Last night, the new season of American Horror Story kicked off, and, true to previous seasons, it did not disappoint. The episode opened with Kathy Bates playing Madame LaLaurie, a socialite in New Orleans in the 1830s. After a dinner party, LaLaurie's husband catches one of her daughters sleeping with a slave, and this sets her off. She takes the slave up to her attic, where other servants and slaves are kept in cages brutally mutilated. And what is the proper punishment for her slave? Well, she puts a bull's head on him, turning him into a minotaur.
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| (From collider.com) |
After the credits role, we are introduced to Zoe, who is having her first sexual encounter with a random guy. As they begin to have sex, he begins to bleed out of all of his orifices and eventually dies. The doctor's rule the cause of death as a brain aneurysm, but Zoe's mother let's her know that the true cause for her death is the fact that she has powers as a witch. Since she has these powers, she is in danger, and so three men and Frances Conroy's character take her away to a boarding school for witches.
Upon arriving at the school, she meets Nan, Queenie, and Madison, the only three girls who are enrolled at the school.. They quickly let her know that they all have powers, and that Cordelia (the school's headmistress played by Sarah Paulson) helps protect them from the dangers of the world while helping them with their powers. And do they have a reason to need protecting? After all, a witch (Lily Rabe) was burned at the steak a few weeks before, and they could have the same thing coming to them.
Enter Jessica Lange's character Fiona (The Supreme) who is in L.A. trying to find a potion to live forever. After the doctor can't give her the medicine that she wants, Fiona goes on a cocaine binge at her hotel, and when the doctor shows up to talk to her, she sucks the life out of him literally. After that task is over, she turns on the TV to see the story of the girl who was burned at the steak, and this causes her to go back to New Orleans. Upon her arrival, she and Cordelia, her daughter the headmistress, have it out in a Joan Crawford Mommy Dearest fight which ends in Cordelia wishing her mother dead.
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| (From newsday.com) |
Fast forward to Zoe and Madison attending a frat party. A group of frat guys date rapes Madison. To get her revenge, Madison flips the bus that they are driving and all but two survive. The next morning, Fiona finds out about what happened, and she decides it's the perfect time to take the girls on a field trip to educate themselves about their gifts. While on the trip, they pass Madame LaLaurie's house where they learn that Marie Laveau killed Madam LaLaurie for torturing her lover, and Nan takes an interest to a fountain outside the house. When Fiona asks what Nan is feeling, she says that the Mistress of The House is buried there, and Fiona's interest is peaked.
Later that night, Fiona goes to the place where Nan felt Madame LaLaurie's spirit, and she digs up her casket. Upon opening the casket, an alive and well LaLaurie emerges. The two walk away as Fiona quips "Come on Martha Washington let me buy you a drink.
Zoe goes to visit the hospital where the fraternity guys that survived the crash are being kept, hoping that the boy that had nothing to do with the rape survives. When she discovers that one of the rapist survived, she decides to use her power and kill him by having sex with him. Credits roll.
Overall episode one really set up the season to have lots of conflict and horror in it, and I must say that I was impressed with the way Ryan Murphy intertwined real life historical figures with his fictional witches. Kathy Bates, to me, was the star of the show, as we all know that she plays evil well. I wish that the younger characters on the show (girls at the school) were more well rounded, but I guess that's the thing about being young, sometimes people aren't well rounded. Nonetheless, I will be tuning in from week to week to see what Ryan Murphy has up his sleeve.
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