We only have three episodes left after last night. What a wild ride it’s been! Can you believe Coven is still introducing new characters this late in the game?
The Breakdown
We open with a serial killer roaming the streets of New Orleans circa 1919. His name is the Axeman, and he looks like a jazzy little fellow (he’s a horrifying monster). He refers to himself as “s fallen demon from the highest hell”, and in a letter published in the paper, he calls for everyone to save themselves by blasting jazz music from their homes. He’s going to stroll by, you see, and if he doesn’t hear jazz music he’s going to enter your house and kill you with his axe!
We cut to our “Sisters”, the witches at the coven at the school. They are suffragettes, which is cool. Almost all of the Sisters want to play jazz music to avoid certain axeing, but the Alpha has a better idea.
So the Axeman comes round that night and is quite satisfied to hear jazz being played all around the neighborhood…until he comes ‘round the school. It’s opera! Not cool, he thinks. He enters the school, approaches the Alpha playing tarot cards on the floor, is about to hack her to death when all the slinky Sisters bust out in black capes and gruesomely stab him to death. It’s pretty awesome and scary.
And now… we’re back. In the 21st century, I mean. Zoey goes snooping and finds a Ouija board in the back closet. She wants to find Madison and rounds up the girls. Queenie thinks it’s a bad idea; she says that once the Ouija board unleashed some bad spirits and burned her grandmother’s house down. Zoey coerces her into drinking absinthe to persuade her. That always works! She finds some photos from 1919. The coven’s numbers have gone down. Basically, there are only three witches left now. Back in the day, there used to be more, and there were “hundreds” in Salem.
Queenie and Nan say no, hell no, they will not summon the Axeman via Ouija board. So after calling them pusses, Zoey decides to do it herself. Madison is in the attic. Anyone else find this reminiscent of the first season?
When she goes up, she encounters a terrible stench and Madison’s corpse. Spalding tries to stop Zoey, but she’s able to thonk him on the head with a china doll. Let the torturing-for-information games begin!
Meanwhile, Fiona is receiving treatment for cancer. For whatever reason, she can read the minds of the other cancer patients, which is really sad. Fiona tells the doctor that she wants to “belong to somebody”. This might come into play later.
Later, Cordelia comes home blind and in a bad state, obviously. Hank helps her into her room, but when she touches his arm she sees his past infidelity in a series of humping-visions. She sees clearly now, you see, and she sees what a sleazebag he is. This delights Fiona, who’s always hated him. But Cordelia also sees that Fiona killed Myrtle, which deeply upsets her for reasons we’ll learn later.
Back in the attic, the girls are totally torturing the creepy guy. Queenie uses her human zombie powers to burn his face after he repeatedly claims to have killed Madison, something we know is a lie.
Misty Day is “watering” Myrtle in an effort to bring her back to life. Kyle returns and smashes her Stevie Knicks albums in a rage during his bath. He doesn’t like to be touched. Why doesn’t anyone seem to understand that? But Zoey comes and needs her help in bringing Madison back from the dead. At first it’s like, blah blah, she’s too dead. But then, of course, Misty gives it a shot and Madison comes back to life.
At first I thought Emma Roberts was just too busy with her schedule to be in the entirety of the season. But no, she’s back. She actually tells the girls that there’s nothing on the “other side”, just black forever. THAT’S NOT AN OK THING TO TELL US.
And then we get a HUGE revelation. Turns out Hank was hired by Marie Laveau as a witch-assassin in order to destroy the Salem witches from within. Oh my god, all of us are saying. And that cute red-head girlfriend he killed in the hotel room? She was a witch, too, which explained her eeriness in the last episode, which means I totally called it last week. Thank you very much *takes a bow*
But now it looks as if Hank has fallen in love with Cordelia, or so Marie suspects. She has one good line on the matter: “If I wanted to blind your wife I wouldn’t have to leave my room.” What a boss.
This plot line feels like an afterthought, by the way. But it’s not a terrible one. And Marie tells Hank that if he brings her the heads of all the witches she will let him live. I wonder how far he will get? Good luck with that, buddy. Not even a town of zombies could get past the front door.
In the end, Queenie was right about the Ouija board. Zoey has released the Axeman and he tries to kill Cordelia. The girls come together, chant magical words that Zoey uncovers, and scare him away. But now his spirit has been released and he’s free to roam the streets again… and who does he run into except Fiona. At a cocktail bar, of course. Now this will be interesting.
I must say folks that this episode did little to impress me. I miss Marie and Fiona being the boss Supremes they are. But let’s just accept that this is one of those transition episodes.
Until next week.
