dies, and then leaves...whereupon the baby wakes up. So now we've seen Fiona bring two people back from death or, at least, its brink: can't she restore Cordelia's vision?

Witches vs. Zombies

The zombies start tearing into the car where Luke and Nan have taken refuge!

Zoe starts banging pots together to draw the zombies toward herself instead, and shuts herself up in a little side yard with only one exit that is immediately blocked by zombies!

Down in the kitchen getting ice for Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) after putting her back to bed, Madame sees Zombie Borquita at the window, and lets her in hoping to make amends for all her past misdeeds, but Borquita attacks!

After a while, Queenie hears a noise in the hall, and gets up to find Zomborquita attacking Spalding (Denis O'Hare)!

Queenie protects herself by committing violence against herself, the effects of which are visited upon Zomborquita!

Then someone runs Zomborquita through with a fancy poker!

And it's Madame!

And she cries to Queenie that killing Zomborquita was the only kindness Madame ever did for her!

Just when it looks like all hope is lost for Luke and Nan, Zoe emerges from the side yard and starts going on a chainsaw rampage!

Then Zoe's chainsaw runs out of juice and she has to use magic to repel a zombie, and it works!

And not only that, but Zoe breaks Marie's spell! Is Zoe really more powerful than Marie? IS ZOE THE NEXT SUPREME?!

Hank vs. Fiona

Who loves Cordelia more? The mother who abandoned her or the husband that leaves town all the time "on work"? Hank (Josh Hamilton) and Fiona yell at each other over Cordelia's unconscious body until a nurse comes in and tells one of them to leave. Fiona gives him fifteen minutes, whereupon he takes Cordelia's hands...and she instantly gets a flash of him fucking his trick in Baton Rouge.

Winner: Fiona, not that she knows it yet.

Brrrrrrrr

The Death Panel

Who called the meeting? The Council, in the persons of Pimbrooke (Robin Bartlett), Quentin (Leslie Jordan), and Myrtle Snow (Frances Conroy).

What's it about? Even after Spalding saved her ass last week, Fiona has not been doing so great as the Supreme of her Coven, so they've come back to deliver a sentence on her gross neglect, malfeasance, and being around when Cordelia got blinded. So they want her to resign as Supreme, and let the coven fall under Council control.

How'd it go? It goes perfectly for Fiona, who turns everything around on Myrtle. Fiona says that Myrtle was living under an assumed name at a motel, where she put together a crazy stalker wall with Fiona as her target. Fiona goes on to say that Myrtle is the one who blinded Cordelia, and proves it by pulling off one of Fiona's gloves and showing that her hand is burned in exactly the same way Cordelia was. It all sure looks pretty damning, and Myrtle is immediately sentenced to burn at the stake. Everything so determinedly goes Fiona's way that Myrtle doesn't even try to argue, saying, "I go proudly to the flame."

Myrtle Snow, ????-2013

Sentenced to burn at the stake, Myrtle Snow will be remembered as a cautionary tale: don't do the wrong things, not even for the right reasons. It might also be a good idea to ignore injustice when you see it done, and not to buck against received wisdom or the status quo, and finally, as Queenie reminds us, "You don't mess with the Supreme." And, I mean, you just don't. She knows lots of crazy magic.

You SERIOUSLY Don't Mess With The Supreme

Fiona is not a good person, but I can't get mad at someone who's this single-minded in her pursuit of her own evil schemes. For example: here, Queenie comes to Fiona because she's not sure if she just helped Fiona frame an innocent woman. You see, Myrtle's hand was burned because, at exactly the right moment, Queenie stuck her own hand in some acid. She didn't know when she agreed to help Fiona that the consequence would be Myrtle burning alive, and now she's not sure if she can live with what she did. Fiona, without blinking, says she can tell Queenie's mind is getting stronger, and hey, what if Queenie is the next Supreme? Maybe what this coven needs is a Supreme of colour! Queenie likes this idea a lot! Sorry, Queenie, but I'm pretty sure the next Supreme won't wear rubber flip-flops.

Play NICELY With Your Toys!

Myrtle Snow Mark II, 2013-

You made a great new friend in Misty Day (Lily Rabe), lady! Welcome back!