What Happens When American Horror Story: Hotel Focuses On John Lowe, By Far Its Crappiest Character?

Gil Bellows Over Here

After spending a while watching Wren apparently be dead in the street after being struck by a car, Lowe storms into the hotel, accosts Liz Taylor at the desk LIKE SHE DOESN'T HAVE HER OWN FUCKING PROBLEMS -- she's actually bravely wiping her tear-stained mascara when Lowe shows up -- and, wild-eyed, demands to know where "he" is. Liz, it turns out, doesn't spend every second thinking about John Lowe's specific needs and doesn't answer right away, which just makes Lowe crank his intensity up to Jon Voight levels: "WHERE IS HE?!" Liz, bless her, officially can't with this shit, and says so:

Before Lowe pushes his luck further and gets all good and murdered for it (alas), Sally appears to take over. Oh good, but the season's two worst characters together for a storyline. This will be fucking great.

Bits And Bobs

The craziness of Lowe's pants ratchets up when he sees that Sally has brought him to Room 64 -- which, you may recall, is where he has been staying since he moved out of his family home. "Is this a joke?" Lowe sputters. "You're telling me he's in this room?" "I'm telling you there are answers on the other side of this door," says Sally. She reminds anyone who's just decided to start watching this season with...wait, five more episodes to go in the season? HOW CAN THERE BE FIVE MORE EPISODES AFTER THIS ONE??? ANYWAY, she says this was March's office and that, in fact, he died in it -- at 2:25 AM, which would be why crazy shit keeps happening to/around Lowe every time the room's alarm clock flips over to that particular hour. Sally tries, pointlessly, to get Lowe to give up on his hunt for the killer and just go to the bar with her instead, but he's in A Mood, so she tells him, "Behind the armoire. That's where you'll find what you're looking for."

Okay, can you...look at this behemoth? It's enormous! And it looks heavy as hell. I would think they had to park this piece of furniture on the floor first and then build the hotel around it. But I guess Lowe is powered by crazy adrenaline because he easily moves it to reveal an ornate door behind it, marked with March's monogram. You know, the kind of door you'd have installed in front of a hidden room where you just keep normal stuff.

Or, trophies from murder victims. Sally explains each display: the hand from a thief, killed in 1926, which she says was the first one; a bunch of teeth from migrant workers who didn't keep the Sabbath holy; the brain from an Oscar blogger who worshipped false idols. Lowe remembers that last one and says, "No serial killer has a ninety-year lull." Sally coos, "It's taken him this long to find his successor. Someone to complete his work." After a few more highlights, Lowe starts growling about all the parts that were extracted or removed during the time Lowe's been living in this room and asking who let "him" in? "Nobody let him in," says Sally. "He had a key."

After a couple of brief flashbacks to March blah-blahing about cops and their focus on evidence back at his Hallowe'en party, and to himself telling Hahn his theory that someone's picked up where March left off, murderwise. "You've lived in my hotel long enough to know what's impossible becomes very possible here," says the March in Lowe's memory.

And then Sally drapes herself around Lowe's head and chest and spells out the Fight Club situation we're dealing with here:

Mentor, Meet Protégé

What's the occasion? In 2010 (I'm not going to mark everything a flashback because flashbacks make up almost the whole episode), March and the Countess are having their monthly dinner when Donovan shows up with a stray he's just found down at the bar, apparently one of the only places in Los Angeles where a degenerate alcoholic looking to blot out his day can get a drink in the middle of the night. (Lowe is dark and cheekboney, which we know lines up with the Countess's taste in men, but it's not really clear whether Donovan has brought Lowe up because he thinks the Countess will want to throw a leg over him (generous!), or because she might want him as a midnight snack.)

What are the refreshments? Cornish game hens, white wine, disgusting zucchini. A ghost who only eats once a month deserves better!

Whose big public scene will everyone be talking about tomorrow? Since it's a very intimate dinner for two that turns into dinner for three, there isn't a public scene per se. But Lowe immediately makes an impression in both his hosts by immediately starting to bitch about his terrible day. Turns out this is the same day we heard about in the second episode of the season, when Lowe responded to a scene where a father had come home to find his kids all asphyxiated from carbon monoxide poisoning and killed himself out of grief. This was kind of a bummer for Lowe, too, which is why he's so determined to get drrrrrrrrunk. March is intrigued, and asks a lot of leading questions about Lowe's life as a cop.

March comments on how dispiriting it must be for Lowe to be expected to mete out "justice" when it would be more effective for him just to punch bad guys to death instead -- or, as March puts it, "let your fist be jury and judge!" Lowe agrees: "If it was up to me...I don't need a judge to tell me if someone's guilty or not! I know!...If they took the leash off me, crime would drop in this city!" "I believe you, John," enthuses March. This bromance is a match made in...haunted Downtown L.A.!

Extremely Crazy Eights

What's the game? Thermonuclear Mental Meltdown.

