‘AHS: Hotel’ Episode 11 Recap: Battle Royale

At the opening of 2016's first American Horror Story, we rewind mere seconds before the last episode’s denouement — when Iris and Liz come in like vigilante assassins bringing the pain. Though we were led to believe that Liz was targeting The Countess and that Iris was targeting her son, it turns out Iris didn’t want to shoot her baby down (bang bang). The Countess slithers away, because only Lady Gaga could somehow move after getting capped with 16 bullets, but Donovan isn’t so lucky. Iris and Liz drag him to the curb so the beautiful bitch-baby of a man may die outside the hallowed halls of the Hotel Cortez and thus be free, and not doomed like the rest of these poor unfortunate souuuuuuuuls.

The Countess — beautiful, bloody and scantily clad in a demure white sheet (still with hair laid to the gawds) — is saved by Sally. The junkie embarks on another monologue about how everyone leaves her, and she is literally that one girl you sleep with in college who goes full blown Single White Female. Because every episode of AHS has a flashback, we now learn about Sally and the teardrops on her guitar. We go back to 1993, during the time of grunge, and now the fact that Sally looks like the poor man’s Courtney Love makes even more sense. Working in the industry, she falls for the lead singer of a band and his girlfriend. They all engage in some weird threesome addiction love fest, because nothing is more punk rock in AHS than multiple sexual partners and some heroin. This whole scene is odd. Sally injects the dude’s penis with heroin, because that sounds like fun? Sally, who has intense abandonment issues in case you couldn’t tell, decides to pull a human centipede and sew them all together so they can’t leave her — and they’re so high on heroin they’re like “yeah brah, sew me up”. Of course, when she does they all die all while threaded together like the world’s worst voodoo doll. It takes five days, but eventually Sally dies because that weird demon with the drill dick comes and tortures her — and boom, now she’s a ghost in the hotel. Sally helped save The Countess just so she could lure back John to the hotel.

Meanwhile, Iris had Liz burn Donovan’s body (side note: burning Matt Bomer’s beautiful face is a crime in and of itself) and in a nice little mom moment, she plays with her son’s ashes and cries a wee bit. I’m not sure what she does, but that annoying cleaning lady comes to clean up the room, which is basically just scattered remains of Donovan. Iris is literally covered in the ashes of her dead son? It’s really weird, I don’t get it, but I don’t understand half this show anyway so.

Since Liz and Iris suck at killing The Countess, they enlist the help Ramona Royale, who if you remember, was locked in that tomb room and has essentially turned into a revenge-driven beast who wants nothing more than to kill The Countess. Angela Bassett needs praise for this episode, because her facial expressions are just aces. She yells how in order to “come back to life” (even though she isn’t officially dead) she needs to “take a life.”

AND CUE QUEENIE! For those of you who haven’t been an avid fan of this franchise, Queenie is portrayed by Queen Gabourey Sidibe from Season 3’s Coven. She’s checking into the Hotel Cortez because she’s going to go play The Price is Right with Drew Carrey and that’s the funniest part, but she’s unknowingly signed up to be Ramona’s sacrifice. Queenie is a witch, and her power is the fact that she’s a human voodoo doll — so every time Ramona cuts Queenie, she hurts herself.

There’s a solid battle between the two and Queenie is smacking a bitch down. But, of course, there’s some kind of plausible loophole that Ryan Murphy finds in order to kill Queenie. Mr. March comes in and stabs Queenie in the neck and because he’s a ghost her witch power doesn’t work so she dies and Ramona feasts on her body like a nice Christmas ham. I’ll give you a second to let the absurdity of that sink in.

Ramona goes to confront The Countess, with Queenie’s blood coursing through her veins like a thousand hungry bears. This scene between them is amazing: Both Gaga and Bassett are great, and with every episode I become more convinced that Gaga can actually act. It’s a great war of the roses between the two, but of course, Ramona doesn’t kill her; they screw. After coitus, The Countess gives Ramona the hotel because she wants to leave and never return. Just as you think The Countess will escape, John Lowe pops up out the elevator, and shoots her again! Poor girl gets gunned down, heals, and then gets gunned down again in the same episode. I live!

This time she’s actually dead and now all the loose ends get tied together. The Countess stole John’s family so he killed her. He also killed her to complete the last act in the Ten Commandments killings, fulfilling Mr. March’s need to kill and condemning The Countess to the Hotel till the end of days (Lady Gaga’s head is on display in the commandments killing room and it’s amazing that even dead, she still owns the room).

Mr. March and dead The Countess can now have their weekly dinners every night, because this is the weirdest love affair I have ever seen — and since all her other men have died, she kind of has no choice. Mr. March feels driven to kill The Countess under the guise of the fact that she was the one who turned him into the cops, but alas, the frumpy annoying maid is the one that did that! So she gets banished to no longer wait on him and now her life has no purpose. The Countess and Mr. March sit down to enjoy their meal together, staring into each other’s eyes, because that's all they have from now on.

Next week is the finale and lord knows what is going to happen, but stay tuned!