Time to pop that final bucket of popcorn to enjoy the
sloppy, campy and bloody slog to the finish line. Lady Gaga graciously accepted her Golden
Globe last Sunday for her atrocious overacting in this series. But I suppose Madonna won for Evita so they
are even in that regard. (Kirsten Dunst
was robbed for her excellent acting in Fargo.) Lady Gaga does deserve an award
for her fashion in the series, which made her character infinitely more
interesting then her breathy diction.
Now for the conclusion of Hotel, ghosts have replaced the most of the vampires
and Liz and Iris are set to reign over a new era.
Liz lies on the bed in a turquoise gown, her voiceover
describing the changes to the hotel. Sadly,
she says, the changes weren’t meant to be and suddenly, her throat is slashed
and she dies on the bed.
The timeline is rewound to show Liz and Iris warmly greeting
two guests at reception. Liz whispers
the pair are from an Internet review site. The couple is greeted with champagne, and
shown to their room. The Cortez has been
redecorated with a modern décor; four hundred thread count sheets and an
elaborate Japanese toilet. Unfortunately,
the ghosts remain. Sally surprises the
couple and describes how much blood; piss and pain remain within the
walls. To illustrate her point, she
shoots up the man with a fatal dose of heroin. As he writhes on the floor, the woman screams
for help. She is meet by the ghost of
Will Drake; he fatally stabs her with glee.
Iris and Liz vent their frustration at the ghosts, “You
can’t keep killing the guests! We’re going to end up with zero stars!” Liz suggests they have a goddamn meeting! The
final opening theme plays.
At the hotel bar, all the ghosts have gathered. The Swedes from episode one mingle with the
realtor, the gay hipster and other of this season’s many victims. Liz has a simple demand, “Stop killing the
guests!” Iris adds, “It’s bad for
business.” The ghosts don’t like taking orders from the vampire but Iris states
she only feeds on “donated” blood. Will
states murdering guests is the only thing that gives him pleasure and Sally
defends him. Mr. March appears and says,
“Surprisingly, I agree with Cleopatra.” Sally
scoffs, “That’s like Col. Saunders saying he doesn’t eat chicken!” Mr. March continues, “I don’t know this
military man of whom you speak or his affinity for poultry but my killing days
are over.” March explains he has passed
the “torch” on to John. He further
explains if they lose the hotel, where will they go, to hell?
Drake is confident his unlimited funds will keep the hotel
in business despite the losses. Iris
explains his money is going quickly. Mr.
March explains if the hotel can remain in business for one hundred years it can
be designated as an historical landmark and be saved from the wrecking ball. When Sally protests, Mr. March threatens to
torture her with “Creature.” Sally
doesn’t care, she won’t follow the rules, and hell couldn’t be worse then how
she exists now.
After the meeting, Iris brings Sally some champagne in her
room. Sally is dressed in red velvet and
lace and is crying. Iris says, “I know
you’re miserable.” Sally reminds her she
is the one who pushed her out the window all those years ago. Iris apologizes for killing Sally, and notes
she’s changed since John left. Sally
moans, “No one knows my pain, unless I take others with me.”
Iris notes many
things have changed since Sally died, and offers Sally “the future.” Iris explains the hotel now has Wi-Fi and
offers Sally a cell phone pre-loaded with Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. “No one has to be alone anymore, not for a
second!” she explains to the emo ghost.
Liz narrates Sally’s triumphant engagement in social media. She explains “being numb” lost its appeal for
Sally. Sally throws her heroin kit out
the hotel window.
Liz speaks to Will in the bar overlooking the lobby. Will asks, “How long have I been dead, it
feels like I don’t exist.” Liz tells him
he’s been dead a little over a year. She
tells him his business is dying, he never used other designers and so there is
no one able to carry his label on. Will
is happy to live on through his son; he’s sent him to a boarding school to
avoid him being poisoned by the death. Liz
offers Will needs a new purpose. She
tells him his “missing” status has helped keep interest in his brand. She gives him a sketchbook and tells him to
get to work. Will notes the line needs a
face and Liz offers to be his living muse. She explains he could state Will had become a
recluse, “Like Howard Hughes without the crazy!”
