Warning: This recap for the “She Wants Revenge” episode of American Horror Story: Hotel contains spoilers.



Back when you were a kid and got together with the other kids in your neighborhood, what kinds of things did you like to do? Go on nighttime bike rides? Start teen detective agencies? Sprinkle sand into a campfire and then tell garishly produced nightmare tales? Or were you more of an indoor kid and preferred to stay home and play Sega Genesis or murder your parents? Every childhood is different, but I think there were a fair amount of you that murdered your parents. I’m not speaking of myself, because as I may have mentioned before, my parents were eaten by an orca. No, I’m talking about you and your childhood friends, and the time you all got together and murdered your parents. That was a weird thing to do, right? The ‘80s were a troubling time.

I’m going to level with you: This week’s episode of American Horror Story: Hotel contained a subplot about children murdering and eating their parents, and I am guess that brought back memories for you. But “She Wants Revenge” was just a good and fun episode all around! With a heavy emphasis on the endlessly fascinating Lady Gaga character plus a generous dollop of Angela Bassett stealing scenes, this episode brought us back to the present-tense insanity of a nightmare I never want to end. Let’s talk about it!

We began with the face of a diva staring forlornly into a hole.

The Countess was finally processing the thought that the love(s) of her life had been bricked into an empty wing for decades while she’d assumed they’d abandoned her. This was accompanied by a Lady Gaga voiceover explaining the differences between male and female cardiovascular anatomy, and how female hearts age faster than men’s and that James Patrick March had forced hers to wither and wilt for no reason. (I think? I didn’t take Gross Anatomy.) But all we really needed to know here was this was a Countess-centric episode, which meant we were in for a TREAT.

It turned out The Countess’ marriage to Will Drake had been fast-tracked to NOW-ish, and she successfully talked him out of having a big international shindig. Instead, they were just going to put on whatever attire was in their respective closets and exchange vows right there in the hotel lobby. Unfortunately for The Countess, however, her main flower-gal was still extremely steamed about having had her vampire lover executed in front of her. In other words, Liz Taylor was not feeling super stoked about helping out with the floral arrangements.

But since that marriage was going to be a sham and Will Drake would be murdered shortly thereafter, The Countess was already setting her sights on her former paramour Rudy Valentino, who had been holing up at a local fleabag motel. Via a private detective she found him there, and their blistering romance resumed without so much as a “How have you been?” Sometimes, when you look like these people, mere eye contact is enough to rekindle a passion that could heat a sun. (So I’ve heard.)

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BUT The Countess was still extremely horny and the next thing we knew, she was back at the Cortez effing the S. out of Donovan while wearing her most tasteful pair of bedazzled star pasties. Yep, somehow The Countess had found it within herself to allow Donovan back within herself. Again, can’t blame either of them. Romance!

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Then a pair of porn actors and their sleazy director checked into the hotel for a quick day of filmmaking, and Iris was peeved ‘n skeeved! Raunchy sex between extremely attractive people? In THIS hotel?! Who did they think they were? Next thing we knew she showed up in their bedroom with a knife and started slashing away. Aw, poor porn actors! They were just trying to make $400 using simple athletics, but nope. Iris was bloodthirsty and her favorite flavor is JUDGEY.

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(I’ve never related to a TV character more than the way Iris looked and felt in this scene.) We then saw a flashback to earlier when The Countess woke her up and demanded to know who’d allowed her Frankenbaby to escape the hotel and Iris just straight-up admitted it had been Ramona. As she later explained to Donovan, they were still Team Ramona and were all set to help her get revenge against The Countess, but it was better to pretend they weren’t. Donovan revealed he’d only been sleeping with The Countess in order to go undercover. Literally and figuratively.

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Then Will Drake patiently tried to explain to his son what bisexuality is and how it led him to suddenly want to marry The Countess and sign over all his fortune to her, and the son looked at Will with the kind of contempt he usually only reserves for hair clippers. SURE, DAD.

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At this point a spectral c*ckblocker named Miss Evers arrived to rant and rave about how Will Drake was making a mistake in marrying The Countess, and when he told her to scram she vowed that someday she’d be watching over his bleeding, dying body and she’d snicker. Ladies and gentlemen, this was what’s known in the biz as FORESHADOWING.

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Then The Countess hired a contractor to turn that bricked-in wing into a kind of jail chamber, complete with a giant steel-reinforced door. The contractor tried to give her guff about it (typical contractor!) and James March appeared to set the man straight with his cartoon accent. But instead of thanking him for helping, The Countess slapped his face and wished he was still alive so she could murder him! In my opinion she was still very ticked about having had the other two members of her throuple locked away in that room for a century. As we would all be.

