In the ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ recap, Ally faces a litany of nightmares after shooting and killing someone as Kai’s cult closes in on her…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Through three episodes thus far in ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ the theme of the show hasn’t been so much about the 2016 Presidential Election as it’s been finding new and creative ways to torture Sarah Paulson’s character.
Ally Mayfair-Richards has been haunted by all sorts of traumatic incidents ever since the night Donald Trump was elected and the unrelenting torment was only ratched up this week.
Included in the latest list of problems that Ally’s faced are — protesters, deadly chemicals, a sex tape, a masturbating man in the living room, and who could forget the poor guinea pig in the microwave.
It’s safe to say, Ally has gone through a lot but this latest episode was like a test to see how much she could be punished in one hour of television. Needless to say it was one bad thing on top of another and truthfully the story got sacrificed for the sake of on upping how much Ally could be tortured.
Still there’s more to the story to unfold including the strange relationship between the lead police detective in town (because apparently there’s only one) to the Wilton family, Dr. Vincent’s strange connection to several victims in town and Kai’s confessional that somehow ends up with at least one of his followers possibly dead.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ titled ‘Neighbors from Hell’…
Buried Alive
The episode begins with a therapy session between Dr. Rudy Vincent, a woman named Rosie and her husband as she explains how she’s finally gotten past her crippling phobia of coffins (spurred on by her father locking her inside a cabinet when she was a child).
Rosie has faced her greatest fear when she buried her father and now she’s ready to resume a normal, happy life with her husband no longer fearing the casket any longer. Dr. Vincent applauds her bravery but then Rosie’s worst fears are realized when she returns home and a gaggle of clowns are waiting there for them. The clowns assault the husband and wife before bolting them into a pair of awaiting coffins sitting in the living room where they eventually suffocate and die before anyone discovers them a week later.
When we reconnect with Ally, she’s been cleared of the shooting death of Pedro Morales — the restaurant chef who she shot dead when he was just delivering a phone charger to her. Thanks to Michigan laws, Ally was within her right to open fire and the crime is being called self defense.
While Ally may be free of criminal charges, that doesn’t help her escape the scrutiny of being called the “lesbian George Zimmerman” with protesters standing outside of her restaurant everyday and her neighbors — Harrison and Meadow Wilton — showing up wearing sombreros and accusing her of being a racist fueled by hatred and white privilege.
Over the next couple of days, Ally wakes up to a lawn full of dead birds after a chemical truck is seen spraying in their neighborhood with no discernable identification to say where it’s coming from.
Ally and Ivy then encounter a nude made masturbating in their living room after he answered a Craigslist ad for two horny lesbians looking to give oral pleasure to a man — any man who just shows up at their address. It’s a trick Ally assumes was played by the Wiltons, especially after the ad keeps appearing day after day after day.
Winter returns to work for the family despite Ally’s disposition that she abandoned them on the night when they needed her most during the blackout that ended with Pedro being shot dead.
Things only turn from bad to worse when Winter reveals that the next door neighbors gave Ozzy a pet guinea pig despite his parents’ objections to having any pets in the house thanks to Ally’s allergies to animal dander. Ally believes this has all been carefully plotted to make her look bad and feel worse and when she confronts the Wiltons over the phone, they berate her and just say how Ozzy needs a man in his life because he’s being bombarded by too much estrogen in his house right now.
Finally, Ally decides to confront the protesters in front of her restaurant regardless of the opinion of her therapist, Dr. Vincent, who advises her against that plan of action. In fact, Dr. Vincent seems rather peculiar with his approach when speaking to Ally because one part of him looks disinterested and the other almost appears to be sending her down the path where she will go from frightened to terrified. It doesn’t help matters much that Dr. Vincent has several smiley face buttons on his desk that closely resemble the eerie marker left behind at the Chang resident following their murder/suicide.
Perhaps Dr. Vincent is part of the cult — if not the ringleader — behind this cult and the actions taking place in town. He’s been attached to at least two of the victims thus far while making them face their fears and it’s entirely possible he even manipulated Kai Anderson into his current way of thinking to serve as the figurehead while Dr. Vincent is the wizard hiding behind the curtain. Something to think about as the season moves forward.
Truth or Dare
In a pair of flashback scenes — or at least we assume they took place at some point before now — we see Kai Anderson play his pinky-swear game where he tells his disciples to tell him the truth. In these two instances, Kai is speaking to Harrison and Meadow Wilton.
In Meadow’s case, she gets slapped when she refuses to reveal her deepest, darkest fears to Kai but he finally figures out what scares her the most.
It seems Meadow is 40-something, alone and terrified that she will die that way without a husband who loves her, without bearing any children and frankly that no man will ever have sex with her again. Meadow is rather apologetic to anyone and everyone about her situation, but Kai warns her to never say ‘I’m sorry’ for anything again.
“Everything is somebody else’s fault from now on. You want to matter, then you make the world wrong.”
When it comes to Harrison, he’s much more forthcoming while admitting regret for marrying Meadow in the first place and wishing that he could get rid of her already. Kai eventually suggests that Harrison really wants her dead, which he denies at first, and then admits that it would be much easier if she was out of the picture entirely.
By the end of the episode it appears Harrison’s wish may have come true.
The Joke’s On You
In an attempt to get back to some sense of normalcy, the Mayfair-Richards family goes to the restaurant late at night to taste some new ice creams being created by Ivy and everyone seems to enjoy the break from the madness. Ally is so overjoyed that she even tells Ozzy tha the can keep his pet guinea pig.
Unfortunately the happiness is short lived when the family returns home to find that same bloody smiley face now painted on their front door after their house as been broken into. Inside, Ozzy and his moms find the guinea pig — inside the microwave just before he explodes into a thousand bloody pieces.
Ally is outraged and convinced that the Wilton family did this to them.
She rushes across the street, breaks into the Wilton’s home and proceeds to punch Harrison in the face before threatening to kill Meadow. On the way out, Ozzy spots that same creepy smiley face decorating the Wilton’s house, but Ally is so angry that she doesn’t even care enough tell them that they’ve been marked.
Later, Ally sees that same chemical truck wandering through their neighborhood but when she confronts one of the workers (dressed like the Tie Fighter pilots from ‘Star Wars’) and pulls off his mask, she finds another mask — decorated with the bloody smiley face symbol yet again.
When Ally goes inside she’s confronted with another and different kind of horror when Ozzy freaks out at something he sees on his computer. When his mothers force him to show them what he’s been looking at, Ivy is shocked to see the video of Winter giving Ally a sponge bath.
Ivy rushes out of the room, slaps Ally across the face and proclaims that she’s leaving with Ozzy tonight and that’s the end of things. Of course, Ally is frantic not only because her wife and child are leaving but because she will be left all alone in the house.
Before Ivy can leave, however, the police arrive across the street where they find a frantic Harrison freaking out after he woke up covered in blood with Meadow nowhere to be found. When he spots Ally nearby, Harrison freaks out even more and accuses her of the crime until the police tackle him to the ground and put handcuffs on him.
In the melee, Ally and Ivy lose track of Ozzy, who has made his way inside the Wilton home. When they find him, the three of them see the house covered in blood with the creepy smiley face symbol painted on the wall — perhaps a sign that Meadow Wilton is no more.
‘American Horror Story: Cult’ will return next Tuesday night at 10pm ET for a brand new episode on FX.
