American Horror Story: Coven may close a few doors, but blows open an entire wall of possibilities as a pair of mothers take a hard look at their daughter’s lifeless eyes in “Burn, Witch, Burn.”
The first half of the fifth chapter “Burn, Witch, Burn,” may have led viewers to mistake American Horror Story: Coven for AMC’s The Walking Dead. Following last week’s summoning, Marie Laveau’s zombie army arrive to pay the residents a visit and make up for lost time. Particularly interesting this week is the exploration of mother’s guilt through the eyes of two women, paying their debts for time gone by.
All Hallows Eve 1833: Ain’t no party like a LaLaurie party! In 1883 New Orleans, the Halloween party at the LaLaurie mansion is the place to be. Madame’s examination of potential suitors involves a test of brawn. What good mother would want a man in her daughter’s life that flinches at the touch of eyeballs or intestines? The “little birds” would probably settle for their father cleaning a shot gun in the front parlor approach to protective parenting.
Little do they know that mother dearest does not take kindly to the girls’ plot to murder the matriarch of the family. LaLaurie locks the girls up in the true “chamber of horrors” with the slaves and promises their release in a year or so. Getting your cell phone taken away doesn’t seem that bad, now does it?
A Tale of Two Mothers: Cordelia’s burning eyes turn out to be the result of sulfuric acid. Fiona demands the doctor tell her whether Cordelia is blind or not. Unable to take much more of the insufferable sitting and fighting doctors, Fiona pops pills until she finds herself in a druggy haze, wandering the eery halls of the ICU floor. Recognizing the mistakes of the past and amending them with the person you wronged is hard business. Fiona and LaLaurie each take a different path to ease the painful reminders of wasted time.
Fiona enters a room where a mother of a stillborn baby grieves her loss. At Fiona’s insistence, the mother takes the stillborn into her arms and repeats an almost creed like proclamation to always care for, love, and be a mother to that child until the day she dies. As Fiona walks away the baby begins to cry. Fiona gave a mother a chance to live indebted to a miracle.
LaLaurie, alone in the kitchen, faces her eldest daughter through the window. “My daughter, my child,” she chokes out trying to revive the long gone spirit of the daughter she once wronged, promising to make amends. Unfortunately, the command of Marie Laveau has other plans. The corpse strangles LaLaurie as the scene cuts to Queenie wondering where the maid is. Spalding goes to find out, but is attacked in the hall. Queenie uses her voodoo doll power to inflict several unsuccessful attacks. It isn’t until LaLaurie stabs her own daughter with a fire picker from behind that the body is once and for all returned to its resting place.
As the gravity of what just occurred sinks in with Madame, she takes to the bed and tells Queenie, “She has a monster for a mother. This last act was the kindest thing I ever did for her.” LaLaurie of 1883 would not recognize herself 130 years later.
The Walking Dead: The congregation of the dead waiting outside the Academy sends the house into chaos. The literal boy next door, Luke, finds Zoe’s instance to hide a bit absurd considering there are plenty of neighborhood kids playing pranks tonight. Zoe calls Spalding and demands that he take Queenie upstairs, giving similar orders to LaLaurie who tries to go speak to her resurrected daughters. Nan has other plans and runs after Luke who tries to inform the zombies to go home and stop scaring a house of girls.
Luke suffers a deadly blow to his back from one of the zombies and Nan tries her best to get him to safety. The real hero of the scene is Zoe, with her impeccably straight non-frizzy hair. Seriously, get this girl a L’Oreal contract! After distracting the undead with pots and pans, Zoe resorts to a much more suitable weapon; a chainsaw. An overly gory sequence follows as Zoe slices and dices the risen in half until only one remains.
Out of gas, Zoe is able to mutter some semblance of Latin and not only take down the final taunting zombie, but also the entire voodoo séance. Back in Cornrow City, Marie Laveau plummets to the ground from her floating trance state and declares, “I don’t know what that was, but they got some real power in that witch house now.”
Fiona returns to the Academy in time to aid the removal of the undead corpses. The Supreme commends Zoe for performing a service to the Coven that she will never forget. Zoe may be in Fiona’s good graces for now, as long as she remains in the dark about that final spell. In a giant bon fire, the bodies are thrown in, where the flames turn the remains to ash. Fiona states, “What blows away need not be explained.” The winds that morning blew directly to The Witches Council, who appear at the gate to discuss matters most urgent.
Immediate Resignation: The Council, under the direction of Myrtle Snow, demands the immediate resignation of Fiona as the Supreme. Since a new Supreme has not shown herself yet, the Coven is to be led by the council until that time arrives. Even against charges of gross neglect and the new pattern of tragedies that have sprung since Fiona’s return, Fiona finds room to argue. The Coven, she rebuts, is under attack from the inside. A certain member of the Council has been in New Orleans longer than she is willing to admit with the intention to destroy Fiona over a grudge held from childhood.
Fiona’s cool persuasive defense of her rightful position as Supreme strikes discontent in the minds of the council. Myrtle Snow, the face under the hood, is the one willing to do everything in her power to make the Coven her own. Every move in Myrtle’s life, according to Fiona, is carefully executed in order to gain what she did not inherit from birth. The breaking point arrives when Fiona grabs Myrtle’s hand to show the council the burns from sulfuric acid. Caught red handed for crimes against Cordelia, the Council announces there is to be no further discussion; burn the witch.
Set to the soundtrack of Dr. John’s “Right Place, Right Time,” the death march to the stake begins. The Coven, clad in black mourning wear, lead a Purtainly dressed Myrtle to the wooden pole. After being doused in gasoline, Fiona asks if she has any final words, while lighting a cigarette. Myrtle Snow cautions the girls to watch Fiona, she may be burning at the stake today, but she will finally be free from Fiona’s constant boiling. With a flick of the cigarette, the witch burns.
Back inside the school, Queenie requests an audience with Miss Fiona. Queenie admits that she does owe Fiona for saving her life, but her repayment plan is beginning to get to her. Queenie stuck her hand in sulfuric acid to inflict the wound on Myrtle Snow at the inquisition. Did she help frame a bad witch, or did she watch an innocent woman burn? Fiona talks her way out of another jam by convincing Queenie that she is beginning to show strong signs of becoming the next Supreme. With a confidence boost like that what more questioning of your ability do you need?
Umm: It has only been 24-48 hours at most since Zoe lost track of Evan Peters… erm, Kyle. Build-a-Boyfriend is still out on the streets, but Zoe may have a couple of other things on her mind at the moment. Let’s hope they redeem this character with a better story line or leave him out to reunite with Misty Day.
Speaking of Misty, how about that ending? Can you imagine if Myrtle Snow rises and dances with Misty to Stevie Nicks in the forest?
Highlights:
•Madame LaLauire: “I swoon the moment terror registers on a handsome face.” It’s ok to love that quality about her, right?
•Spalding: Though not addressed last week, Spalding has some creepy things going on in that attic space. Surfacing again this week, Spalding dismisses the ladies from entering the attic and interrupting his tea time with Madison. He also douses the room in air fresher and accidentally rips off her arm… Rotting corpses, am I right?
•Fiona and LaLaurie BFF: When LaLaurie confides in Fiona that she now knows what it feels like to understand your children deserved a better mother, she hopes that the two will grow closer. Fiona sets her back a few steps when she reminds her that she is still the maid.
Check out the preview for next week, and get a glimpse of Cordelia’s new challenge in life:
Watch American Horror Story: Coven episode 6, “The Axeman Cometh” Wednesday, November 13 at 10 p.m. ET on FX