Liz steps into the boardroom of Drake’s company. A man rejects the idea of her running the
company or speaking for him. A lawyer
presents a letter regarding Liz’s legitimacy and Liz promptly fires the man!
Will’s business thrives and Liz utilizes the hotel and the
ghosts to hosts a fashion show. (A haunting version of “Knights in White Satin” provides the
soundtrack.) The secrecy surrounding these shows adds to the appeal. Liz should be happy, but she misses Tristan,
remembering how they met under similar circumstances.
Iris tries to help Liz by bringing in a psychic named Billy
Dean Howard. (A cleaned up Sarah Paulsen
and a revisit to her character from Season 1.) Billy explores Liz’s room, touching the walls
and the bed. She states she senses a
masculine energy and calls to Tristan. Unfortunately,
Tristan communicates he doesn’t want to talk to Liz. Another spirit comes
thorough, Donavon tells Iris he remembers her making him blueberry pancakes on
Saturday morning and he’s somewhere where every day is Saturday morning. Donavon gives Iris a message, “I love you
mom.” Iris cries, but she is sorry she
wasn’t able to help her friend.
Liz becomes a grandmother. She is present at the birth of her son’s baby
and even cuts the cord. She says, “Maybe
the world she is born into will be a little better and kinder.” She adds, “I never knew life could be this
good, or end.”
Liz speaks with Ramona under the dappled light of the large
art deco window. Ramona asks, “Shit, are you sure?” Liz explains she is past the point of all
treatment and for that she is almost relieved. She adds ironically, “I’d hate to lose my
hair!” Ramona offers to “turn” Liz but she declines. “I don’t want to kill in order to live.” She hopes she can maintain her relationship
with her son and his family if he visits her at the hotel where she plans to
remain as a ghost.
Liz gathers the ghosts to her room and breaks the news; “I’m
the first woman in history to die of prostate cancer!” She has reassembled the weapons her and Iris
had planned to use for their double suicide, she instructs the ghosts to grab
the weapons and kill her. The ghosts
protest, they need her as their contact with the outside world. Liz explains she considers them all her family
and wants to remain with them forever.
The Countess is the final ghost to join the gathering. Liz hasn’t seen her since she killed her. The Countess states she feels a special bond
with Liz; she was her “finest transformation.” She offers to assist with Liz’s next
“transformation.” With a flick of her
sharp silver gloves, the Countess slits Liz’s throat. (As was seen in the
episode’s opening minutes.)
Liz looks down at her corpse and smokes. Tristan appears, “Those things will kill you!”
Liz is overjoyed to see her lover. Tristan explains he didn’t want to get in the
way of her living so had stayed hidden until now. Liz exclaims, “You are to die for!” In this case,
she means literally.
The clock races forward again to “Devil’s Night 2022.” A woman rings reception requesting the room
“Billy Dean Howard died in.”
Iris brought in Billy Dean Howard as a way of garnering free
advertising for the Hotel. Billy is
shown taping a reading, “Mr. Woo doesn’t pay for what!” (A flashback to the
moment the Swedish girls killed the player!)
John returns to the hotel. He
doesn’t like Billy Dean because she is always trying to contact him. She checks into room sixty-four in order to
interview the notorious serial killer.
John taunts the psychic, “Do you want to talk?” Billy asks him if his family knew about his
crimes. John recalls when he was on the
run with his family. He told them he
only killed people who “deserved it.”
Billy asks, “Your wife, kids all disappeared, did you kill them.” John says, “I failed them.” John remembers Scarlett urging him to return
to “home” to the Hotel Cortez. John
notes the hotel is where they all had been “reborn” except for Scarlett. Like Will, John decided to send his daughter
to boarding school where she will be safe from the deadly pull of the Cortez. John explains moving back to Los Angeles
provided him with more “opportunities.”
