American Horror Story Season 5 Episode 4 Review: Devil's Night
Miranda Wicker
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It was Devil's Night on American Horror Story Season 5 Episode 4. No episode of any season of this series would be complete without a Halloween-themed outing and this season wouldn't be complete without the most bizarre dinner party known to history.
Imagine playing that game where you're asked whom you would invite to dinner, anyone, living or dead, with the caveat that your guests may only be serial killers and you'll understand the guest list at March's party.
This episode of American Horror Story: Hotel didn't grab me quite like last week's, probably because we spent far too much time sitting down to dinner with James Patrick March, Aileen Wuornos, Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the Zodiac killer. Because what this show needs is even MORE people to remember.
Yes, yes, these guest spots were one-offs and we (probably) won't have to see them again. Lily Rabe was amazing as Aileen Wuornos (maybe even better than Charlize Theron). John Wayne Gacy invoked memories of Twisty the Clown. Jeffrey Dahmer was sufficiently creepy. All of that is true.
But this was...not how I want to spend an hour of my time. Sorry. Imagine that shrugging emoji here. It was just a waste of time when there are so many other, better stories to tell.
The only thing that came out of the entire dinner party sequence was that March believes John possesses a similar darkness. That's probably why none of the hotel's regulars have killed him yet and why he's able to see all that he can see there. He still doesn't believe that he's seeing what he's seeing, though, and that's problematic, at least for March.
March's patience might be growing thin with John. He looked more disturbed than usual when preparing to kill Sally's offering and realizing John wouldn't take part. He looked even more disturbed when Sally ushered John out of the room.
Once the absinthe wears off, and under Hypodermic Sally's guidance, John will either find the darkness within himself or he'll be the key to freeing all the spirits trapped within the hotel. It could probably go either way.
What was far more interesting to me tonight were the parallels between his story and that of Ms. Evers, the maid. She lost her son in 1925 in much the same way that John lost Holden. She just took her eyes off of him for one minute! Except Ms. Evers' son was taken by a serial killer and murderer and Holden was taken by the Countess because she saw John as a neglectful parent.
Or so she says.
Part of me wants to believe that the Countess acted from a place of what she sees as honesty, that she interpreted John's behaviors as being neglectful and she wanted a better life for Holden and believed she could provide that. It doesn't make her less psychopathic, just...understandable, I guess. Maybe. I don't know.
But she took him. She took him and she froze him in time, turning him into a small vampire and calling him one of her children. That's the part that makes me think that what's lacking in the Countess' life is mortality. As a vampire, she never got the opportunity to be a mother, so she steals children as a way to have that.
Whether having them feed and then bleeding them out is her plan or Iris' we'll learn soon enough, I think. Or we won't. That's sort of a thing with the AHS franchise. Show one thing one time and then never show it again.
At any rate, Holden now has two mothers and Alex is now my least favorite character on the show.
I get that she calls Holden her one true love, that their bond is unlike anything else. I can see how she's justifiably distraught by her loss even after all these years. But she still has another child at home. Her daughter still needs her and she's just thrown in with the Countess in order to be back in her son's life without any thought as to what might happen to her daughter.
For Scarlett's sake, John has to figure out a way to get out of that hotel and back to a sort of normal life. Won't someone think of the living child?
What did you think of "Devil's Night"? How did you feel about March's dinner party? Does John have a darkness about him? Sound off in the comments below and don't forget you can watch American Horror Story online!
Miranda Wicker was a Staff Writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in 2017. Follow her on Twitter.
