Cute Pilgrim hat, Zo.

It’s so good to be back. A week without AHS is the absolute worst. Let’s agree to never do that again, okay? I mean, I get that it was Thanksgiving the next day, but I’m fucking thankful for this hot mess show, so we should have celebrated with a new episode. Shall we?

Our opening this week finds Queenie, taking a midnight stroll under the sketchiest bridge in all of existence, with Madison and Zoe hot on her heels. At first it looked like Queenie was just wandering around looking for a tussle, but all of a sudden she murders the shit out of a guy (a guy who, she reveals, is a rapist) and TEARS HIS HEART OUT OF HIS CHEST to give to Marie Laveau for a voodoo potion. Hello. If you’re going to be off the air for a week, you gotta bring it when you come back. Plus, you gotta pay the troll toll somehow, right?

Meanwhile, Fiona is sulking and puking but doing it fabulously, and reminisces about her last meeting with her ghostly, serial killer gentleman lover, the Axeman. (Does anyone deliver a monologue like Jessica Lange? The correct answer: no.) She starts to worry that no one will miss her, having the saddest fantasy of all time wherein Cordelia tells her mother to kick it before Thanksgiving so no one has to suffer through her inedible stuffing. Damn. The Axeman still seems pretty into her, even though she’s absolutely filled with cancer, so that’s a… plus?

Finally, we get some LuPone back in our lives. She’s apparently been spending her time licking Luke’s wounds and yelling at him for letting Nan “do this to him” (I guess she was watching Fox News while, I don’t know, zombies were trying to murder her son). She has to punish him, I guess, so she bitchslaps him and sits him down in the tub for a goddamn BLEACH ENEMA, because he’s unclean from the inside out. God. Ryan Murphy loves women, but he really hates mothers. 

Boring Cordelia has gotten really extreme since her acid facial, and now she’s gathering her students and giving them a class on killing the Supreme (literally, the ONLY time we’ve seen Cordelia teach anybody anything even though this building is technically a school). We still don’t know who the next Supreme is, but Fiona needs to go before we can find out, which had better not happen because this show without Fiona is kind of like a grilled cheese with no butter on it. (I will always find a way to bring butter into this.) In the midst of this murder-plotting, Fleetwitch Mac shows up (damn you Jezebel for thinking of that before I did!), freaking out about how a guy with a gun was creeping outside of her Love Shack and she and Muddy Myrtle barely made it out alive. Cordelia uses her dumb hand-holding power and gets an spectacularly done montage of Misty’s botched burning, and immediately invites her to join the coven, because necromancy is pretty fancy. Myrtle takes everything one step further, declaring this sweaty hippie the new Supreme, which seems pretty rash, but let’s roll with that.

FrankenKyle is upstairs, playing LeapFrog games on Zoe’s computer and having the best reaction shots to everything, especially headphones, but Zoe and Madison have work to do, and that work involves wearing hilarious red robes and black lace veils that look like rejected Melisandre from Game of Thrones while performing some sketchy ceremony called The Sacred Taking. (During the ceremony, Myrtle starts shouting about their poor ancestors traveling in covered wagons without so much as a charcuterie platter or a bidet, which is both completely random and straight up hysterical. I hope Misty’s Mud Bath was organic or she is going to LOSE IT.) The set-up for this involves thoroughly scaring the fuck out of Fiona by sending in Madison and Myrtle, two people she definitely saw die. Madison just dances around in a fantastic red dress and makes Fiona feel inadequate, while Myrtle takes it one step further by convincing Fiona to swallow a bottle of pills rather than burn at the stake. Fiona fires back that she finally found someone who loves her, but Myrtle just tells her that the Axeman is bound to leave her as she gets sicker, because Myrtle is fucking stone cold. Fiona, after delivering yet another incredible soliloquy about her affairs at Woodstock and her policy of never leaving a party too late, wraps her hair in an incredible turban, throws on a giant fur coat, and settles in to die. Yeah, okay. Like the one person they’re going to for real kill on this show is Jessica Lange. Meanwhile, Myrtle STEALS HER JEWELRY AND LEAVES because Myrtle is legitimately the worst ever. We don’t have to worry about Fiona for a very long time, because Deus Ex Ghost Spalding shows up. Ghost Spalding is incredibly sassy, and he lets Fiona know that everyone is plotting against her, so technically, she has two deaths to avenge. Fiona, with her skin too perfect to be dying from anything besides too much fabulousness, pukes up her pills and heads for the warpath.

Nan heads over to Luke’s house to free him from his mother’s clutches, only to find him TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET, but they’re stopped by Patti, who’s about to break into a rousing rendition of “Rose’s Turn” before she gets gunned down by a sniper rifle that also clips Luke in the head. When the camera pans outside, we see a shadowy figure who is definitely Creepy Hank. (Side note: at this point in the episode my boyfriend decided to start calling Creepy Hank Hank Mardukas, because yeah.) She heads downstairs, where Myrtle is throwing the worst party ever and boring everyone to death with sad piano music, and heads directly for what is the GREATEST cigarette dispenser of all time. They figure out what’s happening next door, though, and Fiona heads right over, bringing Misty along and asking her to quickly help out her friend Patti. Cordelia heads outside to find a “blessed silver bullet,” so she knows there’s a witch sniper running around, but not that it’s Hank.

By the way, over at Marie’s house, Queenie brings Delphine a pity burger, but Marie isn’t terribly happy that Queenie is feeding the animals. Once Queenie leaves, Delphine goes right back to her racist ways (so was she just sucking up to Queenie and hiding this side of herself, or does she just not give any fucks anymore about actually trying to change? Now that she’s locked in a cage and being bled all the time, it’s probably the latter). It’s probably not a good idea to call Marie a “Negress,” no matter how racist you are, since Marie’s response is just to chop off Delphine’s hand and throw it away like a burger wrapper. DAAAAAAMN.

FrankenKyle and his derpy face are patiently waiting upstairs when Zoe heads up, and he manages to eke out “I love you,” which… sure. I’m sure a zombie Frankenman is totally in touch with his deeper emotions. Hiding around the corner is poor Madison, though, all of a sudden left out of the zombie three-way. Bummer. Everyone is bonding this morning – Fiona tells Cordelia over breakfast that she’s so proud of her for trying to kill her, to which Cordelia responds,  “If I knew how easy it was to win your approval, I would have made an attempt on your life way before now.” For once, she’s funny. They’re quickly interrupted by a special delivery (WHAT’S IN THE BOOOOOOX) of DELPHINE’S STILL ALIVE HEAD! I didn’t know anyone could top Gywnnie’s head in a box. I WAS WRONG.

I couldn’t be happier to have Coven back this week. This episode was a little disjointed and weird, but between all of the the heart (and jewelry) thievery, hands and heads flying, and Hank Mardukas, I’m pretty satisfied. We don’t have much left in this season, so let’s savor it while we can. And, if you need a fix, AHS: Asylum will be on Netflix on December 7! Relive the glory days of Not Boring Sarah Paulson, everybody, and let’s hope Coven‘s Christmas episode is equally as glorious as Asylum‘s.