I say it every week, but Jessica Lange is never not awesome. Fiona is exciting as always to watch but her story just seems so all over the place. First off she shows no sign of the extreme suffering she was going through last week, nor the loss of power from early on in that episode. Somehow after Spalding made her puke up those pills, did Fiona magically recover? The Axeman is not seen nor spoken of this week, so again I wonder why he was introduced at all. The house dynamics also continue to make no sense - Myrtle has the council over without wanting anyone to know, but like the ‘secret’ ritual that the coven performed last week, she has them all hanging out in the damn living room (then does some crazy shit in the basement which also appears to go somehow unnoticed). Even if I ignore the logic gaps like that though - I can’t! you should see my list! - there are still enough head-scratchers going on in the main story.
Luke is in the hospital and Nan is not being allowed to see him. She appears to have spent the entire night crying in the hallway until Madison (with a lit cigarette in the hospital) and Zoe show up and bring her into the room. Nan reads Luke’s mind while he’s in a coma and Joan, seeing this as a miracle, eventually allows her to stay. Nan’s gift of clairvoyance is portrayed strangely here, with Luke leaning over her shoulder and reciting his thoughts to her. It looks, frankly, like a joke at times. And the whole plot is so strange - it leads to the revelation that Joan killed her husband by trapping him in a car with bees. We don’t really know how Luke found this out and it literally comes out of nowhere. Lupone’s character is no more interesting for it, and the plot with Nan, Luke and Joan really goes nowhere aside from a predictable twist in the final moments. Are you guys excited for more for these characters? Anyone see how they fit in at all with the rest of the story? I will be supremely disappointed if Nan is the new supreme (see what I did there?). Her character is totally one-dimensional and stands out as easily the weakest link in the main cast for me.
Madison and Zoe are reduced to being side characters in the Nan subplot this week and we don’t really see much else of them besides a brief scene with Fiona and Kyle. Again, Kyle has barely anything to do this week (even less so than before) and the fact that he admitted his love to Zoe - while Madison tearfully listened in - is also not brought up. We do see a lot of Myrtle Snow this week. Her character is easily the funniest of the cast this season and Frances Conroy does great with the part. Still, I wish there was something scary about her rather than just wacky. Even when she pulls some gruesome stunts in this episode they come across - intentionally, I think - as slapstick. Misty Day has a few scenes but nothing really exciting, unfortunately. The focus of “Head”, aside from the Joan and Nan story, is mostly on Hank and the origins of these witch hunters. The problem is that all of it is just incredibly lame. None of the flashbacks make his character any more likeable and the revelation that he loves his wife after all is so cliche I actually chuckled. The opening flashback focuses on Hank and his father as Hank hunted his first witch and as the episode continues we see where Hank’s dad operates out of Atlanta, Georgia. Neither character ever really comes to life though and their scenes feel forced and removed the main narrative. Perhaps if the big ending that all of their scenes promised had actually been a big ending I’d feel differently, but the blowout at the end of the episode is honestly rather boring and doesn't change much.
With four episodes left I’m not entirely sure that this season can be saved for me. I really liked the beginning of the Coven arc but as we’ve progressed I feel less and less like the story is going anywhere. It feels now more like a bunch of cool ideas that Murphy had which fell under the same umbrella. The witches-as-a-metaphor-for-minorities thing is way too heavy-handed in this episode. Delphine’s great karmic punishment? Having her severed head sit through episodes of "Roots". Even those scenes are played for laughs pretty much until the last moment when after ignoring everything she's being shown, LaLaurie breaks down crying while watching the films that Queenie has popped in. Even Bates’ greatness can't save this stuff for me. I hope that in the final four episodes Murphy and his writers can prove me wrong and somehow bring all of these loose ends together. I’d hoped that we’d have gotten some type of exploration of where each of the witches powers came from or why they had them (seriously, what the hell is the point of Zoe’s puss-of-death?) but that is looking increasingly unlikely. Ditto for Kyle’s story. It looks like Fiona will be using him as a watchdog of sorts and after an episode of back-story as powerful as the one with his mother earlier this season, I have to say that’d be an awful waste of story potential. Hopefully there's more to him than that. As ever I’m excited to hear what you all think both going into the episode and afterwards. Hit the comments and let us know your thoughts on the current Coven arcs. I’ll be a bit more chipper below where you can check out some of the best bits from tonights episode.
Stuff You’ll Love:
- Lots of Angela Bassett this week. As I’ve said before, there are very few people anywhere on TV right now who look like they’re having as much fun as Bassett is in this role
- Myrtle Snow fans are in for a treat. Conroy is hilariously wacky and her character gets to take center stage for much of the episode tonight
- The ending. Once again, Murphy knows how to leave us wanting more. The partnership that promises to blossom in the final moments is exciting and certainly enough to keep me coming back in January. Here’s to some stronger doses of horror in the new year, though!
American Horror Story: Coven airs Wednesdays at 10 on FX. “Head” premieres tonight. Feel free to follow me on Twitter for updates on Horror Story & all my other SpoilerTV work.