Who's playing? March and the Countess are playing knowingly; Lowe is, to change metaphors, their unknowing pawn, as March sees if he can turn Lowe into his murder apprentice.

What's at stake? Lowe's mind, Lowe's families, the lives of a shitload of victims, some less deserving than others. Oh, and the life of Holden Lowe, since March convinces the Countess not to interfere with his gaming by showing her a photo of Holden in Lowe's wallet and telling her she can snatch him up for the nursery -- that will be the psychic injury that will, March theorizes, turn Lowe to darkness.

Who wins? March. And decisively!

Dr. Lowe vs. Det. Lowe

After his lost middle-of-the-week weekend, Lowe wakes up in his car outside his house with zero memory of where he was or what he's been doing; to him, it was just lost time. When he trudges into the house, Alex is not interested in his lame apology, snapping, "You should send a bottle of scotch to your friend Hahn," who tried to cover for Lowe with Alex for the first day and a half Lowe was MIA. Lowe quickly says he wasn't cheating on Alex, but she knows: if he had been, he'd have tried to conceal it by calling in sooner with some kind of story to explain his absence; since he didn't, she knows he was just getting super-shitfaced. Also: "You're a terrible husband!" Alex isn't my favourite but she's obviously indisputably right on this one.

Then Holden comes around the corner with a cherubic smile and way-too-long hair, and Alex and Lowe have to quit fighting. Lowe just had a great idea: why don't they all go to the beach later? He saw there's some kind of carnival going on! COOL SOUNDS FUN WHAT COULD GO WRONG

Winner: The Countess, eventually.

There's No Accounting For Taste

Name:	Henry.
Age:	Early 50s? He's mummified amid the taxidermied big game in (one of) March's trophy rooms, so it's hard to say.
Occupation:	Accountant.
Goal:	Once, it was to do March's books, and steal from March. Too bad for him he had halitosis so bad that March felt justified in killing him over it...plus the embezzlement.
Sample Dialogue:

Gamboas Anonymous

Flash forward to 2015. Lowe goes to hang out with March on what he says would have been Holden's tenth birthday, and gets understandably maudlin about it. "So much potential on the day of birth," speeches March. "Should be a cause to celebrate, not a day to mourn." "Didn't work out that way," mopes Lowe. "Maybe it did," suggests March. "Not for Holden -- for you. To be reborn." Lowe starts to rant, "If I could find the man who took him--" "You would bring him to justice," March finishes. Nope: this guy doesn't believe in justice anymore. It's almost like he's been brainwashed not to! Or he was weak-minded to begin with and went into the wrong line of work a long time ago. Or both.

Maybe Lowe can't find the "man" who took Holden away from him, but what about a surrogate who's just as bad?

March knows of someone who just checked in for the weekend with his nephew, except the two didn't look anything alike. And when Miss Evers went into his room to change the sheets, she made a terrible discovery.

Lowe, horrified, wants to know what room the guy is in, but March says he checked out this morning.

Back in the present, Hahn says that Lowe is confused: the two of them worked the Gamboa case together. He's the Oscar blogger! He wasn't a pedophile! Lowe darkly replies that what he did with his "nephew" wasn't Gamboa's only sin.

And then Lowe's showing up at Gamboa's, answering an ad Gamboa had placed on Craigslist: he's selling an Oscar! Lowe picks it up and starts waving it around; anxiously, Gamboa tells him he can smudge it all he wants once he pays for it. That's when Lowe drops the Polaroids on the table and accuses, "You checked into the Cortez with this boy." "Please, I'm just a man who likes to write about movies on the internet" -- a line that, if I were to put it on a t-shirt, would be purchased by literally every person I know. Lowe doesn't make the best case for himself as he starts screaming accusations that conflate what happened to this nephew and what happened to Holden -- "He's ten today!...You destroyed your family! Where's his justice? Where's mine?! What price are you gonna pay?" Gamboa nervously says he's going to call the cops, at which Lowe smugly flashes his badge: "Beat you to it."

And then he...ugh...beats him. To it. I guess. Using the Oscar. It's bloody! At least we're spared having to see Lowe finish by sodomizing Gamboa with the Oscar, but now I reminded you that he did. DON'T BLAME ME, BLAME RYAN MURPHY.

What Is He Doin' Hangin' Round?

After his first Ten Commandments murder, Lowe returned to the Cortez and tried to hang himself in the bathroom; Sally -- who, per Lowe, was always there, "like a shadow dancing at the corner of your eye" -- witnessed his attempted suicide but didn't do anything, and when March comes upon this scene and cuts Lowe down, he is furious.

I doubt the no-eyes gimp guy would appreciate being described in the terms March just used. Rude.

Hahn interrupts the story at this point to tell us/new viewers that Sally McKenna jumped out a window at the Cortez in 1994 (not quite, but how's Hahn to know?). Lowe, poor Lowe, so confuuuuuuused! Lowe, of course, has been confused for a long time, and when we check back in with him and Sally as she helps him in the tub, we get an explanation as to why.

