American Horror Story: Coven - 3x04 Fearful Pranks Ensue

American Horror Story Halloween episodes are always fun, but Fearful Pranks Ensue may just be my favorite episode from the entire show. It was deliciously creepy, delightfully surprising and charmingly amusing. It brought us many answers, many questions, plenty of gore, a jar of acid and a group of zombies.

We open in 60's when a black teenager is killed by a group of white men. He is a kid of one of the women who works with Marie Leveau. After appearing on the scene like a badass and seeing grief-stricken mother hang on to the body of her son, Marie takes revenge.
She uses voodoo magic to revive dead bodies in the cemetery - the dead rise and go after the men responsible for kid's death. They kill them in pretty gory way,. Also - the zombie make up was really cool here. They were actually scary. Yet again, I still haven't caught up with at least 30 episodes of The Walking Dead, so I'm easily impressed.

Back in the present day, we visit Spalding's room filled with dolls, record player and teacups. We see him witness Fiona killing Madison. Spalding rolls up Madison's body in a rug and keeps Fiona company. She remarks that she always loved their little talks, particularly after Spalding lost his tongue. She tells him to deal with Madison's body.
Fiona hears something and then discovers injured Queenie. I don't think she ended having sex with the Minotaur after all, but who knows. Anyways, we see The Minotaur standing behind Fiona. In the next scene Fiona wakes Cordelia and they both try to help Queenie. When her heart stops, Fiona literally breathes life back to her.

After that she talks with LaLaurie who tells her Queenie saved her life. She asks what if the Minotaur comes back and Fiona says he is not coming back.
And the reason for this is the delivery Marie gets in Conrow City. It's the Minotaur's severed head in the box. As soon as I saw Marie screaming in the preview I KNEW the head will be there but it was still creepy, especially that his eye actually blinked.

Marie is furious. Her friend tells her that they have a truce with the witches and that if broken, there will be bloodshed again. We get a flashback of Marie, sporting a fabulous afro, and previous Supreme establishing that truce. But in the present, Marie tells her friend that the truce is over.
Meanwhile, at the house of incest, bloodied Kyle is banging his head against the tub. Zoe is freaked out. He says words 'Kyle, no Kyle' and Zoe freaks out more. Honestly that storyline is moving so fucking slow. Plus Zoe is nowhere near giving me an impression she has a working brain - she fixes Kyle food with rat poison in it. So you bring him back and now you are trying to poison him?

Well, she doesn't get to do that anyways, as Kyle escapes the house and she is standing there - yes, even more freaked out.
In another story involving a character that is yet to be interesting, Cordelia's husband is out of town and he meets with a girl named Kylee -and it's beautiful Alexandra Breckenridge finally getting back to the show. They have rough sex together and then she makes him soup. She talks about how much she likes him. He takes out a gun and shoots her. WTF.

Normally, I'd be pissed off that this is all of Alex I'm gonna get this season, but she tweeted she will be back in episode 6 so thank God for it. As for Cordelia's husband - I don't like this dude. He is not interesting, the actor who plays him is bad, please kill him off soon.
Back at the school, The Council of witches shows up, summoned by Nan who is worried about Madison's disappearance. Before they get to say this is their reason for being there Cordelia already tells them a bunch of crap she did in the last few days. She and Zoe are like a perfect fit - they both can't shut the fuck up and they do a hell of a job incriminating themselves.

Luckily for Cordelia, Fiona shows up to greet the Council. There is clearly a lot of tension between her and Myrtle Snow. We get to see the flashback to the time right after Fiona killed the previous Supreme. She is interrogated, but the Council believes her. She is announced to be the new Supreme to teenage Myrtle's resentment.
That evening Myrtle, who is kinda the keeper of truth, enchants Spalding's tongue so that he couldn't lie in front of the Council. Spalding ends up having his tongue cut out and Fiona is safe.

