Tuesday’s episode of American Horror Story picks up where the first episode left off, with Ally (Sarah Paulson) seeing one of the clowns in her bed.
Ally runs downstairs to find Ivy (Alison Pill), someone who can protect her from the terrorizing clowns in her life. Ivy searches the room, finding nothing that gives clues that a clown or anyone else has been there. Ivy’s patience with Ally’s anxiety is slowly getting to her as she says “I don’t think I can handle this anymore.”
After calming down, Ally claims something might be wrong with her. Although, fans do not know if the clowns are just a figment of her imagination or actually someone plotting against her.
Then, Kai’s (Evan Peters) plans to get the group of construction workers from the last episode in trouble seems to be going well for him as the cell phone footage has surfaced and is being played on a local news station. Because of this, the workers were taken into custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Kai is now deciding to run for city council after a seat (coincidentally) is free after the murder of councilman Chang. In this scene, Kai uses a quote from President Trump, saying the construction workers were “rapists and criminals.”
New neighbors have already moved into the house that used to occupy the Changs and Winter (Billie Lourd) lets Oz go over to meet them. Ally and Ivy come home and rush over to find him playing with their bees. Here we get a glimpse as to why in the opening of each episode we see clips of bees and honey. The presence of a beekeeper will probably make an appearance throughout future episodes.
Harrison (Billy Eichner) and Meadow (Leslie Grossman), the new neighbors, introduce themselves to Ally and Ivy. The two add a comic relief with their blatantly obvious remarks about Harrison being openly gay and the fact that they are only married because they did not find anyone else for each other. Not to forget their passion for all things Nicole Kidman. With this duo moving in so soon after the murders, Ally shows her skepticism.
That night, Ivy gets a call that something set off the alarm at the restaurant and Ally insists she goes to turn it off. Ally is trying to make a comeback and prove to Ivy that she is not crazy. When Ally arrives at the restaurant she discovers the manager is hanging in the meat room.
Now with an investigation underway after the discovery of the manager, the episode starts to hint at some political undertones. At the beginning of the episode, a worker, Pedro, is seen arguing with the manager until Ally breaks it up. Ally and Ivy tell the police officer about this incident and he immediately asks about the worker’s immigration status, in which Ivy claims he is American.
At this point, Ally is still thinking about her discovery of the manager and how she was the one trying to save him but instead killed him. This thought lies in the back of her head, reminding her that she is the guilty one.
Ivy invites Ally’s therapist to their home. Ally tells him that the “world is f--ked up and the election made it worse.” She shows him her new gun that she obtained from the new neighbors. This alarms the therapist, but he does not tell Ivy of Ally’s new possession due to confidential reasons.
Kai shows up on Ally’s doorstep trying to campaign for council. Ally obviously does not like his presence after viewing what he did on TV earlier. She tells him to leave multiple times but he makes excuses to stay.
“It’s so easy until it’s you they’re coming for!” Kai yells, hinting that he might know something about Ally that she does not even know about herself.
Ally is stressed as she stares at a bottle of her new prescription. She wants to take them to make Ivy happy, even though she does not like the side effects. Winter appears, suggesting wine and a bath will help her calm down. However, a relaxing bath takes a different turn when Winter attempts to seduce Ally by washing her off in the tub.
Winter may have had plans, but then the power goes out inside the house. Harrison comes to the house, offering candles and claiming it is a terrorist attack such as the Russians or “those crazy freaks in North Korea." Winter runs out to go back home and Ally calls Ivy while she is at the restaurant, even though her phone is about to die. Ally is panicking since everyone left her at home to fend for herself for once.
Ally begins to lock her house up with all the new features she had installed, probably because she has been so mortified from all the clown sightings. She realized the cords in her fusebox were cut. She goes upstairs to get Oz and runs into some clowns along the way. At this time, she has her gun in her hand and Oz in the other and plans to run out of the backdoor to the neighbor’s house.
Upon opening the door, someone is standing there. While Ally thought it might be a clown, it is actually Pedro. She accidentally shoots him. We are left not knowing if he is dead or not but this will definitely make next week interesting, especially with the investigation of who killed the manager and Pedro being a possible suspect.
American Horror Story: Cult airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.
