American Horror Story S8.10 — Nothing really matters
Spoilers below for American Horror Story S8.10 — Apocalypse Then
The finale of the eighth season of American Horror Story answered some questions and left many more unanswered.
With Michael growing stronger by the minute, Cordelia knows it is time to put her plan into action. Myrtle pays a visit to bowl-cut HQ and after some nice rips into Venable, makes her way to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. She secures placement for Coco’s father to buy 4 spots in Outpost 3, which the witches will use for Coco & Mallory’s place in the shelter.
Then, the witches have to place Mallory & Coco under an identity spell, creating new lives for them that will suppress their powers (not as much of an issue for calorie counting Coco). They model Coco’s new personality after Madison (aka she’s a bitch) so that she can constantly demean Mallory, which will help her powers stay under wraps.
After the spell, they become set in their new lives. Coco meets hairdresser Gallant (Evan Peters) and they become fast friends and at the same time, meets Brock (Billy Eichner), her soon-to-be husband.
Flash forward a little more to Michael’s interview of Mallory at Outpost 3. When she fights back, her powers come to the surface. And that’s not the only thing that’s breaking the surface. Cordelia, Myrtle, and Madison, alerted by her powers, rise up through the healing swamp mud where they’ve been hiding throughout the apocalypse.
Showered, the witches arrive at Outpost 3, raise their sisters (including the traitor Dinah) from the dead and we’re back where we left off in the premiere.
The witches make short work of Dinah — Cordelia sprung Marie Leveau, promising Papa Legba she’d bring Dinah in her place — and Cordelia explodes robot Mead in one look. Madison decides to take things into her own hands and use Mead’s machine gun arm to shoot Michael…a lot. I’m not sure why she thought that would work, but she says she’ll hold him off for as long as she can while the others try to get Mallory to a bath so she can go back in time.
Turns out as long as she can is not very long. Brock, still alive after all of this time, pops up and stabs Mallory in the stomach. He really has been nothing but trouble. Myrtle burns him alive and his burning body distracts Madison, while Michael sucks all of the blood back into his body. She realizes something is wrong and has time to say “I guess it’s back to retail” before her head explodes.
Marie Laveau and Coco try to tag team kill Michael but neither voodoo nor knives are a match for him. Duh, he’s the Antichrist.
Mallory is growing weaker by the second and Cordelia knows what she has to do. A few well placed insults to Michael and she kills herself, giving Mallory the power she needs to do the spell and go back in time. Mallory returns to 2015 at the moment Constance kicks Michael out for killing the priest.
But, even Antichrists need to look both ways before they cross the street. Mallory runs Michael over with a massive SUV and then reverses and drives over him again. After exchanging a knowing look with Constance, she speeds off. Michael begs to be taken to Murder House and Constance leaves him in the street, saying “Go to hell.”
Having successfully changed the course of history, Mallory is the only one on Earth who knows what could have been. She enrolls at Robichaux’s and greets everyone with knowing looks and big smiles. She tells Queenie not to stay at the Cortez and vows to eventually get Madison out of retail hell. She also brings Nan back for a visit and Misty back for good.
But, it can’t all work out perfectly. Flash forward: Timothy & Emily meet at a protest in 2020 and have a baby a year later. Three years after that, they return home from date night to find the babysitter dead and their child in the rocking chair, just like at the end of season 1. A knock on the door reveals Mead and the Black Pope.
The future repeats itself.
All in all, I didn’t love this ending. Besides that it meant nothing mattered in the whole season, it just didn’t feel very American Horror Story to neatly wrap up like that. Also, they really didn’t do a lot of explanation of the events that happened before the witches showed up.
- Why was Michael visiting outposts — did he know something was up?
- Why was there a rubber man in the outpost? Who was he?
- Why did the rubber man make Gallant kill his grandma?
- Why do Emily & Timothy make an Antichrist baby?
If you have answers to these questions, please let me know. There is another 2 seasons scheduled with FX, so it will be interesting to see if they return to this storyline. Until then, thanks for reading!
Originally published at lizziekreitman.wordpress.com on November 15, 2018.