In the ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ recap, the history shared between Michael Langdon and the coven of witches is finally revealed…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It’s been a slow start on ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ this season but business has picked up in a big way through the last two episodes.
In the closing moments of last week’s offering, the long awaited return of the witches from ‘American Horror Story: Coven’ finally happened when Cordelia Goode, Myrtle Snow and Madison Montgomery came marching into Outpost 3 to resurrect three of their fallen sisters, who had just died after being poisoned by some venomous apples.
The new episode showcased a brief standoff between the witches and their counterpart Michael Langdon, who is actually the Anti-Christ and then we got a flashback to see how this entire feud began.
It was by far the best episode of the season, not only because the time travel allowed us to return to the Miss Robichaux’s — the famous New Orleans’ haunt where season 3 took place — but also because we started to learn more about Michael Langdon’s past and how he came to power in the first place.
The episode still left plenty of unanswered questions as well, which means we’re likely going to go back there again next week as this battle between good and evil continues to unravel as the season moves forward.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ titled ‘Could It Be…Satan?’…
Fire and Ice
The witches arrival at Outpost 3 was marked by the resurrection of three of their sisters — Mallory, Coco and Dinah — as they continue to do whatever it takes to save the world.
It seems Mallory and Coco were given some kind of identity spell so they wouldn’t remember who they were to protect them from Langdon while Dinah is a practitioner of voodoo (perhaps kin to Marie Leveau) but she’s not interested in fighting — she’s there as an observer only and staying neutral is what she does best.
The sudden jolt back to life has all of the women a little out of sorts but they don’t get much time to recover before Langdon arrives with his robot Mead by his side. The tense standoff has Langdon proclaiming his victory after the world was snuffed out by a series of nuclear bombs while Cordelia promises that the fight is far from finished.
Myrtle can only scoff while adding that she thought the world would end due to fire and ice, not witches and warlocks. And that’s where our flashback begins…
The Alpha and the Supreme
When we find Michael Langdon growing up as a teenager, he’s been cared for by the human version of Ms. Mead, who is also a devout Satan worshipper and a three-time husband killer that collected on a lot of insurance money. She’s raising Langdon, which means we still don’t know exactly what happened to his grandmother Constance (although Jessica Lange is scheduled to return in episode 6).
Ms. Mead is a caring dark lord looking after her foster son three years prior to the bombs dropping on Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, we also meet a coven of warlocks — led by some familiar faces including Cheyenne Jackson, BD Wong and Billy Porter — and they are leading the equivalent of Ms. Robichaux’s academy except their version is the Hawthorne School for Exceptional Boys. The school just happens to be Outpost 3 before the nuclear fallout.
Sadly it seems the warlocks aren’t nearly as powerful as their female counterparts because it takes an entire roomful of students to form a pile of shattered glass into a sphere.
The teachers are called into a meeting with the chancellor of the school — a man named Ariel and he’s returned because there’s been an important discovery.
The group watches footage from a police station surveillance camera that shows a younger Michael Langdon being questioned about a murder before the officer questioning him decides to dish out a little physical abuse. In response, Langdon snaps every bone in his body without ever touching him.
Ariel is convinced that Langdon could be a prophecized figure known as ‘The Alpha’ — a male warlock powerful enough to ascend to the position of Supreme.
That’s when Ariel visits Langdon in jail — where we find out that the murder he committed was in defense of his foster mom Ms. Mead, who just wanted a severed goat’s head from the local butcher so she could perform a ritual. Ariel explains how Langdon might just be a powerful warlock and they’d like to teach him at their special school.
Langdon agrees to come but on his way out, he ends up killing another police officer, which seems to show that he’s well aware of the power he possesses and perhaps this was all a clever ruse to get into the warlock’s good graces.
Either way as Langdon hops in the car, Ms. Mead can be seen watching from afar, which only further leads to speculation that this was all in her planning for Satan’s son.
Back at the school, Langdon shows off all sorts of powers before the leadership group of warlocks decide to put him through a few tests to see if he might be worthy of engaging in the ‘Seven Wonders’ that are used to determine the Supreme. Langdon passes with flying colors and that’s all Ariel needs to see to call Ms. Robichaux’s and ask for the coven to join them for a special meeting.
Back at Ms. Robichaux’s, Zoe has become one of the school’s teachers and we see her quite impressed by one of the newer students — Mallory. She’s able to transform the colors of a rose but she takes it one step further by transmutating the petals into butterflies before then turning them back to petals again. Cordelia is very impressed but she is soon called away when Myrtle arrives with a message from Hawthorne’s requesting their presence.
Cordelia, Myrtle and Zoe arrive and Ariel finally tells them the news — they’ve found a warlock who could be powerful enough to become the Supreme.
Of course the witches scoff at the suggestion considering there’s never been a male Supreme thanks to men just not being a strong conduit to magic not to mention testosterone acting as an inhibitor that prevents them from reaching their full potential of powers.
Still, Ariel wants them to put Langdon through the trials but Cordelia refuses, especially after she lost one of her own witches (Misty Day) by putting her through the ‘Seven Wonders’ when she wasn’t ready. Ariel then wonders why Cordelia didn’t bring up another of her witches that she abandoned as well.
At that moment, this crossover between seasons grew even larger as we traveled back to ‘American Horror Story: Hotel’ to reunite with Queenie — the witch who had gone to the Hotel Cortez back in season 5 before she was murdered during her visit. Since that time, Queenie has been trapped there, unable to leave, locked in an eternal game of gin rummy with Mr. March.
Cordelia explains how she went to the Hotel Cortez to retrieve Queenie but that place was considered a ‘hellmouth’ — a truly vile and evil place where even her powers weren’t enough to help a witch crossover from death back into life.
The reminder of one of her greatest failures only serves to irritate Cordelia even more and she finally calls for the meeting to end and refuses to administer the Seven Wonders to Langdon as requested.
If Cordelia won’t put him through the test, Langdon decides to take matters into his own hands by doing what the Supreme couldn’t.
He travels to Los Angeles, walks into the Hotel Cortez and removes Queenie from her eternal hell. Even Mr. March is quick to realize the power he’s going up against when Langdon arrives.
Then Langdon makes one more stop — to retrieve Madison Montgomery, who has been toiling away in retail hell where she’s been trapped ever since failing to compete the Seven Wonders. Remember when you undergo those tests to become Supreme, one failure traps you into your own personal hell for eternity.
Madison is ready to blow her way out of there but Langdon is happy to just help her escape.
Finally, Langdon arrives back at his warlock school with Queenie and Madison by his side and when the witches get a glimpse of what he’s just done, they are all shocked beyond words. In fact, Cordelia collapses after seeing two of her former students alive and well and being escorted back by Langdon.
By all accounts, Langdon was never a warlock but rather he is the Antichrist and the living embodiment of evil, which would explain how his powers trump the Supreme. Still, Cordelia promises she’s not giving up without a fight and it looks like this battle is about to go nuclear (again).
‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ returns next Wednesday night at 10 p.m. ET with a brand new episode on FX…
