_This review contains spoilers for the newest season of “American Horror Story,” as well as seasons one and three._
In our second-to-last episode, the Illuminati take ending the world into their own hands, the witches go back in time to save Princess Anastasia and the Antichrist murders mass amounts of people in order to get what he wants. This one was intense and I’m excited to get into it.
Last week, after the two tech geniuses (Evan Peters, Billy Eichner) made the robotic Miriam Mead (Kathy Bates) for Michael Langdon (Cody Fern), the Antichrist, they let him go off on his own with her. In this episode, it seems like the tech geniuses have their doubts on whether Langdon will make good on his promise to end the world. They’re seen secretly controlling Mead’s speech and convince him to meet up with them again to get their advice on how best to progress with his devious plans.
Langdon feels he has to take out some of his enemies before he fully gets going with his plans, so he makes a deal with Dinah Stevens (Adina Porter), the Voodoo Queen. He has her break through the spells that the witches placed on the academy in return for Stevens selling her soul to Satan in order to get a television deal. Michael then goes in and kills all the witches in the house except for Mallory (Billie Lourd) and Cordelia Goode (Sarah Paulson), who escape.
After Langdon kills the witches, he returns back to the tech geniuses to see their plans to start the apocalypse. They tell him that they’re both in a secret organization called The Cooperative, also known as the Illuminati. They say that the most powerful people in the world are in The Cooperative, and everyone in it has sold their soul to Satan. They suggest that a couple members have bombs that they could definitely use to nuke the world, and Langdon seems to like this idea. Meanwhile, Wilhelmina Venable (Sarah Paulson), the tech geniuses’ assistant, threatens to quit unless they give her more details on The Cooperative. They allow her to oversee an outpost, which allows us to understand how she got there in the first episodes. I really enjoy the characters of the bowl-cut tech geniuses and I feel I’ll always be entertained by Evan Peters and his wide variety of wigs donned for the show.
The remaining witches, which include Goode, Myrtle Snow (Frances Conroy), Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts), Mallory and Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt (Leslie Grossman), hole up in fellow witch Misty Day’s (Lily Rabe) Louisiana swamp house. They mourn the loss of their fellow witch sisters and plan for their next attack. Day isn’t there, because she seems to be gallivanting around with Stevie Nicks, who sang to her a few episodes ago. Perhaps they’re off making a duet album.
Snow mentions that she knows of a risky spell to go back in time, but she believes Mallory can succeed. As a test run, Mallory goes back to Siberia in 1918 to assist the Princess Anastasia, who is a witch attempting to save her father, Nicholas II of Russia. Mallory helps her for a brief period until her power fades and Goode realizes she would have to let herself die in order for Mallory to be at her most powerful state. While not quite necessary to show, the depiction of the witch Anastasia struggling to save her father and dying is rather emotional and makes for a very interesting scene. It leads one to wonder, with the appearances of witches in the past — just how many historical women were witches, anyway?
As a last resort, Goode and Snow go to request help from the warlocks at their school, but arrive to see them all dead in the shape of a pentagram on the ground. A little on the nose, even for the Antichrist.
The episode ends with Langdon meeting with The Cooperative, the masked one percenters, and convincing them to work with him to build the outposts and end the world. Even if you did already sell your soul to Satan, I feel like you would probably push back a little at the act of ending the world, but apparently these guys are all for it.
As we gear towards the impending apocalypse we saw happening in the first episode, and the season finale in the next episode, I find myself getting all the more excited. I’m not positive how they’ll manage to cover everything in just one final episode without making it seem rushed, but I have faith in the show, and am excitedly waiting for the finale.
_Edited by Siena DeBolt | sdebolt@themaneater.com_
