With only a few more episodes left in this season, American Horror Story: Hotel is heating up.
As this season of American Horror Story is starting to come to a close, the real action is just getting started. With the return of the Countess’s (Lady Gaga) lovers and Ramona Royale (Angela Bassett) comes a plot for revenge that’s full of blood — not that this season hasn’t already have enough blood to fill the Hotel Cortez from top to bottom already. The vampire children army are just getting started themselves, and the foundation that the hotel was built on is beginning to crack. With all this going on, will the season have enough time to cover all the questions we have? Or did the plot take a little too long to develop? Here’s the recap for episode 10, “She Wants Revenge:”
The episode begins with Gaga narrating something regarding age — a metaphor about her shrivelled heart or something. It’s narration only Ryan Murphy would add to make his show have a deeper meaning than the seasons before it. Gaga walks into the now-opened corridor that held her two lovers, Valentino (Finn Wittrock) and Natacha (Alexandra Daddario), and finds all the things they left behind. She gets all emotional and says how “the last 100 years of my life has been a lie.” You think after 100 years in the hotel she would have known something. Guess not.
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Back in the lobby, Gaga is discussing her wedding with her fiance, Will Drake (Cheyenne Jackson). She wants something small — less witnesses, obviously — but he disagrees and calls for something spectacular. She complains to him about wanting it to be just them, and he agrees. Gaga then walks over to Liz (Denis O’Hare) and demands her to order flowers for the wedding. Liz responds with one of the best lines in the whole season: “BITCH … do you honestly think I would lift a finger to help you after what you did to me?” Anyone calling Gaga a bitch gets double thumbs up from me. Gaga responds that Tristan (also Finn Wittrock) didn’t really love him because he was so damaged and didn’t know how to love. Liz disregards her bullshit and leaves. Then Murphy’s mystical narration comes back, and Gaga ponders how everyone she has “done good for” have turned on her. Um … EXCUSE ME? Gaga has done nothing for anyone, and I hope she can realize this in future episodes. But probably not.
The scene cuts to Gaga in her suite with a horde full of beauticians around her. She is watching the news, and a story of a homeless man drained of blood pops onto the screen. All of a sudden, the telephone rings and a private investigator tells her that he’s found her boy — undoubtedly Valentino. She immediately goes to the cheap motel, and when he sees her, they immediately begin sucking face. How romantic.
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Right after her passionate moment with her old lover, Gaga is having sex with Donovan (Matt Bomer). She is telling him how she missed him, and it’s obviously all bullshit. He is asking her for a relationship with just the two of them, and she agrees to it. She reveals that she’s marrying Drake on Wednesday, and he freaks out. But, she tells him how by Thursday, she’ll be a rich widow. They decide to make a list of people that have wronged them and to get revenge on them soon.
Iris (Kathy Bates) is working the front desk when some trashy people walk up. They call for a reservation for “Stormcock,” and Iris knows they’re porn stars. She gives them the key and tells them she’ll bring them some extra towels. She narrates how she hates porn and goes up to the room right in the middle of them shooting. She kills the “douchebag” and condemns herself as a “god damn Dirty Harriet.” LOL.
Donovan comes up to the open room and sees what happens. He tells her how she has changed, and she agrees. They talk about the Countess, and about how Bartholomew got out. She told Gaga it was Ramona Royale but didn’t mention anything of Donovan.
Will gets dressed with his son, Lachlan (Lyric Lennon) before the wedding. He explains to him how he is bisexual, and that Gaga is the only person that understands him and his needs. He tells Lachlan that when he finds someone that truly understands him, to hold onto them forever. How touching. All of a sudden, Hazel (Mare Winningham) appears and warns Will of marrying the Countess, like some kind of Poe story. She tells him how the Countess will bleed him dry, and she will be there to clean up the sheets.
Gaga is by the secret corridor with a contractor and orders him to put in cameras and a door into the now opened hallway. She tells the contractor it’s a wedding present for Mr. Drake to store all of his precious artwork. The contractor explains how it will take a week or so to fix it up, but Gaga insists to do it in a day. All of a sudden, with no surprise to the contractor, a man dressed in 1920s garb with the worst accent in the history of TV pops up. James March (Evan Peters) tells the man that he can get it done and to be on his way to get all of the equipment ready. March explains to Gaga that this is all for her, and she screams at him for locking up the only thing she ever truly loved. She berates him and tells him how she never loved him, and he is crushed. He pleads to keep their dinners together, and she tells him to make sure the chamber is ready by the morning. Now that one of March’s reasons for staying a ghost is gone, will he disappear after the murders are completed? Curious.
