'American Horror Story: Hotel' Recap: Return To Murder House

Warning: This recap for the “Room 33” episode of American Horror Story: Hotel contains spoilers.

Three things you need to know about this week’s episode of American Horror Story: Hotel, in order of ascending importance: (1) It was a terrific episode, partly because (2) it finally and officially tied this season to Murder House in a significant way, but mostly also because of (3) the #butts. SO MANY #BUTTS. At any point did you stop and ask yourself if you’d accidentally switched over to Cinemax during this week’s episode of AHS: Hotel? Because this was one of the most sexual and horny episodes of TV I’ve ever seen in my life. And yes, I will definitely be writing a letter to my mayor or whoever about it, because sex is obviously wrong and also children might find out about it from watching late night cable horror serials and we can’t have that. But just playing devil’s advocate for a second: YES. Never before has a series taken “visual medium” so seriously, but there was nothing medium about THESE visuals, am I right? (My brain is absolutely scrambled from the #butts, I am so sorry.)

To my lesser point, yes, almost every season of the AHS franchise has winked, nodded, or hidden Easter eggs that confirmed they all take place in the same universe (so long as you don’t think about the rampant number of physical doppelgängers who roam this narrative), but “Room 33” straight up began with Lady Gaga waltzing into the Murder House for an abortion. It was almost so full-circle that it could’ve been the series finale! Except it wasn’t, due to the 65 minutes of #butts still to come. Friends, we need to talk about this episode.

We began back in the ‘20s at a certain brick home in Los Angeles!

It was not yet full of hundreds of vicious, malformed ghost rapists but it was ABOUT to be visited by a certain platinum blonde vampire.

That’s right, the Countess paid Charles Montgomery a visit to get a good ol’ fashioned illegal abortion, but right off the bat things were a little off. For one thing, her body temperature was the same as the room’s, and for another, she was MASSIVELY pregnant after only conceiving three weeks prior. So those were two things that might have tipped off any normal surgeon that something was wrong. But Charles went for it anyway. And, of course, within seconds the nurse was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, having been attacked by the Countess’ #1 little monster.

That’s right, before there was the Infantata, there was the Countess’ failed vampire abortion goblin. This show.

Back in modern times, Detective John Lowe was awoken from his slumber by visions of Holden, which led him to investigate the swimming pool area, which was where he found his wife and Holden trying to catch some Z’s in a glass coffin. So he had no choice but to bang on the glass and then pass out cold onto the tile. Okay, drama queen. Then when he woke up all the coffins had been moved and he just figured he was crazy. (He was, but for other reasons.)

Then in the first of what felt like HUNDREDS of surprising sex scenes, Tristan and Liz Taylor did sex to each other and then smoked a cigarette and talked about books! That’s right, even though Tristan had been borderline homophobic in the past, he seemed to have found true love with Liz Taylor. He accepted Liz for not being biologically a woman, and Liz accepted Tristan for his mullet. If that wasn’t romance, then go back to romance college, haters.

Uh, then this happened! The Countess turned Will Drake into a bisexual and then they naked wrestled until Tristan walked in and pretended to be offended when they asked him to join in. I was not even sure what was going on anymore and that’s the truth. A little later, the Countess and Will Drake hopped a flight to Paris (they were a couple now I guess) but not before she went into Room 33 and hugged her abomination baby goodbye. So yes, it was still alive, and still presumably a chore to look at.

Then Donovan and Ramona returned to the hotel with an agenda: They were going to attack the Countess where it mattered most… In the nursery! That meant the vampire children and the baby in Room 33 were going to need to be killed. And they had a surprisingly eager accomplice in Iris, who was also still pretty ticked at the Countess for having turned Donovan against her all those years ago.

But as badass as Ramona was, within minutes of entering that child’s nursery she was fleeing with a slashed face! Her much hoped-for infanticide was just going to have to wait.

Meanwhile, the ghosts were restless. The two dead Swedish ladies roamed into the Countess’ room and interrupted Donovan as he was sniffing her unmentionables because they were sad and bored from being trapped in the hotel now. So he sat them down and told them that basically the only thing for ghosts to do in this joint was to develop a passion for killing and/or terrorizing the living.