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Then Donovan found the male porn actor locked in a bathroom and brought him to Ramona’s house as a hostess gift. He just wanted to hang out and rap, and in the absence of a battle of Rosé, a shirtless porn stud will often suffice.

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Here Ramona finally explained the full extent of her grudge against The Countess. It hadn’t just been that The Countess dumped her and then killed her new boo, it was that Ramona then moved back home for twenty years where she watched her parents slowly die of old age. When her father was in the throes of Alzheimers and was nearly beaten to death by burglars she infected him with the vampire virus, but it ended up being a terrible mistake, because he still had no memories yet needed blood to survive. It was not a great life Ramona had found herself living, so she had no choice but to drown him in the bathtub. To make matters worse, when she re-emerged into society, everyone was watching her movies on Hulu for free. FOR FREE. Thus, The Countess needed to pay.

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And at this point I need to once again point out that Angela Bassett is not only a national treasure, she is THE national treasure. Honestly find me a national treasure more valuable than Angela Bassett and I will slap it right out of your hands and into a mud puddle. Angela Bassett is a revelation, she is perfect, she is everything. I would like Angela Bassett to be my mom if possible. I really love my mom, but if Angela Bassett wanted to take her place I would be like BYE. You know? Literally Angela Bassett for President!

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Then Alex followed a pizza delivery guy into a house where she discovered a huge pile of dead parents! Somebody had eaten them all, but who?

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THEIR KIDS HAD! Alex was like “Whoa, not cool guys” but the kids got real bratty on her and tried to kill her also. But one of the kids recognized Alex as being the one who’d made them all vampires in the first place, so they spared her. Still, it wasn’t looking good for this gang. Half of them refused to drink blood and were kinda dying and the other half were itching to clean house of these weaklings. Man, I love this plotline so much. Just to reiterate, the vampire kids ate their parents! I would watch an entire show about this. It would be MY Twilight Saga.

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So then it came time for Ramona to make her move against The Countess, and in this case her “move” was sneaking into the Countess’ room while she was napping and stabbing her with a kitchen knife. Not a complicated plan, but sometimes simple is best. But simple was not the best in this situation, because to Ramona’s surprise, just as she was about to pounce, Donovan ran up and TAZED HER! It was a classic vampire double-cross!

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Much like the entire viewing audience, Iris was like, “What the F, dude?” Why switch allegiances all of the sudden? Apparently Donovan was so — what’s the straight guy version of dickmatized? — that he decided he was ALL IN with The Countess again. Iris could not have rolled her eyes harder, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. Now Ramona was locked in that neon cage in the newly built vault wing. It was an outrage.

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The Countess paid another visit to Rudy Valentino and tried to convince him to return to the Hotel Cortez where they could pretend the disgusting modern world didn’t exist, but obviously his girlfriend was kinda reluctant to return to the place that had been their prison for so many years. And for good reason… She’d been gallivanting around town with The Countess’ Black AmEx all day! Why on earth would she want to give that up? Vampire with a Black AmEx is the kind of premise we can all get into! So yeah, there was already trouble a-brewin’ with this throuple.

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Then The Countess and Will Drake got married! I absolutely laughed out loud when Liz Taylor raised her hand to object and The Countess mumbled “Ignore her, she drinks.” See… Vampire weddings are just like ours!

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Just when Will Drake tried to celebrate his new marriage by drinking tons of alcohol, James March appeared and led him upstairs to meet The Countess’ secret monster baby. Do you know how Will Drake reacted when he finally saw the thing? Not well! In fact, he threw such a fit toward that abomination that he hurt The Countess’ feelings and she had no choice but to conk him on the head with a tiny toy cannon. So much for the honeymoon.

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Things got worse for Will Drake when he woke up in that bricked-in vault and helpfully freed Ramona from her neon cage. She repaid his kindness by SLASHING HIS THROAT and drinking all his blood!

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And sure enough, in his dying moments he reached out to Miss Evers, but she just stared down at him like he was nothing but a chump. He got told, and he got told HARD. Meanwhile The Countess was watching the whole thing from her Sliver-style panel of security monitors. Ramona had been thwarted, Will Drake was dead, The Countess was now way richer, AND her lovers were back. Things could not have gone better for her this week in my opinion.

“She Wants Revenge” was a pretty wonderful little episode. Now that we’ve been given a break from the deeply unsurprising Ten Commandments Killer thing PLUS we seem to have settled down with all those backstories, it was nice to get an eventful, gory, horny episode. The vampire characters and lore remain a master stroke, and truly anything involving Angela Bassett, Lady Gaga, vampire children, and naked porn stars can’t go wrong. Yeah, this was a good one. Next week’s episode is entitled “She Gets Revenge.” Can’t wait to see what that means!



What did YOU think of “She Wants Revenge”?

American Horror Story: Hotel airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FX