I write this three weeks later than the last two episodes because over the holidays, my grandmother passed. I didn’t feel loss until the week after the funeral, when things felt final, a closing of a book not completed rather than a chapter in a long saga. My grandma, the one on my mom’s side, was the last grandparent I had and with her death comes the end of my childhood, the last tie to a quickly fleeting youth. When Tucker died in 2020, I was overwhelmed with complete isolation from my family, the only thing I could turn to in times of despair now gone. With Nellie passing, those same feelings bubble to the surface, floating alone in the cosmos of a family much older and farther removed from me.
What I’m trying to say is: I didn’t feel like sending out a newsletter the past two weeks.
2022 has started and many are feeling the emotional rollercoaster of the past two years. 2020 had some hope that the vaccine would fix 2021 and 2021 taught us that it didn’t. I’d like to go in to the new year with some hope, courage, and less ambivalence than I carried the previous year. My past feels final with the passings that have occurred and now, all that remains is my future.
(Of course I’ll have to stew in my past for a bit since I want to ultimately compile a book of essays about my life over a long period of time so take that with a grain of salt).
Practicing, writing, and growing is not what I hope, but is what will be the next few months. To start that off, I’m bringing you my in-depth look into the first episode of American Horror Story: Coven.
Weird start to the newsletter but hey, figured I’d let you know where I’m at.
American Horror Story Coven came out in October 2013 and concluded on January 2014, an amount of time I saw on Goggle and thought “how was this on tv for a year?” I lived in a house with five other girls that sounds as bad as it seems, the months tearing us apart at the seams as drama bubbled to the surface. One of my roommates started dating the other’s ex boyfriends and everyone eventually was forced to pick sides, a messy situation that ended in their eventual marriage. Fucking wild to think about it now, eight years down the line, but sometimes people do fall in love with their best friends ex boyfriend. Right? I guess? Straight people, are ya’ll this messy?
That fall, the house of girls I lived with on 332 Van Buren tried to get into Coven together. Being the only AHS addict in the house, we didn’t make it past the premiere as a group but for one whole moment, the house was one. Kate, Callie, Claire, Lexi, and probably not Yseneia but maybe Yseneia (we had beef because I put a Harry Styles cut out in the living room that she took down) all sat together to watch the episode I am about to cover now.
An exciting tale of a group of witches who all live in the house causing drama.
Season three episode one of American Horror Story opens with Kathy Bates fucking it up in a mansion with a beautiful chandelier. The name of the episode is called “Bitchcraft” and I can’t imagine how many t-shirts they would sell if they were to trademark the phrase. Bates is introducing three of her daughters off to men like she’s holding an auction, listing their qualities and how useful they are which doesn’t really matter when they’re wearing corsets. One of the daughters brings up she’s good at boudoir indicating she is wifey. This whole opening scene is insisting in 2022, we make corsets a thing again and I agree.
I’m willing to fall over a cliff like Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean if my tits would look that good.
It’s New Orleans 1834 and Kathy Bates has shifted rooms. She’s now in her bedroom putting BLOOD on her face with a brush used for blush. Ummmm… ok? Apparently it makes her skin better but I don’t know if there’s any science to back that up. Tragedy strikes at the dinner party and the drama is that her daughter has been having sex with one of the slaves in her house. In reality, the daughter came on to him and he said no, since he has a wife, but Kathy Bates doesn’t care. She hauls him upstairs in to her attic where she has mutilated a ton of the people who tend to her house. One literally has their face wripped off and another has their eyes sown shut. The slave who was just accused of sleeping with her daugher has the head of a bull put on him because Bates is obsessed with the Minotaur. She’s excited to have her own minotaur as the man struggles to get out of his chains, a desperate escape that will never come.
Quick Pause. Brief History Lesson.
