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

Although drinking blood is nobody’s idea of a great time, vampirism certainly seems to have its perks. For example, it tends to make you not only beautiful but sexy and altogether horny; expensive couture practically slaps itself onto your body; you become impervious to any of the million ways the human body is flawed; you get to live forever. But that last one can be a real vampire pain in the vampire A. Not just due to all the existentialism and ennui that comes along with immortality, but also because sometimes you will be bricked into the abandoned wing of a haunted hotel, and what then? Immortality sure loses its luster in situations such as that.

Related: ‘American Horror Story’: Your Grotesque Guide to the True Stories that Inspired ‘Hotel’

“Flicker” was a great and restrained episode of Nightmare Tales Specific to the USA that explored The Countess’ backstory, and how she came to be a vampire. What may have come as a surprise to most of us was that the dashing man who infected her with the virus was none other than Rudolph Valentino! Who, as a reminder, was an actual person. Even more audacious, he’s played by Finn Wittrock and exactly zero explanation was offered for why Rudolph Valentino and the late Tristan Duffy were doppelgangers. Ever since this series decided to connect each of its seasons, the glaring question has been, If each season takes place in the same world, why are there FOUR different women who all look exactly like Jessica Lange? But in “Flicker” it’s as though AHS was openly embracing this phenomenon within a single season. See what I’m saying? If the final season of this thing doesn’t include a giant laboratory stocked with Evan Peters clones I think we should all feel very disappointed.



But yeah, “Flicker” was pretty wonderful. Let’s talk about it!

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After an awkward but mercifully brief moment in which Will Drake attempted to explain to his young son that he was now sexually attracted to a woman, a group of construction workers began the ill-advised task of battering down a mysterious wall that wasn’t in the blue prints.

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Quite frankly, this was not a great idea on their part. I would expect that within construction worker circles everyone knows not to knock down walls in the Hotel Cortez? They clearly didn’t get that memo.

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Because within seconds they were set upon by a couple of elderly ghouls with a taste for gristle!

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