American Horror Story: “She Gets Revenge” Review

Suicide Hotline Bling.

Fortunately, Hotel didn’t have to utterly limp out of 2015 with another episode filled, beginning to end, with all that Countess scheming nonsense. Sure, there was some of that here, but it didn’t dominate. And Liz and Iris busted through those penthouse doors at just the right, boring moment and lit up the room with gunfire. As if the show even realized what a chore it was to behold the Countess/Donovan dynamic. Two maniac a-holes locked in a tedious, dysfunctional love/hate merry-go-round. Well, now a violent change in management seems to be in order. And I couldn’t be happier.

I mean, is Gaga off the show now? Probably not, but I’d be absolutely tickled if her drama took an enormous back seat for the remainder of the season. If anything, she’ll be a ghost. Like Will and all the rest. Because we, essentially, reached the end of her arc. Yes, she still had designs to steal Will’s money (despite Will being able to walk around the Cortez as a ghost because she was dumb enough to have him murdered there), but her big love angle is done. Valentino’s dead. So’s his wife. Her plan failed. And – well – Donovan won’t have anything more to contribute going forward either. So let’s hope to be free of all this.

Let’s also hope that John and Alex trapping the vampire kids in that secret torture wing means an end for them as well. Probably not, since there’s a good chance that Ramona will either be overtaken by all of them, or she’ll figure out a way to recruit them over to her side. Either way though, if the Countess is gone, then so is our interest in her. More interesting, after all this, was the reconciliation between John and Alex. Both being totally deranged, nasty adults coming to a mutual understanding that they’re awful parents. I get Sally’s anger, but since we still haven’t learned Sally’s entire backstory, her crying and pleading is still just empty noise at this point.

Even though, by all intents and purposes, it was a terrible idea to have her son stay AT THE CORTEZ – where horrific things happen on an hourly basis and innocent lives can get snuffed out in a number of cruel ways – nothing bad happened to Liz’s son. YET, mind you. And because of that, Liz and the now-grown man were able to have some really great scenes together. Scenes that had nothing to do with any of the horror on the show. Scenes that could have been – you know – from a normal TV family drama. Very welcome, moving stuff.

Which then led Liz to re-think the suicide pact she’d made with Iris. And pushed them into heavily-armed hostile takeover mode. So not only did Liz’s scenes with her estranged son go off without a hitch (a shocker for this show), but they led to some very positive story changes as well. I’m assuming. We’ll have to see how it all washes out once the series returns in January.

Speaking of wash, how sweet was it to see Hazel beam over some detergent and that new washer/dryer combo? Of course, it’s demented because she’s a psycho phantom who gets giddy over cleaning up spilled blood and guts, but sometimes the kooky window dressing on this show is better than the running storylines. Like hearing Sister’s of Mercy’s “Lucretia, My Reflection” on the same episode as “Hotline Bling.”