_This review contains spoilers for the newest season of “American Horror Story,” as well as seasons one and three._
Welcome back to the second installment of my weekly review, synopsis and commentary of the eighth and current season of “American Horror Story,” titled “Apocalypse.” In the second episode “The Morning After,” aptly titled as it was filled with more sex than ever, more questions arose than answers. I found myself with my mind boggled at everything that just happened. Let’s dig in.
In typical horror fashion, the episode started with a scare, as Emily (Ash Santos) went to get dressed for the morning and found snakes in her closet. After calling for help, her not-so-benevolent caretakers decided in their rationing state they’d cut up and cook the snakes. When they went to eat them, they came slithering out of their pots, alive again.
This, combined with further actions through the episode, lead me to believe that the recently arrived Michael Langdon (Cody Fern), who was prophesied as the Antichrist and bringer of the End of Days in season one as just a fetus by medium Billie Dean Howard (Sarah Paulson), is playing tricks and mind games. As a baby, Michael caused many problems, and appears to be stirring up trouble again as an adult and important figure of The Cooperative.
After the snake incident, Emily and Timothy (Kyle Allen) get paranoid the leaders of the outpost are causing more problems for the fun of it. They plot to escape away from them and go to snoop around Michael’s room to see where the other outposts would be that they could run away to. In it, they find a laptop that displays notes showing that all the restrictive rules commanded by Venable and Mead (Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates) were all unauthorized by The Cooperative. They find themselves infuriated by this and decide to break the rules, starting with the one prohibiting fornication.
Speaking of fornication, while all this occurs, hairstylist Gallant (Evan Peters) gets a little something as well. After Michael announced he would be conducting interviews to see who would be chosen worthy to join him to the next outpost with rations to last over a decade, the first volunteer is Gallant. After an interesting conversation that involves more than a little flirting and references to rubber and leather, Gallant is joined in his room by none other than the Rubber Man from season one.
The reappearance of Rubber Man drew the most questions from me. Firstly, as was shown in season one, is the person inside the suit once again Tate (Evan Peters)? As fans know, ghosts such as Tate were prohibited from leaving the Murder House unless during Halloween, so him existing outside of it seems most likely a trick of the mind by Michael. Perhaps he may feel comfort in having him around, since Tate as the Rubber Man is his father.
An even more burning question I found myself a little fraught over: If it really is Tate in the suit, does that mean in having sex with Gallant, the creators of AHS made actor Evan Peters have a sex scene with himself? In relation to this, I found myself hoping that in the second scene shared between the two that Gallant would remove his mask and the two Evan Peters depicted characters would interact with each other, marking the first same actor character interaction. Unfortunately, this scene instead took a turn for the strange and twisted, as they are wont to do in “American Horror Story.”
After Gallant and the Rubber Man’s first encounter, Gallant is told on for breaking the anti-intercourse rule by his peeping grandmother and tortured for information by Venable and Mead. When Michael joins him after the interrogation, Gallant tells him that he would never give him up. Michael then states it wasn’t him and that he wouldn’t sleep with him if he were the last man on Earth, and informs him of his grandmother’s role in the punishment. Gallant then becomes confused and angry. After a testy conversation between him and grandmother Evie Gallant (Dame Joan Collins), he sulks until the Rubber Man makes his second appearance.
Gallant joins him back in his room and after Rubber Man’s refusal to have his mask removed, Gallant begins to initiate relations – until reaching for a pair of scissors and stabbing him to death. Believing him to still be Michael, he bites out, angrily, the comment made to him from earlier – that he wouldn’t sleep with him if he were the last man on Earth. Then, turning to look behind him, Gallant finds none other than Michael lurking in the doorway. He then turns back to the bed to find his grandmother dead in the bed.
Meanwhile, after being unknowingly plagued by the Rubber Man’s watchful eye during their snooping and sexual activities, Emily and Timothy are caught and led to punishment from Venable and Mead for their rule breaking actions. Even after protest and call to the laptop and rules noted in it from Michael, they are led to a white chamber and held at gunpoint – until Timothy takes action and takes the gun, shooting Mead. She staggers out of the room, clutching her wound and guts – which are shown to be horrifically inhuman, leading the viewer to believe that either Michael is causing problems with his mind games again, or something else very strange is going on.
I find myself enjoying the direction this is going in and Cody Fern’s portrayal of Antichrist Michael. All the questions the episode has given me have just made me ever more eager for the next, when they hopefully finally reveal more promised season one and three characters. With Venable’s comment in next episode’s preview, noting it as All Hallow’s Eve, I’m quite sure it’ll be related to the ghost characters from season one who can only come out during Halloween, and I’m very excited about it. Here’s hoping for more beautiful Antichrist shenanigans as this new season of “American Horror Story” continues.
_Edited by Siena DeBolt | sdebolt@themaneater.com_
