THE KEEP UP: AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN – EPISODE 6
EPISODE 6 – THE AXEMAN COMETH
Beginning in the early 1900’s, we’re introduced to a serial killer who has a strange niche – he kills people who don’t listen to jazz when he announces his arrival in New Orleans. This entire cold open seemed like a waste, introducing another serial killer (the first one being in season 2) seemed like just another crazy idea the writers came up with, but thankfully, the ending of the episode proved me wrong.
Cordelia is out of the hospital, still blind of course, but she developed a new power that lets her “see” things when she touches someone. Her first glimpse comes from her husband, immediately seeing the affair he was having with the red head a couple of weeks ago, when she confronts him, he denies everything and is told to leave by her and Fiona. The second glimpse comes from Fiona, who realizes that her daughter might see something incriminating so she backs off. It’s only a matter of time before Cordelia finds out the dirty little secrets of a few people in the house, including her mother.
Zoe stumbles upon a little compartment in her closet, and finds a spirit board, or Ouija board and decide to use it, Queenie doesn’t like this, and I would think the other girls would be intimidated by her, but they all use it anyway. Most people will say using one of these things is a bad idea, in real life or in a movie/show, nothing good ever comes out of these damn things, and those rules apply here also. They find out that there is not only a spirit in the house, and not only did this person die there, but he was murdered by one of the old groups of girls almost 100 years ago. AND this person is the axeman, so everything is coming around full circle and that cold open is starting to make a little more sense. On a side note, there was a bit of cheesy dialogue here with Zoe telling the girls to “witch up”, I cringed there, but let it slide because normally dialogue isn’t a problem with this show.
After more communication with the axeman, he makes a deal with Zoe saying that if he tells her where Madison is, she has to release his spirit back into the real world. While reluctant, she agrees and learns Madison’s body is up in the attic. Zoe is attacked by Spalding up there but manages to knock him out; the other girls arrive and start drilling Spalding. Since Nan can read minds, he doesn’t need to speak, and given that he can’t, this comes in handy. He still manages to lie, though, so the girls get nowhere with him, but not before they torture him a bit in the form of a red hot spatula to the chest and face. Queenie approves of this.
For the past few weeks everyone has been asking the same couple of questions – when is Madison coming back? Also where the hell Kyle ran off to back on Halloween night and will he be returning? Luckily these questions were answered, and both included Misty, whose character is still a mystery at this point. As Kyle arrives at Misty’s shack, he is still Frankenstein’s Monster-ish, and doesn’t really say anything. Zoe shows up a few minutes after Kyle so she can bring her back to the academy and help bring Madison back to life. Misty initially denies the request to help out, but finally agrees and Madison is brought back, and in pretty good condition once they get her cleaned up, and the bitchiness seems to be gone, at least for now. Unfortunately she doesn’t remember how she died, she can only remember something red, but we as viewers know that Fiona was wearing a red dress when she was killed.
My favorite part of the episode was easily when we learned of Cordelia’s husband’s background. Plain and simple, he is a witch hunter, whose been working for Marie for an unknown period of time. We don’t know if he was already married to Cordelia and then started working for Marie, or if he married her only to get close to the witches and eventually kill them. His instructions from Marie were to go back to the house and kill everyone. While I don’t think that’s going to happen, I can see him possibly killing at least one of the girls or possibly Spalding.
Regarding the end of the episode, some shit is about to go down, and it’s Zoe’s fault. At this point in the show I was still wondering the significance of the axeman, but now he is actually in the house, in his physical form. After confronting Cordelia, he leaves the house and goes to a bar, and starts to hit on a depressed Fiona. I’m not too sure where this is going, but eventually he will be back at the house, and possibly trying to kill someone.
Some other little tidbits of this episode included Zoe realizing she has another power, we don’t really know exactly what it is, but she was able to tell which book had a spell to banish the axeman’s spirit by waving her hand over a big bookcase. Also Misty is healing Myrtle back in the garden of her shack, she didn’t tell any of the girls about this, so I’m wondering what Misty’s intentions are. All in all this was a great episode, it’s nice having Madison back, and Zoe still building up her powers. The lack of LaLaurie sucked, though.
EPISODE RATING – A
BAT-SHIT CRAZY RATING – B