I know a lot of American Horror Story fans are aware of who Kathy Bates is portraying but for those who aren’t, she’s taking on the role of Madame LaLaurie, a rich socialite born in 1787 who ended up being a serial killer. This was the first season of American Horror Story to tie history in to it’s storytelling which was great for someone completely unaware of anything happening in New Orleans during that time. LaLaurie, a bitch with way too much power, apparently would bring slaves up to the third story landing where they were “never seen again.” On Ghost Tours I’ve gone on in New Orleans, people say even the house maids will not go up there in modern day time because a presence is always at the top of the stairs, stopping them. Her cruelty wasn’t public knowledge, though someone did see an eight year old once jump from her roof in order to avoid a beating. Finally, secrets were revealed following a house fire. Her house burnt down, unveiling the horrors she inflicted on those who worked for her, but she escaped with the help of her coach men. Twelve people ended up dying from torture while being employed by LaLaurie. She died some years later in Paris but her house still exists in New Orleans today, where it is said to still be haunted/cursed.
Nick Cage even owned the house for a bit but ended up selling it to some wealthy guy in Texas after losing a ton of money on it following a series of supernatural encounters.
The haunted Lalaurie mansion on Royal Street in New Orleans.
Anyways back to….
Taissa Farmiga pulls a boy in to her room and implies she’s going to fuck him. They start making out and he pushes her back on her bed as they start taking off each other’s clothes. We learn here she’s a virgin because the guy she’s fucking says “it just sucks being somebody’s first” which is a really romantic thing to say. He immediately starts getting a nosebleed and convulsing like crazy after saying this which is something I wish would happen to every cis man when they say something out of line. He had a brain aneurysm and the doctors say it’s something they’d never seen before. As Taissa is crying, her mom reveals to her that she has a “genetic affliction” aka she’s a witch. It doesn’t show up in every generation but luckily for Taissa, she’s got magic powers!
Pretty neat if you ask me!
Her mom somehow knows about this boarding school in New Orleans that helps witches figure their shit out. Three guys who look like Agent Smith come in and take her as some red head with Rita Skeeter glasses reassures her mom that it’s okay, this is the right thing to do. The red head is the same breathy mouth breather from the first season, an actress who’s name I don’t know and who’s name I don’t really care to know. The red head sits with the Agent Smith’s in the car as the beautiful Taissa Farmiga takes in what will be her home for an indefinite period of time, a big white house sitting behind an iron gate fence with two story columns and a kickass porch. This mansion looks like a sleek, modern museum where everything is pristine and you’d get yelled at for touching anything. Taking in her surroundings, people begin pacing the hall in what I only assume will be a jumpscare so I don’t take my eyes off my computer screen.
Three girls in cloaks and masks grab Taissa and hold her down over a table. They pull a knife out and get ready to stake her before she cries for help and the candles behind her flicker. Annoyed, the girls pull back and unmask, revealing Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe), Ned (Jamie Brewer), and my all time mortal enemy: Emma Roberts. This season is her induction in to the American Horror Story cinematic universe and I’m pissed off about it because, as we learned from my last newsletter, she abused my dear, sweet Evan Peters. She was LITERALLY arrested for assaulting him and then seemingly never canceled? They were still dating in the show, at this point, and given the assault happened in 2013 it had to either be before or during filming.
They dated until about 2019.
Roberts reveals she’s Madison Montgomery who is apparently a movie star. We finally learn Taissa’s name is Zoe and then Sarah Paulson walks in, the headmaster of the place. Her name is Cornelia and she talks about how this place was established as a finishing school in 1790 before being converted to a military hospital in the Civil War. In 1868, the school came under the witches control. Marianna Wharton, a prominent East Coast society matron, suffragette, and author, purchased the facility retaining the name as a cover while inviting young witches to learn magic. In it’s hay day, it housed sixty girls but now, witches are dwindling since many chose not to reproduce. In each generation, there’s a supreme who encompasses quote “all the gifts.” From what I remember, they test who will be the next supreme at the end of the series with a ton of different tasks like they’re Avatar the Last Airbender.
