American Horror Story - Apocalypse Then - Review

Seven episodes later, we've finally caught up to the moment the witches confronted Michael post-apacolopyse. After that much build up, we were sure to be left with an epic, knock-down, drag-out, magic on magic showdown, right? Nope. What did we get instead? A hit and run. Yep. After all that, the anti-christ got taken down by a Subaru. How did we get to this awesome takedown? Let's see.

In more explanation that no one needed or wanted about how Outpost 3 ended up the way it did, Myrtle confronts Venable at Ren and Stimpy's company. She's there to make sure everybody she wants at Outpost 3 ends up there. Venable basically tells her to leave, but Myrtle's not going anywhere, so Venable hits her back at what she'll think will hurt the most; Myrtle's hair. Honey, no. Myrtle shoots her down (not literally, unlike Madison) an uses magic to steal her badge and get in.

Beavis and Butthead are discussing which outpost they're going to be in and how they're going to put Robot Mead in Outpost 3 and erase her memories of Michael because reasons. Myrtle comes in to stop this nonsense. Thank you, Myrtle. She treats them like the little nothings they are. She makes them tell her where Outpost 3 is and secures the people she wants to end up there will (Coco and Mallory). Then she leaves before she loses her patience and kills them both. She lasted longer than I would have.

Back at Misty's swamp, which has a distinct lack of Misty for some unfortunate reason, the witches are discussing how to stop all the missiles that Michael is going to send out. Coco is scared of dying, but Myrtle tells her to fear not, that her father (as we saw in the first episode) is going to secure a plane for her to get to Outpost 3, and Coco is going to secure that Mallory gets there too. To protect them from Michael, Cordelia tells them they're going under witness protection to get new identities and personalities. Coco's will be modeled after Madison's because reasons. Coco is kind of nicer here than I felt like she was going to be when she joined the coven. It feels like an odd switch. We didn't see her develop enough, I don't think. She doesn't want her family to die, Mallory doesn't want to be responsible for the survival of humanity, so Cordelia has to encourage them both to get through this. Before going under the spell, Mallory has a heart to heart with Coco. Man, I wished they had shown their relationship more so this was more heartfelt than it actually feels.

We cut to some time later, where Coco is in full episodes 1-3 mode and Mallory is her servant again. They're being driven to Mr. Gallant's salon by Madison, who is their godawful Uber driver. Ha. After dropping them off, she sees a bus advertisement of that traitorous Voodoo queen Dinah, who's new ill-gotten gained show is a big hit. In the salon, Coco meets Mr. Gallant and Brock, more characters who ultimately didn't matter and we didn't need to see introduced. So much wasted time.

Madison goes back to Misty's swamp where a despondent Cordelia and Myrtle are. Madison wants permission to burn Dinah. That ad tipped off Madison to how Dinah must have been involved in breaking Cordelia's spell, because there's no way she could get a show without a little help from The Devil. Since Myrtle saw Dinah's name on the list for Outpost 3, she knows it's true. Myrtle's fully on board with the burning, but Cordelia's not. She doesn't want to bring any attention to them right now, not for Mallory and Coco's sakes.

Almost back to the present, we go to the moment when Mallory used her powers post-identity spell for the first time. This somehow awakens Cordelia, Myrtle, and Madison, who buried themselves in the ground. They were kept alive by the swamp's healing properties. So the swamp is good not just for healing wounds but for providing constant oxygen. Okay then.

FINALLY, we're back to the present, just after Cordelia brings back Coco, Mallory, and Dinah, and Michael appears. Michael gloats about his win, and they laugh in his face. He can't win because they're still there. He failed to kill them all, the one thing he wanted to do. But instead of killing them now, he makes the big mistake most villians make, which is not killing them immediately. Instead, he offers to spare them for their servitude. Yeah, not going to happen bud. Dinah continues to be horrible, assumes Cordelia revived her for her help, but Dinah is Team Satan. But that's not why Cordelia brought her back. She needed her brought back to life to switch her life with that of MARIE LAVEAU's. YES, the true voodoo queen is here. Why? Well, we see in a flashback she was half-heartedly torturing Madame Lalaurie until Cordelia interrupted her daily routine of torture to tell her she got Papa Legba to agree to exchange Marie's soul for Dinah's.

Haven agreed to this, Marie showed up to help the witches and send Dinah to Papa Legba. She chops into her neck with a machete. Ha. Before Robot Mead can start shooting up the place, Cordelia blows her up. Michael's all sad again. And not one to miss an opportunity, Madison picks up Robot Mead's gun and shoots the hell out of him. Myrtle takes some of his clothes and gives it to Mallory to use to travel back in time. Cordelia somehow knows bullets won't kill Michael so they need to get Mallory far, far away to do the spell. Beautiful, sacrificial Madison, the one who has easily become my favorite character of the season, offers to stay and hold him off when he wakes up. Cordelia finally gives her the props for her character development that she deserves, and then goes upstairs with everyone else instead of maybe teleporting somewhere where Michael won't be able to find them? Up the stairs, they are stopped By Brock who pops up from out of nowhere and stabs Mallory because he's mad he wasn't on the plane? I guess they needed to wrap up Brock somehow. Well, he's taken care of quickly because wonderful, better-than-us-all Myrtle just straight up burns him to death. While Madison watches this random burning man fall down off the balcony in front of her, Michael revives behind her. She senses it and knows she's doomed. He blows up her head, sending her likely back to retail, but I'd like to believe she went to heaven for that sacrifice. Now, can we please get a season in which Emma Roberts doesn't die horribly, preferably not at all?

