In the ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ recap, Ally’s worst fears start to come true and the new neighbors next door aren’t helping matters much…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
This season of ‘American Horror Story’ is the first in the entire series where creator Ryan Murphy has promised there is no supernatural element involved.
Perhaps that’s what’s made these first two episodes so terrifying because you know that everything that’s happening is what is really unfolding to our two lead characters Ally and Ivy along with their son Ozzy.
This week’s episode saw Ally’s paranoia grow to new heights after she discovered a murdered employee hanging in her meat locker at work and a pair of new neighbors who only live to prey on her worst fear induced instincts.
If these first two weeks are any indication, ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ will primarily focus on poor Ally’s degrading mental state as she continues to find something terrifying around every corner.
Maybe there’s someone there, maybe not but it’s all real in Ally’s mind and that’s all that matters. In fact a looming threat this week along with some well timed panic about a potential terror attack leaves Ally with a gun in her hand and a man being shot on her front porch.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ titled ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’…
Wake Up
The action gets started quickly this week as Ally wakes up in bed, rolls over and she’s immediately confronted with a clown staring back at her. Of course, Ally panics and freaks the fuck out before running downstairs to find her wife Ivy.
Rather than telling her wife that she’s having a manic episode, Ivy has the correct reaction — especially considering their neighbor were just murdered — and she grabs a knife and begins to stalk around the house looking for any potential intruders. Ivy’s very careful to look around every corner, but she doesn’t find any clowns looming in the house.
Meanwhile, their son Ozzy is dealing with his own waking nightmare after he is confronted by Twisty the Clown and another three-headed jester chasing him around the room. Ozzy eventually makes his way into the bathroom to hide, but that’s no safe place either when Twisty busts through the door to come after him.
A moment later, Ozzy’s screams are heard from the other room as Ally and Ivy rush over to find him in bed. Ozzy has been suffering from another of his night terrors and they wake him up as the family has less than a peaceful night at home together.
It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Kai Anderson’s plan to instigate a beat down from some Hispanic workers after throwing a condom filled with urine at them worked to perfection thanks to some local townspeople recording it — conveniently leaving out the part where he taunted them into coming after him.
Following the incident, Kai decides to fight back by running for the city council seat that was vacated by the recently murdered Mr. Chang. Kai’s platform will probably sound familiar as he promises to keep everybody safe in their homes and eliminate the true threats on our streets like the Mexican thieves and rapists who are pouring into the country at an alarming rate.
Oh and the two good Samaritans who recorded the video — Harrison and Meadow Wilton — also happen to be the couple who have taken the Changs’ house just days after they were murdered inside.
Ally gets a first look at them after she notices the couple moving into the house with several barrels being carted into the garage while Harrison is walking around in a Hazmat suit. Her curiosity leads her next door, but Ally gets spooked when Harrison finds her peaking through a window and she quickly flees back across the street.
Later that same day, Winter has arrived for her nanny duties when she finds out that Ozzy is quite upset with her. It seems he’s not happy that she didn’t back up his story about seeing the evil clowns murdering the Chang’s and instead insinuated that he made the whole thing up. Winter counters by telling him that his mothers just don’t believe what he saw was real and that’s the difference.
“People are going to believe what they’re going to believe; the trick is figuring out what they want to believe, and then giving it to them.”
~ Winter
Wise words from Winter, who also passes along a Twisty the Clown doll to the little boy before locking him up in a pinky swear, similar to the one she does with her brother, where they can’t lie to each other. Winter gets Ozzy to admit that he’s terrified of the house next door now but she’ll take his fear for him and it will make them both stronger.
At work, Ally and Ivy are trying to get things back to normal at the restaurant but a dispute between two co-workers nearly turns violent. Roger, the head chef in charge when Ivy’s not around, gets into a heated argument with another service cook named Pedro. They get broken up but it’s clear tensions are running high.
When Ally and Ivy return home, they don’t find Winter or Ozzy inside — side note, their son’s full name is Ozymandias, which is amazing if you’ve ever read “Watchmen”. Instead, Ally and Ivy find Ozzy next door checking out some bees with their new neighbors the Wiltons.
While the sight of honeycomb — all those holes — freaks Ally right out, she soon discovers that Harrison and Meadow are two of the most forthcoming people they’ll ever meet. It turns out, Harrison is gay and Meadow is a skin cancer survivor who doesn’t stay out in the sun for more than 10 minutes at a time. They two of them got married because they were best friends in high school and vowed if neither of them found a significant other by 35, they’d get hitched.
Now they have taken over the Chang’s house — they claim the home was being rented and the owners practically gave it away — and they have moved in lock stock and barrel. The Wiltons also happen to be the presidents of the Michigan chapter of the Nicole Kidman club so there’s that as well.
On the way back home, Ally can’t help but notice that the house still features the horrible clown imagery left behind by the killers and bloodstains on the floor that don’t seem to bother the Wiltons at all.