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Donovan is back at Ramona Royale’s house with one of the pornstars tied up. She is mad at him for his weakness, and he says that he had an in now, and that Gaga has taken him back. They decide to strike on the wedding night, when Gaga is distracted. While they are draining the man of blood, Ramona explains how after Gaga betrayed her, she went back to her father and mother after 10 years. Not soon after, both of her parents became sick, with her mother dying shortly after her arrival. After her mother died (and 60 years of marriage), her father became sick with Alzheimer's and couldn’t function. One night, she comes home to find her father badly hurt after a break-in. She decides to turn her father, but the blood disease didn’t cure the Alzheimer’s. Even after feeding him blood, he never got better. One night, after he killed two burglars, she decided to give him a Xanax and drown him. After 10 years of being stuck in time with her father, she was finally back on the streets and having fun. Now, people are rediscovering her movies, and she is being recognized. She saw all that Gaga took from her, and that’s when she decided she wanted revenge. The two toast to getting their revenge over blood.
In the suburbs, Alex (Chloë Sevigny) sees a pizza guy come to Max Ellison’s, the first vampire kid, house. He doesn’t come back out, and Alex goes into the house. She sees tons of dead bodies and the children surrounding the dead deliveryman drinking his blood. Some of them are sick because of not drinking the blood they need. She tells them to come to the Cortez and be safe, but they tell her no and leave her to deal with the dead bodies in the house.
Back at the hotel, Donovan lets Ramona in to kill Gaga once and for all. He tells her how he drugged her and how she should be out for a few more hours. As Ramona goes to stab her, Gaga wakes up — she was awake all along — and Donovan tases Ramona. They take her to the dungeon and strap her in the neon cages used to hold the Swedish girls and other victims.
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Iris sees this happening and is confused as to why Donovan is doing this to Ramona. Donovan explains how they are collecting their enemies and watching them suffer on camera. Iris realizes he is in the grips of the Countess again and explains how she will go on to the next one and leave him again.
Valentino and Gaga meet in the motel again. Natacha is off shopping with the credit card and has immersed herself into the modern world. Valentino is talking about how he hates this world, and Gaga agrees. She explains that they can have their old world back at the Cortez with Will’s money. They agree to off Natacha and go into a lover’s embrace. Natacha enters and talks about her shopping. Gaga tells her to come over for a girl’s night and leaves. As she walks out, Donovan spies on her and sees everything. After all he has done for her, she just keeps him like some kind of pet and doesn’t realize the capability he has of killing her. Tragic.
Back in the lobby, Liz objects to the wedding of Gaga and Will. Gaga says to ignore her, and they kiss and go off as the “happy couple” they are. Gaga gives Liz her bouquet and tells her that she hopes she finds true love. Will gets a drink at the bar, and March meets him there. They talk about their blended families and how Gaga loves her child. March is alluding to Bartholomew, and he takes him up to his room to see him. When Will sees the baby, he is appalled and shocked at the ugly baby. It truly is gruesome, and I think anyone besides the weirdos that live at the Cortez would think that way too.
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After Will talks mad shit about the baby, Gaga knocks him out with a toy train. He wakes up in the sealed corridor with Ramona and lets her out of the cage. He pounds on the walls but can’t get out due to the inch-thick steel and bricks surrounding the corridor. Will worries about them starving, but Ramona says she won’t and slices his throat open. Hazel watches the gruesome event and is excited to have sheets to clean. Back in the penthouse, Gaga watches the whole event unfold with a smile on her face.
What a crazy episode. Finally, the vampire children may be coming out of hiding to wreak havoc on everyone around them, and more revenge is in the air for Gaga and Ramona. But, now that Donovan knows about Gaga’s affair with Valentino, will he pursue his revenge on her? And what will happen with John Lowe and the remaining murders? Stay tuned.
Rating: 3/5
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