American Horror Story S03E02: "Boy Parts"

Happiness is the worst. Of all the dirty tricks our brains ever played on us, by far the dirtiest was allowing us experience happiness a few times back in the '80s and then never again since. Where did you go, happiness? Will you ever be back? Did we DREAM you in the first place? Guys, up until recently I was convinced that happiness was a stone-cold hoax. You know? Like anything good that happens isn't really happening, it's just a glowing orb that you try to grab until you float directly into the open mouth of one of those chomper fishes. Quite frankly I am VERY tired of chomper fishes at this point. But then. BUT THEN. Happiness returned. It returned under the cover of darkness, it snuck into my home undetected and jumped out at me while I was walking past a fern. Did the same thing happen to you? Did happiness return to your warm embrace as it did mine? If not, here is where to find happiness: The FX Channel around 10pm on Wednesdays. That is where happiness lives now. Because American Horror Story: Coven makes me SO HAPPY.

There are a handful of good TV shows on the air in 2013 and I get to recap most of them, but I don't know if I have been so thrilled and enthusiastic about an hour of television than I was for this new episode of AHS. "Boy Parts" was merely a set-up episode for what should be an intensely insane season of television, but the concepts and visuals and punchlines were so strong and weird and unexpected and satisfying that I not only remembered what it felt like to laugh out loud (LOL) again, but I did it SEVERAL times even. This episode made me so happy I had a pep in my step immediately afterward. For instance I finished all my chores, I repainted the kitchen (with almost no huffing breaks), I visited my wife at her jail. Heck, I even decided to finally get my kids out of the system! This show just puts me in a GREAT mood, basically. Maybe all it takes to feel happy is to experience a weekly hour of mutilation, rape, murder, questionable racial imagery, and Stevie Nicks songs? Man, I wish somebody had told me this sooner.

Anyway, I am not joking, I love "Boy Parts." Let's talk about it.

We began, as most things do, in the swamp. Just a friendly alligator enjoying a lovely swim, thinking about all the nice-- KABLAM!

A couple of yokels were out shooting tons of alligators, but when they returned to camp, a witchy woman was eyeballin' their kills while "Edge of Seventeen" played on the soundtrack. It was none other than Misty Day! (LOL forever at that name). Very much not dead, and very much giving off a Tusk-era, coked out, Fleetwood Mac vibe. And she was NOT happy about all of the dead dinos she was seeing.

That's right, Misty Day (LOL) suddenly made a bunch of dead alligators come back to life and eat the hunters UP. One of them just sort of bit a dude's head and dragged him back into the swamp. Personally if I had a dollar for every time that happened to me, I'd have six dollars.

Meanwhile at the White Witch Academy (the academy is white, not necessarily the witches), Cordelia was hassling everybody to start their days and Madison opened her bedroom door wearing only her unmentionables and looking about twelve centimeters tall. Look at how tiny she looks up in that picture! Part of me is now nervous that Madison scurries around stealing buttons and corks in the middle of the night and taking them back to a mousehole where the rest of her family lives.

Meanwhile a very disgusting smell had been wafting out of Fiona's bedroom.

And yes, we made jokes about it last week, but it turns out we were 100% right: Madame LaLaurie smelled TERRIBLE and everyone commented on it in this episode. This show just gets me. But anyway, Fiona covered for the smell claiming it was just some Chinese medicine she'd bought, which was a good save and not at all racist. This show.

I liked this part when Fiona temporarily ungagged Madame LaLaurie and told her not to scream at which point Madame LaLaurie immediately screamed.

Haha what a lady. To be fair, she was also nearly frightened to death by a ringing cell phone, but that makes sense considering she now had 180 years of culture and technology to get used to. Also the cell phone was probably a Sprint phone, which would chill anybody to their bones.

Oh, and in case you were nervous about whether Queenie's backstory was politically incorrect somehow...

Hahaha oh man. To be fair, Precious was an OSCAR-WINNING film that included a scene wherein Gabourey Sidibe stole a bucket of fried chicken and ran down the street, so by comparison this scene was thoughtful and nuanced? Anyway, this was Queenie's breakout moment of human voodoo doll-dom: A man insulted her so she stuck her hand in the deep fryer.

Classic Queenie! Guys, I already love Queenie with all of my heart.