John stalks victims on the street to kill and feed his wife and
son. One day, John is caught by police
and dies in a shoot-out in front of the hotel. He is unable to crawl inside the
walls of the Cortez, limiting his after life within its walls.
Billy asks John what is the significance of October 30th
and remarks that is the only day she can feel his presence. John tells her he will show her, if she leaves
the cameras behind and joins him. Billy
takes John’s hand.
Billy mentions doing a reading on a “house west of here.”
(Season 1’s Murder House.) She notes
that house whispered but the hotel is like a “rock concert of the dead.” John smiles and asks if she’d like to meet the
“rock stars.” He takes her to Mr.
March’s dining room where John Wayne Gacy and Jeffery Dahmer are waiting. Billy realizes who they are but feels
confident “surrounding herself with white light” will protect her from harm. (This is a common method for psychics.) She becomes more alarmed after Aileen and
Richard Ramirez arrive. Ramirez kisses
her hand and Aileen compliments Billy’s hair in an awful attempt at flirting. John offers her Absinthe and finally Mr. March
appears. Billy tells the ghost hotelier,
“I feel the violence in you and the moments of death of your victims.” March is intrigued by this and asks Billy, “Is
it like a film or more a kaleidoscope?” Billy
tries to explain it’s more like a mist, which leads Aileen to laugh crudely.
Billy sits down at the dinner table, clearly overwhelmed by
the company of ghouls. Gacy promptly handcuffs her to the chair and Dahmer asks
when the “appetizer” will arrive. John
demands Billy cease to write or explore the hotel ever again. Billy asks what happens if she refuses? Aileen smiles, “Being murdered hurts!” Ramona enters the party. Billy can’t figure out what she is. Ramona gleefully explains, “I’m a creature
who kills to live!” Ramona threatens to
eat the psychic and Billy runs from the room and the hotel screaming.
John returns to his old room. Holden and Alex are asleep on the bed and he
greets Scarlett who is now a young adult.
When John notes how she’s changed, she responds, “You only say that
because I’m the only one in this family who ages.” The family reunion is an annual tradition. Because John didn’t die in the Hotel, he’s
only there on “Devil’s Night.” It’s
unclear whether Alex and Holden are still “living” independent of him as
vampires but it appears so. The clock in
the room displays 2:23am. Scarlett falls
asleep in the chair, holding her father’s hand.
The Countess looks around the bar and smokes in a blue gown
and diamond necklace. She finds a dark
haired man to flirt with. He states he’s
at the hotel because he’s heard it’s haunted.
The Countess smiles and touches his face; “You have a jawline for days!”
So ends the season of American Horror Story Hotel. There remain some unanswered questions and
plot holes as always. How did Billy get
free of her handcuffs? And if she escaped, why did the woman ask to sleep in
the room she died in? Is having an all ghost and vampire staff a good business
model? How does the Hotel Cortez stay in
business? Perhaps the series would be
better if it was an episode or two less. My favorite performances of the season were
from Denis O’Hare and Kathy Bates. (Extra points to Denis for showing up in
five-inch Louis Vuitton stilettos at the Golden Globes to honor his performance
as Liz.) Perhaps I’ve been a little harsh on Lady Gaga, it may be she didn’t
know when to stop “vamping up” her character. (Sorry, not sorry for the pun.)
Overall, American Horror Story continues to provide campy
horror much better then Murphy’s failed series “Scream Queens.” Its strength is
in its core staff of actors who manage to make the ridiculous and bizarre
entertaining. It provides a dark
escapism for those who reveal in the weird so it seems fitting AHS will return
just before the 2016 election. In the meantime, I will start reviewing "American Crime Story" also starring Sarah Paulsen starting in Feb. 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment