American Horror Story: Coven ‘Sacred Taking’ Recap: ‘Where Are the Servants?’

The plot to assassinate Fiona goes into full swing while Marie Laveau plots her revenge against a newly captured Delphine LaLaurie….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

It was terrible to go an entire week without American Horror Story, but our favorite witches are back in a season that I believe is the best yet for the Ryan Murphy created drama. As we pick up from the last episode, the coven at Miss Robichaux’s are plotting to kill and rid themselves of Fiona the Supreme while Queenie has changed teams and joined up with Marie Laveau by handing over Madame LaLaurie, placing her back into captivity.

Queenie’s Heartless

Even in a coven full of witches, the racism card can still get played and no matter how progressive we believe we are as a society to think that lines don’t still exist based on color is just plain ignorant. Queenie believes she saw the writing on the wall that she wasn’t welcomed at her coven not because she wasn’t witch enough but because she had the wrong color of skin to fit in. Luckily right across town, a voodoo priestess named Marie Laveau was all too welcoming to make Queenie at home in her brood.

As this week’s episode opens, Queenie is out hunting for bad guys and finds out in a rapist posing as a homeless person, and it only takes a few smacks with a wood board to subdue him. See Queenie needs a ‘dark heart’ for one of Marie Laveau’s potions that will grant her additional powers. As Queenie notes, do you think Fiona would ever do that for her?

Zoe and Madison (more Zoe) try to convince Queenie to come back home to their coven, but she’s not having it. Queenie has chosen her side and battle lines are drawn.

“Voodoo, witchcraft — this town ain’t big enough for the both of us. War is coming and you’re going to lose.”

The Suicide Pact

Delia writes off Queenie as a loss — ‘as of now she’s dead to me’ — but they have bigger issues to deal with, mainly offing The Supreme Fiona and crowning a new Supreme for the coven. They are still trying to figure out who that might be when the doorbell rings and in bursts Misty Day, who has returned to the academy after a recently risen Myrtle helps save her life from a gunman in her swamp that was trying to assassinate her (we’re assuming Hank the witch hunter is busy at work).

Misty is seeking asylum at the coven as well as safety for her new friend Myrtle, who looks like an extra in the undead waiting room from Beetlejuice. Myrtle believes that Misty, with all her powers of resurrection, is the next Supreme and they now can get moving on getting rid of the old one.

The plan involves an ancient ritual called the sacred taking where a Supreme commits suicide in a time of need to crown a new leader to help protect the coven. It’s only been used a few times in the history of witchcraft, but the coven is now invoking this powerful magic because Fiona has got to go!

The scheme works like this — Madison and Myrtle (both dead and now resurrected) will haunt Fiona in her most desperate moments as she clings to life while dealing the fall out from her chemotherapy treatments. Madison proclaims that she’s the next Supreme, thus why she’s not dead, and Myrtle passes along the same information. Long story short, they convince Fiona to swallow a bunch of pills and fall asleep, never to wake again.

Spalding Returns

If there’s one thing we’ve learned this season of American Horror Story, or any season really of the show, is that there are many subtle levels of death. In other words, you may die, but you’re not really dead.

Well just like what happened when the Axeman was murdered by the coven almost 100 years ago and his spirit was trapped inside the house, the same has now happened to good old Spalding after Zoe gutted him for his part in the death of Madison. He’s returned in Fiona’s moment of need after she’s taken enough pills to choke a horse (or what Lindsay Lohan calls Friday night). Spalding warns that she’s been played — Madison isn’t the new Supreme, it’s some swamp witch with the power of resurrection at her fingertips.

He convinces her to take a dose of Ipecac and after the vomiting ensues, Fiona comes to her senses and realizes that she’s not ready to go just yet. The Supreme is back folks and she’s pissed.

Mother of the Year

The religious nuts from next door are back this week with Patti LuPone’s character first caring for her son Luke following the ordeal at Halloween where he was nearly sliced and diced by a group of the undead sent by Marie Laveau to rain havoc down upon the coven of witches.

She’s not happy that her son has dirtied himself dealing with this witch bitches and so she cleans him up, but he’s not really clean until they go from the inside out. So she mixes some water with Ajax and creates a hi-colonic for her son to make sure he’s good and scrubbed (ewww by the way).

Later in the episode as Nan feels Luke’s pain dealing with his mother and her own frustration due to the fact that she’s the only one no one is pinning as a potential next Supreme, she flees next door to check on him. He’s currently locked away in a closet paying penance for his dirty ways, and as Nan tries to help him escape, his mother finds them both making their way out of the house.

Before Nan can do much of anything, shots are fired — mother gets shot a few times, and Luke and Nan run for their lives. The gunfire is coming courtesy of Hank, who is sitting outside in a car stalking the coven, and he’s apparently the worst shot ever because he doesn’t hit his intended target at all but manages to take out pretty much everything else around her.

After the shooting takes place a couple of key moments go down — first, Delia discovers a blessed silver bullet outside the house where the shooting took place which means there are witch hunters coming for the coven. Second, Misty Day shows up and meets Fiona face to face for the first time as the current Supreme challenges her successor to save the life of religious mother of the year. The only problem is as her powers of resurgence work and Patti LuPone’s crazy bible thumper awakens, Misty passes out cold on the floor.

Is Misty the next Supreme or was this some kind of plan hatched by Fiona. My guess is she’s not the Supreme but hopefully she returns because Lilly Rabe (along with Emma Roberts) has been one of the best parts of the entire season.

The Chopping Block

As we last left Madame Delphine LaLaurie, she was caged under the watchful eye of Marie Laveau after Queenie decided to turn her over as proof she was done with the coven and joining Team Voodoo. Delphine pleads with Queenie to let her go, but instead of freedom she does get a double burger with cheese (which isn’t quite the same thing but delicious nonetheless).

Marie Laveau shows up and rains on the parade and quickly dispatches of Queenie for ‘feeding the animals’. With Queenie out of the way, the real Delphine LaLaurie shows up for the first time in weeks as she taunts the voodoo queen, saying she’s not afraid of her and knows that no matter what happens she can’t die anyways.

“Whatcha gonna do kill me? I can’t die”

“The mistake you make is from a lack of imagination.”

A second later, Marie lops off one of Delphine’s hands and tosses it to the ground before saying ‘you know what, that gave me no satisfaction but we’ve only just begun’.

Delphine in a Box

Back at the academy, Delia is preparing for the revenge that her mother is surely plotting after they attempted to take her life to crown a new Supreme. As it turns out, Fiona’s not angry at all — she’s proud of her daughter for finally stepping up to the plate and acting like a witch with some real power.

“Hell, if I knew how easy it was to gain your approval I would have made an attempt on your life way before now,” Delia says to her mother.

Once Fiona finds out about the witch hunters stalking New Orleans, she knows that her job as Supreme is far from over and even Delia is happy to have her around in this time of need. A few seconds later the doorbell rings and a box is waiting on the step for the witches inside the academy. Fiona checks it over to make sure it’s not a trap, and then she brings it inside to open it up.

No, it’s not Gwyneth Paltrow’s head — it’s actually Delphine’s head, severed from the body, eyes open and still alive. Delphine can’t die but she can surely be tortured and that’s exactly what Marie Laveau has done. War is coming my friends and it’s time to choose sides.

Best line of the week

There are always a few dozen on this show but my personal favorite this week or the variation that we heard a ton of times….

“Where are the servants?”

Made me laugh considering Spalding is dead, Delphine is missing (and now headless) and no one even noticed until the doorbell started ringing and no one answered.