Upstairs, they're working on healing Mallory's wound. But Michael's coming. Now it's Marie who offers to stay behind and hold him back while they get Mallory out of there. Yeah, she dies immediately too. But it turns out Coco stayed behind too and stabs him in the back. Yep, bye Coco. Also, when Michael is eating Marie's heart in front of her, could we not have gotten a quip from Coco about the calories or gluten in that heart? What was giving her those powers for if not for this very moment?

So Cordelia's attempts at healing Mallory isn't working because reasons. Mallory's dying. Myrtle gives up, but Cordelia knows there's at least one thing she can do to empower Mallory fully. She confronts Michael and tears him down like she did Ariel. It's awesome. Michael says he knew she would survive the fallout, but didn't he say in episode three he thought he had killed them all? Anyway, he says he wanted to kill her by his hand. But he's not going to get to. She stabs herself in the heart. It works, Mallory is revived. She's now full Jesus Supreme.

She goes back in time to the moment when Michael is still living with Constance, and we get to see more Jessica Lange one more time! And boy she makes the most of it. She's confronting him at the moment when he killed that priest and then played video games. She's all like, do you have to kill everybody? Can't you just take your anger out on the internet like everybody else? She's done with him and his evilness. He begs for forgiveness, but it's crocodile tears. Like Tate said he wasn't his son, Constance says he's not her grandson. She doesn't want his evilness in her home anymore, so she's kicking him out. He chokes her, but can't go through with killing her. She really rips into him, almost making you feel sorry for Michael, until you remember he's the embodiment of evil.

Outside, as he crosses the street, he's run over by Mallory. As the mighty supreme capable of all kinds of magical power, she uses horsepower instead. She is once, twice, three times a murderer. Constance comes out to see what's going on and sees some random woman killing her grandson. She's all like, yep, go ahead. Keep doing what you're doing. He deserves it. Mallory hits him one more time for good measure, doesn't make sure he's dead because she's that confident in her bad driving, I guess, and leaves. Constance goes to a flattened Michael and takes him into her arms. He's scared and wants to go to Murder House so he can stay there forever with her. She's like, nope. She seems a bit conflicted, but then quietly tells him to go to hell. Again, what Jessica Lange can do with just a few scenes. Man, I miss her. She leaves him there and he dies.

So now we're jumping ... ahead? Behind? Anyway, we're in the new timeline of 2015 where Mallory is doing magic. It's her first day at Miss Robichaux's Academy and she's meeting Cordelia for the first time. But it's not the first time for Mallory because Mallory remembers everything despite being in her three years younger body. She narrarates as we go through the academy and she explains how everyone is doing. Everyone's alive again, except for Madison (back to retail) and Myrtle, but don't know anything about what happened. Cordelia and Mallory run into Queenie, who's excitedly talking about going to Los Angeles and staying at the Hotel Cor- NO, NO, NO, says Mallory. Mallory convinces her to stay in Venice instead of LA so she doesn't get killed at the Hotel Cortez. Mallory also narrates that she will bring back Madison but wants her to sweat it out down there a little longer, knowing some jail time was good for her.

They're hit with one last surprise; Nan and Misty. Mallory reveals she got some street cred for running over the antichrist, and they let her bring back Nan and Misty. Nan rescued Misty. But she's not staying with Cordelia, she likes being Papa Legba's wingman too much. While Cordelia and Misty hug, we of course have to have some darkness to go with this feel goodness.

We go forward to 2020 with Timothy and Emily, who meet for the first time when, while protesting a coffee shop, she accidently bumps into him and spills his coffee. She offers to buy him coffee from a place that's not using child labor. He signs her petition, ultimtaly signing away his soul to the devil. Because, a year later, Timothy and Emily have a baby. A very special, evil baby. Three years after its born, they're living under red skies, crows circling their very hot house, and have a troublesome child. Like Constance found when she came home at the end of the season one finale, they find their bloody-handed three year old rocking in a chair with his dead babysitter on the ground in front of him. Knocking at their front door are the three evil ones. It looks like we've got ourselves a new anti-christ. The devil does not give up that easily. Okay, then. I hope Mallory kept that Subaru.

That's it for the season, all. How'd you all feel about it? For me, it was another season of a promising start, muddled up middle, and disappointing end. So many plots and characters that didn't go anywhere or mean much. But, at least Misty is finally out of hell, and that's the most important thing to me.

PS, sorry for the lack of photos this time, guys! Computer went down at the wrong time. But you don't want photos of things like Madison's head getting blown apart, trust me.