American Horror Story: Coven – The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks review

With the warmth and cheeriness of the holiday season over, American Horror Story: Coven returned with chills rivaling the low temperatures blowing across the country. It has been almost a full month since we conspired with the Coven and “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks” wasted no time jumping back into the thick of things. Still, my eagerness to revisit the story didn’t cloud me from the fact that there are still some serious problems facing this season of American Horror Story. There are only three episodes left, but I’m not really even quite sure what this is all leading up to. Are we waiting for the announcement of the next Supreme, or the downfall of the witch hunters? Or wait, is Fiona the real villain, or is it Marie Laveau? Wait, why is Stevie Nicks here again?

One of the show’s biggest issues is the ever-shifting allegiance of the main characters. It is so hard to keep up with what side everyone is on and the minute I think I have a grasp on things, it changes again. Last week I could have sworn that Cordelia and Fiona patched things up like a proper mother and daughter and now are joined together in an effort to defeat Marie, or the witch hunters, or someone, I don’t know, but this week Fiona is screaming about how much of a useless failure her daughter is for marrying a witch hunter and now they hate each other more than ever. And in the show’s cold open, Marie and Fiona become besties seemingly out of nowhere. You would think that the news of Marie’s clan being slaughtered would be something Fiona would be glad to hear, but I guess not. I wont complain about this too much; if it gets Lange and Basset more scenes together, so be it.

Another issue is how maddening and drawn out the search for the next Supreme is becoming. It seems each week we have one of the younger actresses convincing the rest of the cast that she is actually the next Head Bitch In Charge. This week, it’s Misty, and then Madison, and then Nan, until Fiona and Marie drown Nan, because Marie wants to keep a baby? Does that sound right? Stevie Nicks pops up to help aid the search and kill screen time by singing “Rhiannon.” I don’t know why this actually happens, but it’s cool I guess. It seems the Supreme search has settled on Misty and Madison as the top contenders, so naturally Madison plots to get rid of the competition, tricking Misty and knocking her out in a graveyard, then locking her in a casket.

The rest of the episode centers on Papa Legba, the Voodoo Spirit Marie Laveau sold her soul to for immortality. Papa Legba orders Marie to give him innocent souls one day a year, and today is the day! She kidnaps a baby and waits to deliver it to the spirit. Marie reveals the arrangement to Fiona, who thinks it’s a pretty sweet deal, and when she conjures the spirit herself to make the same agreement, Legba refuses because Fiona doesn’t have a soul to sell. Ouch. It was interesting to learn more about Laveau, who we still have little to no information about, but I wish the show would dive into it a little bit more.

In the witch hunter plot line, the women devise a way for PhiDelt to lose money, which apparently will make them more vulnerable for attack, or something. It’s not really clear what’s happening there. Also, where is watch dog Kyle? Where is Kathy Bates’ head? How come these characters come and go on such a weird schedule? American Horror Story never is the most concise and well-planned show, but it really just seems like they keep making this up on a week to week basis, and someone is going, “shit, we forgot to work Kyle in this week! Ah, it’s alright, we’ll just throw him in randomly next week.”

There are only three episodes left, so I’m really hoping this show starts to etch out a plan as to where they are going with all of this. So far this season is a lot of interesting ideas sloppily thrown together, claiming to be some big statement on womanhood, but mostly coming up short. Come on AHS, bewitch me. Prove me wrong.

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