Warning: This recap of the “Mid‐Western Assassin” episode of American Horror Story: Cult contains spoilers.

American Horror Story is a landmark, audacious series, and even a not-great season is more worthwhile than a majority of the other three million shows currently airing. Yet this is the first year where nothing it could possibly show us will be scarier than real life. It’s truly saying something that this week’s toned-down-at-the-last-minute cold open — which involved an active shooter — came off downright quaint compared to, you know, America’s most recent IRL bloodbath. (Which, depending on when you read this, could be a whole new one by now.)

Horror has traditionally reflected the anxieties of the times, but when all of our worst anxieties continually play out in real time every damn day, do we even need a show like this? The question isn’t even very thought-provoking, because at this point we’re all pretty much beyond provocation, especially when it comes to entertainment. Either help us escape, work through our issues, or GTFO, basically. AHS Cult is like, “Everything sucks now” and leaves it at that. Thanks? Anyway, let’s talk about this week’s episode of American Horror Story: Cult, charmingly titled “Mid-Western Assassin”!

We began with a mass shooting.

Presumably the last-minute re-edit removed exploding squibs and whatnot, so for the most part we gauged the atrocity via Ivy’s shocked expressions. And just when she seemed to be getting her bearings, guess who was holding the literal smoking gun?

It was Sarah Paulson! Had she shot up a political rally? And if so, why? Oh, maybe THIS was why:

KAI DOWN. Repeat: KAI DOWN.

As it happened, that was a flash-forward, so we swept back to the scene in last week’s episode when a frantic Mary Cherry alerted Sarah Paulson to the existence of the killer clown cult (whose membership also included her estranged wife). After Sarah Paulson fielded a phone call from her concerned therapist, she did what any rational person would do: She grabbed a knife and shimmied into the neighbors’ back window to rescue Mary Cherry!

Story continues