The girls have found their new supreme.
Credit: FX
We open this episode “American Horror Story: Coven” at Miss Robichaux’swith a gorgeous music video-style intro by Stevie Nicks singing “Seven Wonders” directly into the camera. The girls are getting ready to test the seven wonders. Madison takes a bath and lights candles around the tub without lifting a finger. Misty makes buds grow at hyper-speed in the greenhouse. Queenie does some voodoo. The girls descend as Stevie wishes them good luck and walks out the door.
Myrtle is spooning caviar (from the Caspian Sea, natch) onto blinis and serving Champagne for the girls’ last supper. She informs them that for some of them, it will be their last meal. It’s unprecedented to have four witches try the seven wonders, but Fiona never identified her successor.
The first test is telekinesis. Misty stands over a candle and makes it glide right over to her. Then it’s Queenie’s turn, Madison and Zoey — they can all do it.
Next up is concilium. Kyle is standing with a tray of drinks as Myrtle explains that this is mind control. It means bending the strongest of wills to your desire. Misty gets Queenie to slap herself silly, passing with flying colors. Queenie makes her pull her own hair in return. Madison makes Kyle drop his tray and Zoey slap herself. Then she makes Kyle come over and kiss her. She shows off and makes him kiss her feet. Zoey turns him around and makes him kiss her instead. Madison has Kyle choke Zoey, and Zoey uses her mind to send Kyle flying.
The next is descensum: The girls have to go to hell and come back. Queenie’s back at Chubbie’s fried chicken, her personal hell, and is the first to return. Then Madison comes back — her hell was acting on a network musical in a live version of the “Sound of Music,” and not even as Maria. Zoey comes back from a loop of Kyle breaking up with her and saying he doesn’t love her. Then, we descend into Misty’s hell. She has revived a frog in her childhood science class and her teacher, who thinks she played a prank, makes her kill it by cutting it open. She revives it again, and the scene loops over and over. Cordelia holds Misty’s body and begs her to return. But the hourglass timer runs out of sand and Misty disintegrates into dust.
Next, Queenie, Zoey and Madison play transmutation tag, disappearing and reappearing to tag each other. For once, the mood is light and the girls are having fun — until Zoey transmutes herself on the top of a fence. The spoke pierces her chest and Queenie tries to revive her but can’t, so she won’t be the supreme either. Delia commands Madison to bring her back to life and she refuses. She doesn’t want Zoey back in the game. She won’t revive Zoey, even as Myrtle and Cordelia tell her she doesn’t deserve to be the supreme if she doesn’t. She says Fiona had the right idea: “So crown me, or kiss my ass.”
Cordelia doesn’t know where she went wrong with the girls. Suddenly, Myrtle has an epiphany: Cordelia has always had royal blood in her. Myrtle begs her to let out the supreme inside. Now it’s Cordelia’s turn to perform the seven wonders. She performs pyromania and mind control. She lifts up a piano with her mind, and then it’s time for her to visit hell. Cordelia comes back and describes hell as trying to win her mother’s approval and getting slapped across the face by Fiona. She transmutes herself across the room, and now it’s time for divination.
In a pile of pebbles, she has to divine where an item belonging to Mimi DeLongpre is. She knows it’s upstairs and locates it with her mind. Queenie brings Mimi’s brooch down. Madison tries to find Anna-Lee Leighton’s item by divination with the pebbles again and says she doesn’t want to do it anymore. She says Anna-Lee’s item is in the vase above the fireplace: Queenie checks and it’s empty. Then Madison says it must be in the piano. Nothing’s there, and Madison accuses the witches of rigging the game. Madison throws a tantrum and announces that she’s going to return to Hollywood and tell TMZ everything until people come to Miss Robichaux’s with Molotov cocktails and pitchforks. She packs up her stuff and Kyle walks in. He says, “You let her die,” and grabs her throat. Madison tells him she did it for them because she’s in love with him. “You’re not that good an actress,” he says as he continues to strangle her.
Out in the greenhouse, Cordelia is working on reviving Zoey, and just as Madison breathes her last gulp of air, Zoey gasps and wakes up again. Cordelia hears the phrase “the last mark of a supreme is glowing, radiant health.” After passing out from reviving Zoey, she stands up again and she can see. Her eyes are back to normal and Myrtle says, “Behold, the next supreme.”
Fast forward in time and Delia is glowing with confidence. She’s doing a TV interview with CNN, explaining to the world what it’s like to be a witch. “We are strong women, Bill,” she says. She invites young women across the country to apply to Miss Robichaux’s. Myrtle tells Cordelia to leave her past behind. Cordelia says she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and Myrtle tells her she’s referring to herself. She wants to be burned at stake: “I killed and I must pay for it.” She tells Cordelia she doesn’t want to become her Watergate. They go back and forth but Myrtle insists. We see Myrtle in a fabulous red gown as she walks to her own burning. Cordelia wears a pretty black fascinator and cries underneath the mesh as her henchmen pour gasoline on Myrtle. She condemns Myrtle Snow to a sentence of death by fire for killing Quentin and Cecily. At the stake, Myrtle tells her she’s never been more proud. Cordelia asks her if she has any last words and she responds, “Just one,” and screams, “Balenciaga!”
Queenie and Zoey are looking at the line of prospective witches outside Miss Robichaux’s — the girls are lined around the block. Cordelia asks them to help her make Miss Robichaux’s a nurturing place and invites them to join her Council. They’re happy to join but Cordelia has one last thing to handle. She walks down to the living room and Fiona’s sitting, waiting for her. We find out through flashbacks that Fiona’s plan was to go to Paris just for a few days so people would think she died; the Ax Man would pretend he killed her. Then the witches would identify the next supreme and Fiona would know who to kill. Cordelia turns on the light and Fiona is bald and withered. She suspects that Fiona came so Cordelia would kill her. Cordelia asks Fiona if she always knew she was the supreme. Fiona admits Cordelia took power from her the second she was born. She says Cordelia was a reminder of her own mortality. Cordelia tells Fiona she was always the monster in her closet. “I’m crying for the girl in me who dies when you die,” she tells Fiona. Fiona begs Cordelia to put her out of her misery. Cordelia hugs her and tells her that now, without her powers, she’s just a woman having a human experience. She tells her mother that no one can help her; she has to see it through on her own. They hug tighter and Fiona dies in Cordelia’s arms.
Fiona wakes up in a small bedroom and doesn’t know where she is. The Ax Man greets her with a catfish. He says to her, “Why do you always have to be like this?” and he tells her that every morning she wakes up and acts like she doesn’t know where she is. She asks him how long they’ve been here and he says you can’t keep track of eternity. She makes herself a drink and he says, “If you want a stiff one, come over here,” and motions toward his groin. She slaps him and he slaps her back. He reminds her they had a deal and she cries as he holds her. She sees Papa Legbo laughing inside the house.
Back at Miss Robichaux’s, Cordelia opens the door and lets in dozens of girls. Kyle helps them with their bags. Cordelia tells the girls that together, they can do more than survive. “It’s our time to thrive.” One girl asks what a supreme is. Cordelia smiles and Queenie tells the girl, “You’re looking at her.”
Follow Andrea Park on Twitter: @andreapark