Back in the present day Myrtle is still convinced that Fiona killed the old Supreme and now she killed Madison, whom she believed to be the new Supreme. Cordelia has an interesting piece of information here that both helps and scares her mother - the Supreme needs to be a person who is perfectly healthy and Madison had a heart problem.
We also get to see the Council question the girls and Quennie's scene was hilarious - she tells them that Madison loved booze and dicks and if she is dead it's probably because she got wasted and offered Grim Reaper a hand job.

The best part of the whole interrogation sequence was Myrtle asking Spalding who was responsible for the loss of his tongue, thinking he will write it was Fiona since he lost it so that he couldn't say she killed the Supreme. But Spalding, clearly in love with Fiona, writes 'Myrtle Snow' on a piece of paper and she goes nuts, screaming and waving her hands around. We also get a flashback of him telling young Fiona he loves her and then cutting out his tongue with a razor.
Nan, Zoe and Queenie are talking about Madison and Zoe still believes Madison is alive. Meanwhile, Fiona and Cordelia are at the bar drinking. Cordelia goes to the toilet to puke. When she is in front of the mirror someone white and shorter than her appears hooded and wearing all black. That person throws acid at Cordelia's face. Murphy said "Cordelia has a horrible, horrible event that may be one of the hardest things Sarah Paulson has ever shot, which is saying something on this show. It’s plucked from the headlines!" - it appears he meant that and I just failed to see how Sarah being splashed with water is so hard to act. I wish Murphy wasn't such a drama queen about every single thing.

Meanwhile we get to see Spalding again, this time wearing granny pyjamas and that odd hair thing and carrying another weird looking, old fashioned lacy dress. He walks next to his dolls and then the camera shows us Madison's corpse - all dolled up with a teacup in her hand. Apparently we are going to see many more Spalding's tea parties this season.
And while acid and human dolls are creepy enough there was one more punch. Marie does her ritual again and the dead are getting up from their graves and moving towards the school. LaLaurie opens the door and it's the cute neighbor guy coming over to thank Nan for the cake she brought. While everyone that is in school is him, Nan, Zoe, Queenie, Delphine and Spalding and his dolls, the doorbell rings again.

Delphine answers and it's her 3 daughters in zombie form, approaching closer and closer. That was such a great and chilling moment and the episode ended with the wide shot of the school and zombies approaching.
I had so much fun with this one - the little things, like Spalding making a scarecrow and hugging it, and big things like all the creepy revelations. I really hope the twist this season will be mind blowing and not obvious like the identities of Rubber Man and Bloody Face. The easiest of course would be if Zoe is the new Supreme as we started the journey with her and she has the most screen time among the girls. I hope it's not her.

I'm really thinking it's Nan. Yes, she has Down syndrome but does it man she is not healthy? She looks healthy and she looks like she is glowing with life. She was the one who knew Fiona was the Supreme, she is the one who suspiciously called in the Council behind Cordelia's back. She is popular with guys and she is the right height for the person who thew acid at Cordelia. Perhaps she wants to keep Cordelia heartbroken and Fiona devastated so that they stopped focusing on new Supreme? Perhaps she is so worried about Madison because she knows Fiona is eliminating the competition? Sure, she was in the house in the end, but as we saw with Fiona teleport in front of old Supreme when she killed her, Supreme can teleport.

Having Nan becoming new Supreme in a ways even more conniving than Fiona's actions would be an awesome twist but I'm worried because Murphy is really not good with pulling off twists well. He thinks something is a surprise but in reality you would have to be a total idiot not to guess what will be revealed before it's revealed.

Also the whole acid deal seem to cause blindness for Cordelia. Apparently she will also have a  new gift. I think Cordelia will be able to read minds or something, through that she will see Fiona and her husband's lies and she will snap. Cordelia is supposed to be the biggest villain this season so I think she will reach her limits next episode.

I'm just so happy because of Spalding's character. He is definitely the most interesting one in this season and Denis O'Hare is fucking amazing. I cannot wait for more of his scenes. I also hope Gabourey Sidibe gets more screentime as she is so funny and it's not fair her and Brewer get less time than Farmiga who has such boring storyline so far. They started injecting life into Cordelia's story let's hope something similar will happen in Zoe's and soon.
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