American Horror Story S10.02 — Feeding fame
Spoilers below for American Horror Story S10.02 — Pale
Alright, we’re jumping right in where we left off. Harry, Doris, and Alma get into the car to leave, but right before they do, the little black pill kicks in and Harry sees the script (and parties and awards) in front of his eyes. He jumps out of the car, grabs his computer, and returns to the house to write. While Doris and Alma stare at him questioningly and Doris becomes more and more agitated, Harry writes nonstop.
After the full day and night of writing, he has almost finished the entire season’s script. However, Doris is worried and Alma tells her that she saw Harry take a pill before they left the house. She asks if it is Adderall and wonders if she would she be better at the violin if she took it, too. Doris asks Harry about it and he lies, so Alma confronts him. Then, Harry rips into Alma about how she can’t play the violin well, which (rightfully so) upsets her and Doris.
When Doris returns with sandwiches, Harry says he’s not hungry, but she forces him to eat. The turkey sandwich makes him sick, though, and she confronts him again about the drugs. He agrees to go to the market to get food for himself and apologizes for being a dick. On the way to the store, Harry sees a Pale Person sucking the blood from a squirrel. He ends up surrounded by them, but they just gyrate near him and then leave. I guess when you are a vampire with real talent, they don’t bother you. At the market, he beelines to the meat section, where he starts filling his cart. The store manager makes a back-handed comment about writing (he obviously knows about the pills) and then T-Karen comes over and yells at him about it, too.
Harry is unperturbed by his sudden craving for blood and immediately drains the meat packages for their juices. When that is not enough, he blends the meat and strains the juice. So gross. Then, when Doris accidentally cuts herself, he grabs her finger and sucks it so hard she throws him off of her. Finally willing to ask WTF is going on, Harry heads over to Austin’s to get the dirt on his new habit.
Austin explains that the pills deplete the main minerals in blood and so if you take them, you need to drink fresh blood to replenish those minerals. Therefore, the vampiric tendencies only occur when you are taking the pill. But, once you stop, you’ll never be able to write again without it. Plus, the pill only works for people with real talent. If you don’t have talent and take the pill, you end up one of the Pale People, wandering aimlessly and sucking the blood from anything that lives. They are, “Hacks. Wannabes. Dreamers.” and “always thirsty but never satisfied or employed.” Harry says he’ll never take the pill again and leaves the baggie at Austin’s. Ooookay buddy, I’ll believe that when I see it.
Because over in Hollywood, Harry’s script got him a deal with Netflix and Joaquin Phoenix (free of charge!). After he and Doris celebrate that they’re going to be rich, he sits down to write more, but the blank screen sends him crawling back to Austin as quickly as he left. Austin & Belle explain that he won’t be able to survive on meat juices from the grocery store, so they take him to feed.
On the way, they tell him that the old police chief looked the other way on the feeding, but the new one is “nosey” so they can’t kill anyone in P-Town. I guess I was wrong when I thought that they were in it, the cops are just incompetent instead. They only kill meth heads, so they say they are doing a “community service.” Austin and Belle also warn Harry to always keep his gloves on (I guess for fingerprints). In addition, a “good feed” can satiate them for around 1 week and they only do it in the winter.
While Austin, Belle, and Harry feed, T-Karen gets out of the rain at Mickey’s shack, where there is no usable toilet. They get high and talk about movies and Mickey reveals that he has started 5 screenplays but never finished them. He pulls out 2 of the pills that he stole from Belle and tries to get Karen to take one with him. She says no and starts to cry. Obviously, she is traumatized from having to deliver babies to Belle, but I think there is something more to it as well. My guess is she had a family member take them and something terrible happened or maybe she took them and something happened, I’m sure we’ll find out. Her talent would be painting — Mickey pulled out some of her old paintings that he found at a thrift shop. Mickey decides to take the pill and starts writing his masterpiece.
At the same time, Alma is desperate to learn the violin piece that is giving her trouble and she knows that the pills will help her. She finds the baggie and takes one, then obviously masters the piece. She faints after finishing, but gets up and goes back to work. Doris asks her to stop playing and the mean streak from the pills comes out fast. Alma tells her mom that she is a “perfectly ordinary woman” and she doesn’t understand greatness like Alma and Harry do. Doris is pissed and sends her to her room.
The next morning, Harry is plugging away at the computer and Alma is nowhere to be seen. Harry says she went on a walk and Doris freaks out. She hits a bunch of random keys on his computer but when he goes back to writing, he doesn’t delete it (not a real plot point, we just thought it was funny). When Doris finds Alma, she’s in the cemetery being watched by one of the Pale People and eating a dead bird.
General thoughts at the end of this episode:
- In one of the scenes, Doris tells Harry that she thinks he doesn’t believe in her talent. She explains that the Instagram contest she won had almost 100 entries (lol). He tells her does believe in her, but I’m guessing they are gearing up for her to eventually take a pill and end up a talentless Pale Person.
- It’s not lost on me that Doris is super pregnant and Belle made T-Karen bring her a baby. We don’t know what she did with the baby but I’m thinking it can’t be good. Will the baby end up being eaten or worse?
- Billie Lourd has a small scene as the dentist who is helping all of the pill poppers get teeth fangs for “cleaner feeds.” Not sure if she will be in it for much else, but she also takes the pills to be better at tattooing.
- Now that we know the police chief is not into the vampires, I assume she will be a thorn in their side moving forward.
Originally published at http://lizziekreitman.wordpress.com on August 30, 2021.