Unfortunately Zoe and Madison weren't having the best day, as a pair of detectives showed up asking questions about the overturned party bus. Apparently in this universe, suspicious deaths are actually investigated, which is not something I'm used to from the other TV shows I watch.

Even though Madison felt very confident nothing could be pinned on her, the detectives pointed out that the girls had both had interactions with the boys, plus Zoe was spotted at the hospital before the one dude died, and oh yeah, he'd died in the same way Zoe's ex-boyfriend had. Man, all this actual detective work was blowing my mind! And it apparently blew part of Zoe's mind also, as she immediately had a meltdown.

Poor Zoe. She may have intentionally murdered a man via her genitals only a few days prior, but that didn't mean she didn't feel guilty about it!

But as you might imagine, Zoe and Madison were not arrested for murder in the second episode of this season. Nope, fortunately Fiona barged in and told the girls to scram before forcing the detectives to drink from glasses she'd spit in.

There was this really weird and intense moment where one of the detectives tried to struggle against Fiona's mind-attack but then his nose started bleeding and she bragged about how she wasn't even trying very hard. Also, this whole business of spitting in someone's drink and then becoming the boss of them was really fun. It's like a witch's version of a vampire's glamoring/compulsion. Very handy! Also, totally disgusting. Everybody's going to get mono now.

After she'd washed the brains of the police detectives, Fiona ran in and threw everyone around the room and shouted at everybody about being so lame.

This scene was so well-written and riveting, seriously. Her point was that witches stick together and in doing so they will always defeat humans, because witches are superior. And then she growled at Zoe that the only person she'll ever have to be afraid of was HER. Uh-oh, foreshadowing?

So then some major stuff went down at the morgue. Even though Zoe and Madison spent the morning mad at each other, Madison saw it in her heart to be grateful to Zoe for having used her accursed crotchal area to vanquish Madison's enemies. In exchange for that, Madison had a plan to use forbidden magic to resurrect Evan Peters (whose character probably has a name but it's a secret). Only problem was, the party bus had not only been transporting a fleet of frat rapists, but also several dozen spinning buzzsaws because now everybody was in pieces!

Next thing we knew, Madison was choosing all the best body parts for the new version of Evan Peters. It was like Build-A-Bear but with troubled hunks.

But to paraphrase that classic Wendy's commercial, "WHERE'S THE DICK?" Haha sorry for being crass, but no seriously, where was the dick? I would not put it past these ladies to forget about that one.

So obviously the spell part of the resurrection was a nightmare and involved fog machines and screaming and slicing the palms of their hands and drawing pentagrams in blood on Evan Peters' torso and also possibly "marrying the devil" and then it didn't even work!

At least not right away.

Because after a quiet, one-on-one parting kiss, Zoe was interrupted by some dude who had had the audacity to WORK there (it was the middle of the day).



But then guess what? Evan Peters woke up and started WHALING on this dude.

It was sort of a scary, pathetic, grunt-filled attack, but it was effective. He hadn't been alive longer than six seconds, but Hunky Frankenstein had already claimed his first victim!

Then Madame LaLaurie was finally ready to tell Fiona how she'd become immortal, and it involved Marie Laveau obviously.

Oh, and it turned out Laveau had not only imprisoned LaLaurie in a coffin for 180 years, she'd also murdered her entire family!

So, you know. Recipe for a blood feud.

Then Fiona ate fried chicken right in Madame LaLaurie's face, but Madame LaLaurie wasn't hungry. It was a very poignant moment, maybe the MOST poignant moment.

Um, that rumbling sound you're hearing was the unmistakable noise of royalty squaring off. A ROYAL RUMBLE. That's right, Marie Laveau was STILL ALIVE in modern times and running a salon, so Fiona showed up and they had a SASS-BATTLE. First of all, HOW HOT was modern day Marie Laveau? SO HOT. But also, in my opinion Fiona was extremely mean to her considering she needed Marie Laveau's assistance in becoming immortal, and also Marie Laveau was holding curling irons and scissors very close to Fiona's head. Also, this happened:

Then there was Fiona's parting shot which was nothing short of devastating: "Maybe in another hundred years you can own TWO shit-hole salons." Holy moly I was cackling. We are truly in a golden age of television, ladies and gentlemen. It should probably go without saying that these two probably won't be friends anytime soon.

Meanwhile back at the White Witch Academy, Nan was trying to sit under some creepy paintings and read a book but a certain immortal asshole was thinking too loudly.

