In the ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ recap, Michael Langdon searches for answers and help in the aftermath of his co-conspirators being burned at the stake…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The last few weeks of ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ have been filled with plenty of nostalgia and honestly some of the best storytelling this show has done in several seasons.
So it’s understandable that the speeding train would eventually go off the rails ever so slightly and that’s what resulted with the latest episode titled ‘Sojourn’.
It wasn’t a bad episode by any means — it was just a rather unnecessary hour spent with a very emo Michael Langdon. There were a few interesting connections discovered, including the first appearance of Wilhemena Venable but overall the episode didn’t really offer too much context to Langdon’s grand plan outside of showing how his favorite person Ms. Miriam Mead came back to life in robotic form.
The hour was severely lacking in witches or murder houses, which really fueled the past few episodes so maybe this was just the way to cool things off before the big finale.
With only two more episodes left to go this season, the ultimate showdown between the coven and the Antichrist is coming but first we have to find out how Michael Langdon got his mojo back.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ titled ‘Sojourn’…
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend
Michael Langdon returns from his sabbatical to find all of his co-conspirators burned alive at the stake after the witches exposed them for trying to put the Antichrist into power while bringing about the apocalypse.
Langdon is stunned to see the warlocks dead but he’s particularly crushed when he discovers that his caretaker Ms. Mead has also been turned into kindling thanks to the coven that he’s been trying to destroy.
Overwhelmed by the enormity of his cohorts being killed, Langdon is greeted by Cordelia Goode, who tells him that the coven has uncovered his secrets and they will not allow the Antichrist to rise up to power and then bring down the world around them.
In a Luke-Anikin Skywalker moment, Cordelia offers to bring Langdon back from the side of evil and attempts to get him to embrace his humanity but he quickly spurns her offer and promises to kill all of the witches for what they’ve done to him.
Cordelia then mocks Langdon about his faith in his father because even Satan couldn’t stop the witches from burning his friends alive and thanks to her power as the Supreme, she’s even managed to lock Ms. Mead’s soul away in a special pocket of hell where even the Antichrist could rescue her from damnation.
Langdon is despondent and alone with nowhere to turn and a father who isn’t returning his calls.
He ends up in the middle of a forest where he draws a pentagram and proclaims that he will wait there without food or sleep until his father finally arrives to show him what to do next. Four days pass and Langdon ends up hallucinating all sorts of madness until a goat finally arrives and he decides to stab it to death, rip off its horns and then watch as snakes come slithering out of its head.
Was this a sign from Satan?
Who knows but it’s enough to send Langdon away from that circle and back into the city where he finds a Church of Satan to help him on the next stage of his journey.
Inside, Langdon watches as the dark priestess (played by Sandra Bernhard) complains to her congregation that they aren’t evil enough to truly please the devil. While some of them are boasting about stealing $100 from work, the priestess is robbing nursing homes and then donating all the money to the NRA — you know, truly evil deeds.
It’s there when Langdon runs into a woman named Madeline, who is willing to offer him a warm meal and a place to stay as he looks rather haggard after all that time in the woods.
Madeline then tells him all about the ways she’s benefitted from selling her soul to Satan including weekly romps in the sack with Brad Pitt and Ryan Reynolds. From the look on his face, Langdon can’t quite tell if this woman is for real or living in her own reality.
Either way, he makes a true believer out of her when he finally reveals his mark of the beast on the back of his ear and she can’t wait to introduce the Antichrist to her Satanic congregation.
Instruction Book for the Apocalypse
Arriving during a Black Mass at the Satanic church, Madeline is all too pleased to introduced Langdon to the evil priestess and the rest of the congregation, who all bow to the mighty Antichrist when he is revealed.
Langdon ends up partaking in the ceremony by slitting the throats of two people brought in for the human sacrifice and then he’s whisked away to a pot luck dinner where everybody plies him with food while asking questions about the coming apocalypse.
Unfortunately, Langdon came here looking for answers and clearly has none of his own so despite munching away on some delicious turkey meatballs, his father hasn’t suddenly made an appearance to hand him the road map on starting the apocalypse.
Langdon may have found a new group of followers — with a lot less power than the people he was working with previously — but at least he has worshippers willing to do whatever he needs.
Still, Langdon is no closer to understanding his mission so Madeline decides to take him on a road trip to Northern California where she introduces him to the hierarchy of the Church of Satan.
It’s there where Madeline is certain that Langdon will find his answers and then the Antichrist can bring about the end of the world like it’s already been foretold. All Madeline wants in return is for Langdon to put a good word in with his dad for her because she wants to sizzle and burn in the lowest pit of hell for eternity right by Satan’s side.
Making a Murderer
Inside the Satanic compound we meet a pair of bowl cut tech geniuses (played by Evan Peters and Billy Eichner) who build anamatronic sex robots and snort way too much cocaine. It’s there where we also meet Wilhemena Venable for the first time, all decked out in pastel purple and answering the phones at the house of Satan while delivering ‘Scarface’ levels of coke to her bosses whenever they demand.
That’s when Ms. Venable also tells them about a visitor who is there to pay them a visit. They ask for the special guest to be sent up through the back elevator so this explains why Ms. Venable didn’t know Langdon when he showed up at Outpost 3 earlier this season because she never actually met him when he arrived at the Satan compound.
His arrival is met with less than enthusiasm from the bobsy twins as they were expecting a much scarier son of Satan than the one that walks into the room. They were hoping for a more bulked up version played by ‘The Rock’ and considering how many movies that guy is doing these days, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he suddenly shows up in the season finale playing a much more buff Antichrist.
Anyways, Langdon shows off his power by roasting the resident prostitute that’s part of the staff and immediately after watching her burn to ash, the tech twins bow down to their new dark overlord.
They offer to do Langdon’s bidding — whatever he desires — and that’s when he asks for the former Elon Musk employees to build him a new Ms. Mead to replace the one the witches burned alive.
The work gets done and the tech geniuses end up making an even better version with Ms. Mead 2.0 complete with assassin skills to go along with her adoration for Michael Langdon. They warn him that she has been programmed with all of his memories about her but it may take her some time to acclimate to this new situation and under no circumstances is he to ever mention to her that she’s a robot.
Ms. Mead opens her eyes, sits up and immediately turns to Langdon and greets him with a smile as she recognizes the apple of her eye in a split second. That’s how the episode ends so we don’t know exactly why Langdon ends up reprogramming her to team up with Ms. Venable before he finally reveals himself to her again but we have to assume that will be explained next week.
With only two episodes to go this season, the final showdown between the Antichrist and the witches is looming so don’t miss an all new episode of ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’ when the show returns next Wednesday night at 10 p.m. ET on FX.
