Young Fiona (Riley Voelkel) has a conversation with the Supreme during her time, Anna-Lee Leighton (Christine Ebersole). Nice flashback to Fiona’s younger days in 1971 New Orleans, during her time at the academy. Little drop of liquor here and there to take away the edge. She subdues all the pain with medication, prescribed and otherwise. This episode starts with a Fiona (Jessica Lange) who’s getting sicker with each passing day. * For a review of the next episode, “Fearful Pranks Ensue” – click here But it might have lingered on black power a little longer.* For a review of the previous episode, “Boy Parts” – click here With three episodes left-and a Stevie Nicks cameo to take place-American Horror Story: Coven is poised to tell a story about girl power. The black and white witches are finally primed to unite against the all-male witch hunters. Unless it’s just radical hot-button pushing.Īt the end of the episode, Madame Laveau, who has previously scorned Fiona’s condescending offers of partnership, shows up at the Salem witches’ door, so reduced by her solo bid for power that she is ready to form some kind of alliance. ![]() Is there any American nightmare more potent at this moment than the one about white people dismissing, denigrating, and murdering black people for no reason and with no consequences? Set a scene about exactly that to “Oh Freedom” and you have some pretty radical social commentary for Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. Last season, when American Horror Story: Asylum briefly resurrected Anne Frank, I argued that its bold, shameless appropriation of every and any thing, especially those topics that feel too serious and fraught for it to safely touch on, was what made it so powerful. This season, the woman (LaLaurie) who sewed a man’s mouth around excrement because she thought his skin color precluded him from humanity contains multitudes, while- as Kera Bolonik has comprehensively demonstrated-Bassett’s Marie Laveau has been presented as the least sympathetic of all the witches, even though she’s the only one with right (and a moral code) on her side. (It also reeks of Glee’s self-aggrandizing faith in the power of pop culture above all else to open minds.)Īre there terrifying, soulless bogeymen out there or aren’t there? Last season, American Horror Story: Asylum repeatedly hollered yes, giving us an insane rapist serial killer, a Dr. This bit feels less like American Horror Story than Glee: It reflects an after-school special perspective-everyone can be redeemed and learn something-instead of the horror point of view-No. She sets out to educate her-by showing her Roots. Laveau orders Queenie to burn the head, but Queenie doesn’t want LaLaurie to die so racist and ignorant. LaLaurie quickly revealed herself to be as racist as ever, and Madame Laveau, aware of LaLaurie’s despicable past, cut off her head.Īs this week’s episode begins, LaLaurie is decapitated but sentient, her headless body desultorily brushing off black flies in the backroom of Madame Laveau’s beauty parlor. Disconnected from her white housemates and wooed by Madame Laveau (who despises the Salem witches), Queenie decided to decamp to the voodoos-on the condition that she bring LaLaurie with her. She and LaLaurie became friends of a sort, bonding over fast food and hitting up drive-through chain restaurants late at night. Recently disinterred by Fiona Goode (Jessica Lange)-the egomaniacal, murderous leader of the descendants of the Salem witches-LaLaurie was forced to serve Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe), the one black woman in the otherwise lily-white Salem coven. For her heinous crimes, LaLaurie was cursed by the voodoo queen Marie Laveau (Angela Bassett) with eternal life and then buried alive for 150-plus years. What does it mean to find a sequence from a show in terribly bad taste when that show’s raison d’etre is laying waste to decorum?īefore describing the scene, some necessary background. ![]() ![]() I find myself in a position I don’t often publicly (or privately) admit: I don’t know quite what to make of it. With just three episodes left, though, Coven took a hard U-turn toward its initial subject-and maybe smashed into a wall.
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