Which meant that Nan immediately untied her and told her to scram. Classic Nan!

Oh, but then Queenie made a hurtful comment about Madame LaLaurie's body odor, so Madame LaLaurie called her a slave and then knocked her out with a candle stick. I don't know if you guys agree with me or not, but this school doesn't seem like a very normal place so far.

So the main thing Cordelia was up to in this episode was she was trying to get so pregnant. Unfortunately her womb was being a dick and modern science is a joke, so her husband (boyfriend? Drifter she'd just picked up?) casually suggested she resort to witchcraft.

Which, DUH. This is American Horror Story. Unholy abomination babies are sort of its thing. So then a truly gross sex scene happened.

It involved a flaming circle and weird blue eggs that HATCHED and erupted with tons of snakes, which crawled all over them (and IN them), which is basically my nightmare of nightmares. Also they cut each other up, drank each other's blood and then made sweet, disgusting love on a yoga mat or whatever. But then when it was over, wasn't it SO awkward?

Oh man. What was even happening here? Ugh, no child is worth this. I still cannot believe those snakes, I want to scrub them from my memory with a toilet brush.

Because Madison had driven away with the car, Zoe and FrankenPeters stole the morgue employee's car and drove home. Except FrankenPeters wasn't doing so hot, he was just sort of bashing his head against the window and grunting in agony, which is something I do whenever Katy Perry comes on the radio.

And then even more terrifyingly, look who'd been stowing away in the back seat!

Oh, Misty Day (LOL). She claimed she'd been summoned to the scene, probably because resurrection was her thing and just wanted to be included. Fair enough!

So then suddenly we were all hanging out at Misty Day's (LOL) house out at the swamp where she was rubbing mud and excrement into FrankenPeters' wounds while Fleetwood Mac played. Then there was this whole weird scene where Misty Day (LOL) forced Zoe to listen to Fleetwood Mac lyrics all intensely.

Haha this show is truly a baffling treat. Zoe was definitely in over her head and got out of there. But she left FrankenPeters behind, which was very cool with Misty Day (LOL). Honestly, sewing together a dead dude and then giving him the gift of life is a lot for a teenage girl to handle in a 24-hour period.

Oh, so witches and bisected frat guys weren't the only ones with surprisingly long lifespans. That minotaur dude was still alive also! In this case Marie Laveau unshackled him from his closet, caressed his ripped torso and then sent him off on a mission. As a viewer I have no idea what's going on here or what to expect at all and it feels GREAT.

Meanwhile the suddenly emancipated Madame LaLaurie hadn't gotten very far. I guess discovering that her home had been converted into a museum really took the wind out of her sails. I remember it really upset me when MY childhood home was converted into a museum. Haha just kidding, my childhood home imploded and sank into the unmarked Indian burial ground over which it was built and I did NOT care. This was a bad example.

But it WAS very fun when these two ladies just sat there all world-weary, sorta bonding about the futility of life. Fiona did tell her that she had been a bad person and deserved to be buried alive. But Madame LaLaurie wanted to make it clear that she was still pretty bummed that her family had been murdered, including even her ugly daughter. Very touching stuff.

I really like that LaLaurie technically isn't a witch, so she's completely subservient to Fiona. As far as we know, LaLaurie's primary value at this point is just being a bargaining chip in order to get Laveau's immortality potion, but I have a feeling these two might just start having a classic, zany, Perfect Strangers-esque relationship in the near future, don't you?

Personally I would LOVE to have a friend from 180 years ago. I would show him or her all the best things modern society has to offer, especially gas station candy and P.T. Cruisers and also horror themed TV shows on the FX channel. The future is truly the best.

Boy do I love this show. Just a nonstop delivery system of joy directly into my heart. All these women! All these concepts! Such good dialogue! I can't believe how much back story and exposition this show effortlessly doles out while still seeming fast, fresh and fun. And it's all so gorgeous and disgusting. I needed this. WE needed this. We are so blessed.

BYE





QUESTIONS:

... Is being buried alive for 180 years worth it, if only to experience Dorito-flavored tacos?

... Do you think there will be unforeseen consequences to resurrecting dead guys and/or using dark magic to get pregnant? Be honest.

... Has an alligator ever chomped onto your head and dragged you into a swamp?

... What is your favorite Stevie Nicks song and/or hex?