Checking In
Another season of 'American Horror Story' is upon us, and you know that means: pretty people having sex with and/or killing each other, a small army’s worth of characters and Sarah Paulson looking as upset as hell get out!
We begin the season with two Swedish women arriving at the Hotel Cortez in Los Angeles, ready to go to Universal Studios but don't know how to go get to there. They wander into the hotel’s massive, deserted lobby and meet with a patented Kathy Bates-type character –a no-nonsense, grump oozing with anger and authority – played by none other than Kathy. This woman is Iris and informs the girls their hotel room is non-refundable.
Getting right to the point in the first 5 minutes, the girls – simultaneously scared and bored by the building – cut open their smelly mattress to find a rotting being climbing out and screaming at them. Quite tame compared to the Minotaur, Twisty, Rubber Man and monster ghost child from seasons past – he/it might as well be a bellboy.
Iris quickly gives them a better room, but one of the women finds her friend being bitten by bloodied, albino children who look they're auditioning as the iconic creepy twins in a middle school version of 'The Shining'.
The charming scenario leads to another, as we cut to our defacto everyman – or rather, the least despicable main character so far – detective John Lowe (Wes Bentley). He arrives at a crime scene with two butchered adulterers stuck together – except only one of them is dead. The male victim has his eyes and tongue cut out and is glued to the dead woman he's still inside of.
Lowe's journey through darkness doesn't end there, as we later find out his son Holden vanished during a family trip to Santa Monica five years earlier, and wife Alex (Chloe Sevigny) can't look at him without seeing her precious boy. Lowe's cell phone rings; the call is from someone who claims to be the killer, saying they are at the hotel.
Meanwhile, Max Greenfield, playing a bottle-blond drug addict named Gabriel, checks into Room 64. The moment the needle releases in his veins, a faceless demon appears with a drill-bit, strap-on dildo. The following scene is brutal, shocking and has coped a lot of negative media. Even Ryan Murphy says it's "the most disturbing scene we’ve ever done" – so prepare yourself for around 25-minutes in.
A leopard-spot walking misery, Sally (Sarah Paulson), tells him it'll stop if he says he loves her. He does, it ends, and he quickly passes out.
In another part of the building, the Countess (Lady Gaga) and her boy-toy Donovan (Matt Bomer) get ready for a night on the town. They find a horny couple at a screening of the vampire classic 'Nosferatu' – as you do – and have a foursome. The tryst gets cut short – unintentional pun – as the Countess and Donovan use bladed gloves to rip open the couple's throats and lap up their blood, as they are apparently vampires in everything but name.Lowe checks into the hotel and checks into the now-vacant Room 64. He is led in by Liz Taylor (Denis O'Hare, sporting eyeliner, a flowing green dress and a bald head), and when alone, the detective drifts off the sleep while Gabriel, stuffed under the mattress below, wakes up.
The two unfortunate Swedish girls reappear, trapped in a basement while Iris berates the 'Swedish meatballs' for being junkies. She blends oysters and some other grub to make their blood healthier, but they're not receptive. Sally appears and convinces Iris to do the torturing, but instead lets one of the girls escape – only to be discovered by a roaming Countess, who slices the girl's throat. "This will never happen again," Gaga tells a cowering Iris.
Lowe's dinner-date with daughter, Scarlet, is interrupted. They travel to a mansion surrounded by cops because Lowe got a text from 'Alex' asking him to come to the house; trickery from the unknown killer, taunting him again. Scarlet somehow slips past the police and enters the house, finding two gutted twins on display as art.
As if all that wasn't enough, the real estate agent from AHS Murder House saunters into the Cortez with fashion designer Will Drake (Cheyenne Jackson) and his son Lochlan. Drake has just bought the hotel, which distresses Iris and Donovan – mother and son.
To make Lochlan more comfortable, the Countess shows him a white room with old-school arcade games and the white-haired vampire children from earlier – including Holden, Lowe's missing son.
Unaware, Lowe enters the hotel as we are treated to a flashback of '94; Sally and a grunge-y looking Donovan enter the hotel to shoot up, with Iris following behind to stop them. She's too late, as her son begins to succumb to the dose as she enters. Sally leaves the room, only for Iris to push her out of a window onto the concrete several stories below. Iris walks back into the hotel room, only to see the Countess with Donovan's unconscious body. "Your boy has a jawline for days," the Countess coos.
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The episode ends with Sally looking all sorts of dead on the streets of L.A.; she is presumably a ghost in the current day? More questions remain – who is the serial killer mocking Lowe? What's the history between the Countess, Donovan, Iris and Sally? Why are people and zombie creatures in the mattresses?
Check in next week to find out more...