Except I’m pretty sure if they fail a task, they die so.
Cornelia is not the supreme though, she’s just a teacher. She tells some cautionary tale of Misty Day, a girl who could resurrect things. Played by Lily Rabe, Misty Day was burned alive after bringing a bird back to life. Apparently in modern day, they also just set people on fire for being witches.
Fuck the 1600’s, the early 2010’s has us tying women up on poles, too.
We cut to a scene of some scientist explaining to someone in a chair that he helped an eighty year old monkey restore its youth, a great juxtaposition of how men in society can do whatever the fuck they want yet the same women are tortured for it. That’s a stretch, but the two scenes back to back definitely depict that people helping heal a community hold no power compared to those working within privatized conglomerates working those same tasks for profit. Lily Rabe was helping the bird for the sake of helping the bird. The fuck is this guy doing with the monkey?
Rant over though because it’s none other than Jessica Lange sitting in the chair, smiling up at Mr. Scientist man promising her an injection that will make her look younger. Boy, does she have some leverage too, because it’s her husband funding this man’s research and he better do whatever the fuck she says if he wants to keep reaping the fruit of his labor. I have a little bit of a gut feeling that Jessica Lange wants to be immortal but we probably won’t figure that out in the pilot.
Lange goes home to rail coke and lose her mind, which is relatable to me alone on New Years Eve right now abusing drugs I will not tell you about. Lange invites Mr. Scientist back over to her place to yell at him because she’s gotten injected the past five days and she isn’t looking any younger. He says he’ll resign and she shuts all the doors with magic (a temper tantrum). She throws him against the wall and then starts making out with him, sucking the life out of him to fuel her own. I can’t tell if she looks younger or not, though, but I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re indicating happened.
Back at the Girls Institution for Witches I’d Like 2 Fuck (WIL2F), they ladies are eating dinner and Emma Roberts is teasing the guy who waits on them for having his tongue ripped out. The girls learn that Zoe accidentally killed her boyfriend and start prying in to how she did it, facts she will not give up easily. Instead, Zoe turns the spotlight back on Madison and we learn that woof, Emma Roberts is going to be the head bitch in charge this season. She unscrewed a stage light to hit the director and killed him. Madison flicks a little bowl of soup on Queenie because she says she’s a bad actress and Queenie STABS HER HAND, revealing she’s a HUMAN VOODOO DOLL. That would be the skill I’d want, are you kidding? I could just slit my own throat and kill someone else? I’m not sure if I would die, but the whole thing would feel incredibly badass.
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Cornelia is working downstairs in her little plant conservatory and Jessica Lange sneaks up on her, revealing they are friends. Jessica Lange, who’s name I don’t know, lets the audience know that Cornelia is the only daughter of the supreme. Cornelia doesn’t care though because she likes hanging out with the girls she teaches like Emma Roberts, someone who can put her down constantly. This makes sense, considering Jessica Lange is her mother (I think) and given how they interact, I’m going to confidently assume she has mommy issues. Lange dumped her here as a kid and is now here to help out because she heard of Misty Day being burned. There’s a storm coming and Jessica Lange is one who will NOT stand for it! She KNOWS about Twitter and VIRAL videos. In not too long, one of the girls Cornelia teaches WILL be recorded and she WILL be cancelled.
Incredible prediction, 2013.
It’s Evan Peters time and he is rocking bleach blonde hair. On a party bus with a ton of frat boys, Peters and his Band of Brothers (2001) hype each other up before heading in to the party, where Zoe and Madison show up a few moments later. Peters notices Taissa is alone and stares at her very intensely, making me wish it was them dating in real life instead of him and Emma Roberts. He goes up to Zoe and hands her a drink, flirting back and forth about how he’s on a scholarship and how she thinks all frat boys are fascists (not wrong). She doesn’t need to worry though because his mom lives down in the Ninth Ward, signaling he’s not some rich asshole but some down to earth poor guy in two seconds. Meanwhile, Emma Roberts is drugged in a scene that made me really sad. She wakes up to being raped and filmed by frat boys, a ton of them training her for far too long. Zoe promises she won’t let these guys get away with it as she runs outside to chase the guys who have now gotten on the bus. As they drive away, Madison stumbles out crying, flipping the bus and effectively destroying it.