I wish the hotels I'd stayed in had been more possessive of me. I'd be eating a room service club sandwich (no lettuce) right now.

Murdery Brothers

Who called the meeting? March.

What's it about? Getting Lowe to resume March's life's work.

How'd it go? It starts kind of poorly. Lowe explains that he tried to hang himself because killing Gamboa felt so good that he couldn't handle it. But March assures him that he's looking at the situation all wrong: "You're discovering who you really are, your true purpose." Even though killing Gamboa didn't bring Holden back, it wasn't a waste: "You took your pain and you made the world a cleaner place. That's a decidedly positive first step."

And then, March opens that ornate door and brings Lowe in to his real trophy room, explaining that this was to have been his crowning achievement: "What I really loved about this project was its simplicity of statement -- the elegance of a round number. Ten. Which makes it even more vexing I was never able to complete it. Finish my work, John," says March gravely. "Make it your own." "I'll get caught," whines Lowe. "You won't get caught, because you're going to make yourself lead detective on the case. Do it in loving memory of your only begotten son." OH BOY, FUCKING MARCH SAID THE MAGIC LONG-HAIRED WORD.

Lowe's story gets around to the time he and Hahn met up at Gamboa's house, and Lowe announced that he was going to take it on: "It interests me." Hahn's not so sure it's a great idea for Lowe to take on another case, and he thinks Alex would agree, because the two of them just met up for coffee. COFFEE?! THE DRINK OF HOT ADULTEROUS SEX??? LOWE NO LIKE!

Back at the Cortez, Lowe hate-fucks Sally, ranting suspiciously about the adultery he assumes Alex is committing with Hahn all the while! "March wants me to finish his work, I'll start with them!" But Sally tells him, duh, he can't start by killing his own wife -- it has to be someone who can't be traced back to Lowe!

Sally brings Lowe to the lobby to point to a couple that has a standing cheating date at the Cortez!

Hahn remembers that the "thou shalt not commit adultery" couple got killed at a hotel in Bel-Air, not the Cortez, but DUH AGAIN! March forbids Ten Commandments murders from happening at his place! Each half of the couple got a text that seemed to be from the other arranging a meetup at this other (nice) hotel, but neither actually sent it! Lowe got their family photos from the internet and the "male potency drugs" from the evidence lockup! Hahn isn't convinced: Lowe knows all this from working the case, so if he wants Hahn to believe he really is the murderer, he needs to tell Hahn something only he would know! What about the man in the bowler hat that Lowe saw at the house where the twins were disemboweled?

Lowe claims it was...Lowe himself, imagining himself as March? idek, you guys, but whatever. Hahn wants to know why Lowe didn't remember any of this stuff until this very day, and when Lowe doesn't answer, Hahn starts copsplaining: "Look, I know how bad you wanted this guy. You feel responsible. But you're not. I know you, brother. Now, you are a lot of things but you are no killer."

O RLY? "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, Andy! It's one of the Ten Commandments! Admit what you've done and I'll show you some mercy!"

Bye, Hahn! I never really knew what to make of you as a character, particularly since the Lowe-being-a-cop parts of the show are for sure the most boring, but at least you were hot!

Lowe returns to the Cortez with a bloody paper bag! Iris greets him as "Mr. Police Officer," and Lowe plays along for a second before telling Iris he knows who she is: he remembers. Iris is so relieved: "It was exhausting! Every time I saw you, I didn't know which John I was talking to! Some nights, I'd be so tempted to set you straight! Then I'd look into your eyes, see the pain -- didn't feel right for me to add to it." "I wasn't ready," says Lowe. "Are we ever ready to see ourselves for what we are?" muses Iris. She adds that it sounds like Lowe has no regrets, and Lowe quickly says, "Except for Wren." "That one wasn't on you, John," says Iris hoarsely. "Wren died because of Sally."

Remember when March told Sally to find someone who could tail Lowe in the world? Sally nominated Wren.

And then Lowe and March are proudly looking at the "thou shalt not covet" trophy, and I would love to have been present for the meetings at which it was determined that this was the angle, amount, and bloodiness required to let this disembodied penis be shown on TV! "I'd say you took the best part of him," compliments March. He also notes that there's something different about Lowe -- what is it? "Clarity," says Lowe. "Yes!" March rejoices. "You can finally appreciate the beauty of your work! Death is your art. I stand in awe of your talent. But what will you do with it, now that you understand?"

I think the ones that are left are "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" and "Thou shalt not kill"? Lowe's really spoiled for choice on the latter and I assume they'll come up with some kind of BS about the Countess making a god of decadence or pleasure or whatever to make that one her? POST YOUR GUESSES IN THE COMMENTS.

"Splendid," says March. "Then the masterpiece will be complete. You're home, John." Ugh, John. Your home sucks. And that armoire that looked like it weighed a ton but that you easily moved is obviously a reproduction.