American Horror Story has had a spectacular season so far with Hotel, and the excitement doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. Let’s take a look at this week’s episode, “Room 33.”
The episode opens with a flashback of The Countess in 1926 visiting THE MURDER HOUSE. Yes, friends, after being teased for a year that all seasons of American Horror Story are connected, we finally see this start to happen as The Countess goes to Dr. Charles Montgomery to get an abortion before her husband finds out. Interestingly, though, the baby survives the abortion and viciously attacks Montgomery’s nurse. For people that have followed this show for more than one year, this flashback is one of the most exciting moments that we’ve ever gotten to see. In the beginning of the series, it was believed that each season would be strictly anthological with no connective tissue, but Ryan Murphy revealed last season (with Lily Rabe’s appearance as Sister Mary Eunice in Freak Show) that each season is, in fact, part of a larger whole. While the appearance last year was big, this flashback is huge for the show’s mythology, and I am absolutely ecstatic to see more of this overall story unfold.
John wakes up in the present, only to find Holden in his bed with him. When his son flees to the pool room, John follows and finds Alex in her coffin-esque bed. Alex puts John to sleep and gets some help covering things up so that her husband won’t be aware of what’s happening. At the same time, Tristan and Liz Taylor discuss their feelings and life after having sex, and Liz does realize that there’s real love between the two. The Countess, meanwhile, is having a sexual encounter of her own with Will Drake, despite the fact that he’s gay. At her beck and call, though, Tristan goes back up to the penthouse to help The Countess out with the act. These three scenes back-to-back show us how full of baggage every single relationship on this show is.
After the events of the flashback, we discover that The Countess’ baby, named Bartholomew, has been kept alive in Room 33 of the Hotel Cortez. We’ve been teased that it was coming, but we finally get Donovan and Ramona making an appearance together at the hotel in “Room 33.” The plan is to kill Elizabeth’s (The Countess) “children” while she is away from the hotel for a little bit, but Ramona (and Iris) find out that the kids aren’t in their pool “sleeping chamber” after Alex’s actions. Ramona knows about Room 33, however, and she forces Iris to give her the key. Ramona heads up to Bartholomew’s room to exact her revenge, but things don’t go entirely as she had hoped. Bartholomew is a great little addition to the show that adds a ton to Elizabeth’s character while providing (to me, at least) an emotional and stylistic callback to Thaddeus from Murder House. The child truly is a horrific creature, and he has already more than earned his spot in the season.
We also get a little more in the case of the Ten Commandments Killer in this episode, and it made me wish that the show would bring a bit more focus to this story. It may just be because I’m such a huge fan of David Fincher’s masterpiece Se7en (the film that inspired the storyline), but I really have enjoyed all that we’ve gotten to see of it so far. There’s room on television for an elaborate and artistic serial killing story, and Hotel is a great place for this one. The death tableus are also great little reminders of the creations we got to see on Hannibal (RIP).
I didn’t mention all of the storylines that were featured in “Room 33” because there were so very many, but I do want to say that the writers did a great job in this one at never making a story feel forced. I won’t say that it wasn’t a little overloaded, but everything that we saw actually felt like it was important to the episode. I don’t quite know where this episode would rank in terms of the season of Hotel as a whole, but it was yet another solid episode in what I believe to be the best season so far of American Horror Story. We’ve still got over half of the season left to go, but I’m more optimistic than ever that this year is really something special. The clichés don’t matter; the tropes don’t matter; the homages don’t matter; all that matters is that we’re getting a great horror entry in one of the most inconsistent series on television, and the audience is the real winner for it.
What did you think of “Room 33?” Are you still enjoying American Horror Story: Hotel? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below!
[Photo credit: Ray Mickshaw/FX]
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