Honestly, good.
We learn the next morning that seven die and two are in critical condition. Zoe is upset about this since Kyle (Evan Peters) was on that bus but, like, it was his friends. I’m not saying we should condemn this dude to death just because his frat brothers were raping a girl without his knowledge but I also don’t see the purpose in keeping men around to be honest. I’m probably being pretty harsh, he’s a good kid with a scholarship who probably joined a frat so he could have better connections he wouldn’t otherwise have, but frats are apart of a system that protects and sometimes encourages rape so I don’t know.
Lots to think about regarding the death of a fictional character.
Jessica Lange introduces herself to the girls and scolds Madison for being sloppy with her bus flip, throwing her up against the wall before imploring the girls to get dressed in black so they could go on a walking tour of New Orleans. She brings up a Mary Oneida Toups who once ran an alternative coven in New Orleans where she practiced publicly. Nan stops on the street for a second to take in her surroundings, seeing as she’s the clairvoyant of the group. She finds herself in the LaLaurie home joining a tour as the girls follow, studying the portrait of LaLaurie intently. The tour guide says that LaLaurie made a poultice from human pancreas for her face, preserving her youth. She somehow takes them up to the attack where all of her torture techniques have been preserved. The tour guide reveals that LaLaurie fell from the window of the attic though historically, that wasn’t the truth (I read one Wikipedia article and suddenly I’m a historian). As the tour guide drones on, we flash back to LaLaurie time and meet….
Marie Laveau! Played by Angela Bassett!
Laveau gives her a serum telling her it will help with her husbands infidelity. She sucks it down as Laveau watches her die, waiting until she was done to go up to the attic and retrieve her lover, the man who was made into the Minotaur at the beginning of the episode. Though they say LaLaurie fell out the window, they say her body was never found. This proves a bit of a problem when Nan later says she hears the lady of the house from underneath the ground.
Gonna be a big problem if Kathy Bates is still alive imo.
Zoe goes to see if Kyle is still alive the next day at the hospital and doesn’t find him. Instead, she sees the main guy who drugged Madison and says “it should have been you,” closing the hospital door indicating she’s probably going to kill him. She draws the curtain and what happens next was something I was not expecting. She fucks him to death! Is she a succubus? That’s kind of a shitty power if that’s her only power. You’re literally deprived of the one thing that brings you joy: sex. I mean, I don’t LOVE sex but even I can recognize how shitty a thing that is. I cum a lot and it’s a pretty fun thing!!!! 10/10 would recommend if you could!
Man, I feel really bad for her.
For some FUCKING reason, with one minute left in the episode, Jessica Lange digs up Kathy Bates and she’s ALIVE! Marie Laveau BURIED HER ALIVE! Don’t you think she might be there for a reason?
Overall I’ll give Coven’s pilot a 7/10. This season was the last of the AHS one’s I enjoyed and it did a really good job with pacing throughout the series. With Coven, my loyalty to American Horror Story and my devotion to Tumblr are what kept me around but nowadays, I don’t think I’d willingly enjoy this season. I understand where the rape scene was trying to get us to but even in 2013 watching it, it was so graphic. I guess one could argue that’s American Horror Story’s whole thing, shock value, but did it have to go that route? If it did, could it at least have done a bit more cutaways and implications instead of showing it all?
I’m excited to see American Horror Story’s subsequent pilots following this one because I didn’t watch any season after it! I gave Circus a little bit of my time (that’s the next one, right?) but outside of that, I haven’t seen many others. Maybe a little bit of Roanoke one day when I was trying to be close to my ex who hated me, but now we’re mortal enemies so!