In a swamp, a couple of locals find an alligator caught in a trap they laid; after they kill it, they come across the apparently resurrected Misty Day, who is babbling about rot and murder while listening to "Edge Of Seventeen," as befits a girl who brought what looked suspiciously like a white-winged dove back to life in the season premiere. She then resurrects the alligator, who wastes no time in devouring his killers, so Misty Day as a vengeful Earth mother is a thing the cold open seems to establish.
Now for some individual character explorations: Cordelia, as it happens, is married to a "Hank Foxx" (that's where she got her current surname; also, he's played by Josh Hamilton), who knows who and what she is. They want a family, but even though she's been undergoing extensive fertility treatments, she can't seem to get pregnant. Hank wonders why she doesn't twitch her nose and fix the issue, but she feels like using magic for her every whim would make her Fiona, adding that any spell dealing with life and death is bound to be dark. Later, she proves her point by changing her mind and performing a complex ritual featuring black attire, ashes and bloodletting… among the less disturbing parts. On another note, we flash back to Detroit 2012, when Queenie was a manager in a fast-food restaurant and an A student -- and also took her revenge on a jerk customer by sticking her hand in boiling oil, giving the guy whatever degree burns are the highest. In the present, Queenie explains that while nothing could be proven, the incident was reported, which is how Miss Cordelia came to find her.
Fiona is hiding Madame LaLaurie in her room, and as most everybody probably figured, Fiona wants the secret of her still being alive after all this time. Madame LaLaurie is disoriented and uncooperative at first, but when Fiona tells her just how long she was in the ground, she fills in for us what happened with Marie after we saw her pass out last episode; she came to at night to find Marie and a bunch of her cronies holding torches outside her house and her family hanging dead from it. Marie then told Madame LaLaurie that she cursed her with immortality before having her buried alive on the spot. She didn't even give her a last meal, not that it mattered.
A pair of detectives come asking questions at the house, as everyone was abuzz with the news of Madison Montgomery coming to that frat party; they also know that Zoe visited Brener in the hospital, that he died immediately thereafter AND that it's not the first mysterious death in proximity to Zoe. Under this pressure, Zoe blurts the truth about everything -- the gang rape, the bus-flip, her witchcraft -- but then Fiona enters the room and, after some Jedi mind tricks and consumed witch spit later, the detectives are eating out of her hand. She then rips a strip off both girls, accusing Zoe especially of being soft before telling them they need to stick together and the only thing in the world they should be afraid of is she. It's not an idle threat and yet they haven't met Marie.
Zoe and Madison take a trip to the morgue so Madison can repay Zoe for killing Brener -- by using a resurrection spell purloined from Cordelia. When they find Kyle and the other boys literally in pieces (the effects work with Evan Peters is pretty great) Madison suggests they Frankenstein a version of Kyle with the best boy parts. Zoe surprisingly (perhaps thinking that this Kyle might not be so vulnerable to her powers?) goes along, and although the spell looks like it's veering out of their control, Madison finishes the recitation. It doesn't seem to work, but Zoe lingers and plants a kiss on Kyle's lips and soon, he's beating the crap out of a hapless morgue attendant. Kyle's newfound existence seems to be quite painful and Zoe, while driving them somewhere, tries to explain -- whereupon Misty Day pops up from the back seat. Later, as more of Stevie Nicks' vocals play ("Rhiannon," this time) she starts to heal Kyle's wounds with salve collected from the swamp (although his mental state is still confused, to say the least) and tells Zoe she never knew about other witches, but that day Zoe's magic called out to her. It then seems pretty likely that Misty is eyeing Zoe in That Special Way, so even though she offers to continue to heal Kyle while Zoe goes back to the school, I don't feel a hundred percent sure about the boy's safety even in the context of A) him already being dead and B) this show.
Fiona goes to get her hair done -- by a braided, leopard-print-wearing Marie Laveau. Marie quickly makes it clear that she knows Fiona's a witch and Fiona, in turn, lets us know that witches and voodoo priestesses have been enemies for centuries. There's race and class discrimination positively dripping from Fiona even as she asks Marie for the secret of her eternal youth. Marie laughs in her face, and while she declines to say what it is, Fiona informs her she has something Marie wants… and I can only assume that's Madame LaLaurie. Since she's no fool, Marie seems to figure out the only way Fiona would have come looking for her is if Madame LaLaurie had resurfaced. Oh, and guess who's still alive and living with Marie? If your guess falls into the realm of "grotesquely bastardized versions of mythological Greek monsters," it's possible you're on the right track.
Speaking of Madame LaLaurie, at the school, Nan senses her thoughts and frees her, and she wastes no time in calling Queenie a slave and knocking her on the head with a giant candlestick. Later, Fiona tracks Madame LaLaurie down in front of her old home, whereupon Madame LaLaurie expresses the hope that Fiona's a witch -- because she might know how to kill her. Fiona laughs that she might do so someday, and then a crane shot shows the two of them walk into the early morning light of old New Orleans. It's a little early to call them frenemies, but it could happen.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!
In a algae-covered swamp, the camera pans down to reveal an alligator caught on a line, and I'll say this now: Like with many scenes on this show, it's pretty easy to foresee at least the gist of what's coming; the genius of it is that it only enhances my enjoyment. Through the green film cuts a small boat with an outboard motor carrying two men, and the alligator swims about with a more agitated but still futile effort as one of the hunters crows that they've got another one and lauds the efficacy of jerk chicken as bait, which I admit would probably catch me too. After a bit of talk about the alligator's keen olfactory senses, the other of the Swamp People notes that they have a lot of skinning to do before it gets dark, so the first one wastes no time in pulling the gator up and blowing its brains out. And if you're at all doubtful that no animals were harmed in the filming of this episode, consider how often you've ever seen a cutaway from violence on a Ryan Murphy show.
But we won't have to wait long for some gore, as no sooner have they landed the boat than do they hear Stevie Nicks' "Edge Of Seventeen" playing loudly (Joe Reid is going to be so mad he missed recapping this episode), and when they look inland, they see a woman whose frizzy blonde hair even at this distance identifies her to us as Misty Day. The men quickly discuss how while she doesn't look like she's from Fish and Game, their little operation could net eighty grand in fines, so I'm guessing their plan is to err on the side of killing Misty. Of course, they don't know about her power, but that's just another thing that will quickly be revealed. Clarifying the guy's mention of the fines, we see the corpses of several other alligators strung up in a small clearing, and with her back to them Misty talks about how "this" is all wrong – there's murder, "all rot and black. This will not be forgiven." Being burned at the stake seems to have helped her not to mince words. She asks them why they'd kill God's innocent creatures for monetary gain, and despite the fact that this makes her seem more like a random tree-hugger than an actual threat, it's enough for the older of the two hunters to draw his handgun: "You play with dead things, you're more'n likely to join 'em." It's not quite "If you look in the face of evil, evil's gonna look right back at you," but as a theme for at least this episode it's perfectly serviceable.
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