His big example (pun NOT intended) was a schoolteacher who had once committed suicide due to sadness and then laid in the tub for weeks and weeks before anyone found her. Now she haunts the 5th floor and makes the water taste bad in addition to murdering occasional guests. So I guess the moral of the story is that when you are a sad and lonely schoolteacher maybe you should consider becoming a murderer.

Also the ghost of Darren Criss was starting to get antsy, but what else is new.

The Swedish ladies ended up feeling very inspired by Donovan’s words of wisdom, so they decided to seduce a douchey business bro and then murder him with an ice pick. I loved when one of them yelled “fast and furious!” while jumping on his back, since for her this was going to be the next best thing to going on the Fast and Furious ride at Universal Studios. I truly hope the Universal in-house lawyers enjoyed this comparison. Anyway, after they murdered this guy, Alex walked in and was like, “Oh I have another task for you…” and it was basically just to have a gore-filled three-way with John Lowe so that he would think he was insane and he’d leave the hotel. But at the moment he was still out investigating a new serial killing that he had probably done:

The new Ten Commandments killing involved a priest stuffed with nickels (or whatever who cares), but I loved how John’s former partner was like, “Uh, could you please get out of here, psycho?” John of course had been fired, so his presence at these crime scenes just made him look more and more nuts. Which he almost definitely is! Anyway, he finally went back to the hotel and ended up having that gory sexual fiesta with the Swedes and before he knew it he was running through the hallways nude and covered in ghost blood.

But Alex’s plan had worked: John decided it was time to check out. So he packed up his clothes (while getting them caked in blood), but before he zipped up his rolling suitcase, the Countess’ baby crawled in it! Yes, this episode had a Ghoulies subplot basically, and I was NOT mad.

Liz Taylor was experiencing tons of angst for falling in love with Tristan, as it could be interpreted as a betrayal of her trust. But Liz Taylor figured that since she’d had a succession of hotties over the years, she wouldn’t mind if Liz Taylor bogarted just this one. Unfortunately, the Countess did not take this news well.

OH NOOOOOOOOO. Not Tristan!! He is amazing! And I suppose I feel sad for Liz Taylor who had finally found a hot hunk with whom to fall in love. But now I am also curious: Can dead vampires become ghosts? Or is that redundant? Basically I am wondering if this is the last we’ll see of Finn Wittrock this season, because I just don’t know if I could handle him not being on anymore. Finally… R.I.P. THAT MULLET.

Scarlett is still trying to live her life, no thanks to her terrible parents. When John Lowe finally moved back home she seemed very over the idea of having to live with him. And within minutes he had his gun out and was firing at an unseen creature in the kitchen like some kind of maniac. At this point it became terribly clear that she’s better off in the system. Bye, Scarlett! Live a long, full life away from your ghoul family!

Then Alex heard a distinctive monster coo coming from the bushes and ended up finding the Countess’ undead spawn!

Next thing we knew, Alex was cradling the thing back at the hotel and the Countess was very grateful for Alex’s help in returning it. And then we finally got the moment we’d been waiting ALL episode for… The reveal of the baby’s face!

But it just looked like a normal baby to me. I don’t know, I kind of figured they’d give it a scary or deformed face, but instead it just looks like a healthy, bouncy baby, no big deal. In fact, this baby could probably be in those Coppertone ads or Gerber commercials if the Countess gets the right headshots taken. Anyway, cute baby. Great job, everyone!

Just kidding, I am vomming through my fingers. But not on account of this episode in general! I really enjoyed this episode. The baby stuff, the AHS callbacks, the #butts, of course. All the #butts. Too many #butts? Never too many #butts. If there’s one thing that has always been true about this franchise, it’s that it’s always had an almost poignant devotion to #butts. Hard to argue with that! But yeah, great episode. It really crystallized a lot of the conflicts while keeping things as deranged as we demand. Plus, the #butts.

What did YOU think of “Room 33″?

American Horror Story: Hotel airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.