It’s safe to say these won’t be the most normal neighbors you’ll ever encounter.
Something to Believe In
Later that night as Ally and Ivy are about to go to bed, Ozzy knocks on their door and asks to sleep with them. He’s afraid to go to bed by himself — for obvious reasons — and his moms are more than happy to share the space with him. Unfortunately a moment later, Ivy gets a notification that the alarm has been triggered at the restaurant and she needs to check it out.
Why no one calls the police at this point, I’ll never know.
Regardless, Ally volunteers to check it out because Ozzy is already panicked and her constant paranoia probably isn’t helping matters much. When Ally arrives at the restaurant, she doesn’t find much out of the ordinary until she steps into the meat locker and finds Roger hung up by one of the hooks about to expire. She attempts to help him but Roger just bleeds out all over her.
The police are more than happy to pin the crime on Pedro, who was arguing with Roger earlier in the day. More than anything, Ally’s worst fears are being realized after finding a dead body in her meat locker so she begins turning her house into a fortress.
She has bars installed on all the windows and security doors installed throughout every entrance in the house. Ally even visits the Wilton’s and discovers that after Obama was elected, Harrison became a bit of a gun nut out of fear that the 2nd Amendment was about to be repealed. Harrison allows Ally to borrow one of his guns because that’s truly the only way she’ll feel safe at home now.
A week has passed since finding the murdered body and Ally’s not getting any better so Ivy springs a surprise session with Dr. Vincent on her at their home. Unfortunately by this time, Ally has already let her worst instincts get the best of her. She believes there’s a boogeyman waiting around every corner to leap out at her and the only way she can protect her family is by shooting all of them dead. At one point, Ally even snaps at Dr. Vincent and calls him a knee-jerk liberal.
She also taunts him with her new handgun because Ally knows she can’t tell Ivy about it due to doctor-patient confidentiality. Despite the fact that Ally is becoming unhinged, Dr. Vincent seems like his hands are tied to do much of anything besides offer his advice.
Following his exit and Ivy going off to the restaurant to get a new delivery of meat now that the locker has been cleaned out from being a murder scene, Ally hears a knock at the front door. She answers with a knife in her hand and that’s when she comes face to face with Kai Anderson.
Kai is running for city council and he hopes to get her vote.
Of course, Kai “apologizes” for spilling his latte on her from last week’s episode and then goes into his diatribe about how he’ll make the world safe again, especially considering the abnormal statistics regarding murder and rape in this country. Of course, none of what he’s saying is accurate but Kai got the information from Facebook so it must be true.
Kai is just playing to worst possible scenarios already spinning out of control in Ally’s fractured mind that is even more splintered because she’s not taking her medication.
Ally eventually slams the door in his face, but Kai’s mission has already been completed by feeding into her growing paranoia even if he doesn’t get her vote.
Night Terrors
The worst case scenario plays out that same night with Ivy at work overseeing the restaurant and Ally left at home to watch over Ozzy along with Winter.
Winter suggests that Ally needs to relax so she draws her new boss a hot bubble bath, which turns into a rather inappropriate situation between married woman and sexy nanny. Winter exacerbates the situation by removing her top because things are getting a little steamy in the bathroom and then eventually gives Ally a sponge bath — front and back — and just when it looks like things are going to get even hotter in there, the lights go dark throughout the entire house.
Ally panics and rushes around to light candles in the house before a frantic knock at the door is heard. It’s Harrison Wilton with a pair of candles made out of his homemade beeswax and he’s there with a warning that this must be some sort of a terrorist attack. After all, the blackout has affected several blocks and something like this must be coordinated — perhaps the Russians or those crazy North Koreans.
Either way, Harrison blurts all of this out and then runs away back to his own house. To make matters worse, Winter also abandons Ally out of fear that her own home is being looted right now by the rioters that are surely swooping through the darkened city.
That leaves an overly paranoid Ally all alone in the house with Ozzy upstairs asleep.
Oh and of course Ozzy wakes up to find a clown in his room but he received some sound advice earlier in the episode and decides to use it. When he’s scared, Ozzy is told to ask if he’s actually awake or sleeping — so of course he asks the clown, who reassures him that he’s asleep.
Meanwhile, Ally is spiraling out of control and she runs upstairs — while tossing another intruder off the staircase — so she can find her gun and wake up Ozzy so they can both make an escape. What Ally doesn’t know is that Ivy has sent their employee Pedro back to the house with a box full of supplies to make sure they are all safe.
With a gun in her hand, Ally rushes Ozzy downstairs until they get to the back door where she makes him promise to hold on no matter what they encounter.
When she opens the door, Ally doesn’t hesitate to point the gun and pull the trigger at the intruder attempting to get inside. Sadly, Ally soon realizes that she just shot poor Pedro, who is now laying on the ground bleeding to death.
Fear wins again.
‘American Horror Story: Cult’ will return next Tuesday night with a brand new episode at 10pm ET on FX.
