How does Fiona make FrankenKyle useful? By teaching him gin rummy, obvi.

WELL, THEN. Hold on to your pointy hats, witches. After last week’s kind of jumbled and very meh episode, the war is ON. If you made it through this episode without at least one freakout, you might be so dead that even Misty can’t help you out. Let’s get cracking.

We start with a flashback montage to Creepy Hank’s childhood, where his dad takes him out into the woods to teach him how to hunt… witches, obviously. Can you imagine the papers that seventh grade Hank had to write about his summer vacation? “This summer, my dad taught me how to shoot witches in the head to rid the world of ultimate evil!” Anyway, Hank feels kind of bad about shooting Stereotype Witch (complete with yellow teeth, a big old corset, and a Bellatrix Lestrange hairdo) until she tries to set him on fire and burns up his dad’s arm, who puts a bullet between her eyes and reminds his son to “show no mercy.” Aw, father-son bonding.

In present day, Fiona is unsatisfied with her most recent UPS delivery, so she tries to get a full refund on Delphine’s head by returning her to Marie’s salon. There, all she finds is her resident coven-deserter, Queenie; a day-drinking Marie Laveau who refuses to form an alliance against the threat of witch hunters (um, probably because she’s the one trying to hire them); and Delphine’s poor body with its sad little tiger sweatshirt. (I literally cannot with the tiger sweatshirt.) Re: the alliance, Delphine’s head screams, “Are you insane?!” to which Marie slurs, “What the head said,” and I love this show. Fiona leaves with no new friends and Marie sends Queenie off to burn Delphine’s head. Also, do you think they sell Marie’s throne at Restoration Hardware?

Meanwhile, Cordelia is just trying to make some breakfast when she destroys an entire carton of eggs. Good thing Myrtle’s in the kitchen and can help clean up! Nope, she’s standing in a corner being deliberately unhelpful and saying weird shit to Cordelia, like that she’s always considered her to be a daughter and that she had nothing to do with her attack. Cordelia readily believes her, which, sure. Whatever. Shouldn’t she be concerned about other things, like the fact that she hasn’t seen her creepy husband in weeks?

Said Creepy Hank is at Bitch Hunter Headquarters, run by his dad, where we find out that not only is he not officially a witch hunter (he’s really just supposed to be gathering intel), he SUCKS at it. Two other people had to die as a result of Kaylee’s murder, his father tells him, which… I mean, you were the one who killed those two, so maybe get off your high horse. They did happen to authorize Cordelia’s acid facial, though, and know about his deals with Marie. We all kind of knew Hank was terrible at his job (if he were good at it, the show would have been over in like, one episode), but it’s nice to get some confirmation. He also has an ominous, terrifying oath to deliver, because of course he does.

Back at the “school,” Myrtle is kissing and making up with the Council after they, um, burned her at the stake for no reason. Myrtle has donned the world’s most fabulous sheer sparkly gloves and serves up melon balls like a good little housewife that are so CLEARLY poisoned I wasn’t even sure if I needed to write that. After telling them Misty is definitely the future of the coven, she MELON BALLS THE COUNCIL’S EYES (and, as we later found out, CHOPPED THEM UP AND MADE THEIR SEVERED LIMBS HIGH FIVE EACH OTHER) so that she can give an anonymous organ donation to Cordelia. Um, that’s really sweet?! Fiona arrives home and the two have a patented AHS Diva Off™ where Fiona hilariously threatens to exile Myrtle to Paramus, NEW JERSEY (which actually would be the worst fate ever) and Myrtle says the Council isn’t “seeing anyone right now” (LOL) until Cordelia goes back to being Boring Cordelia and puts a stop to it because witch hunters are a bigger concern yadda yadda. Also, now that she can see, she lost the power to read people’s memories by touching them, and I don’t care about that at all.

Madison and Zoe are back in the world’s worst hospital that has no staff and horrible lighting, and they’re looking for Nan, who’s been trying to see Luke and getting repeatedly cockblocked by Patti. The girls explain to Patti that Nan is clairvoyant (“WE’RE WITCHES. Hadn’t you figured that out yet?!” Madison yells at Patti, and she has a point), and then PATTI FINALLY SINGS (!!!!!!) and the power of song makes her decide that she loves Nan after all. That doesn’t last long, though, when Nan reads Luke’s mind and realizes some divine entity is telling him that Patti killed his dad for cheating on her by filling his car with BEES (NOT THE BEEEES!). Patti banishes Nan from the room and as soon as Luke opens his eyes, she smothers him. That poor fucking kid. He literally cannot OPEN HIS EYES without getting attacked again.

Over at Marie’s, it turns out Queenie hasn’t burned Delphine’s head at all – she’s propped her up on a table for some sensitivity training, which obviously means making her watch Roots and B*A*P*S (and come on, we were ALL waiting for her to mention Precious). Delphine HATES this, and, in what was apparently a bit of improvised genius, Kathy Bates AD-LIBBED and sang Dixie desperately as just a severed head. I cannot. I can’t. So much joy.

Guys! There’s an actual LESSON going on at the school! It seems like, since Misty’s necromancy usually knocks her the fuck out and is near impossible to control, Cordelia is teaching her how to do the thing properly when Hank shows up, drunk and smelling like bullshit per usual. Just prior to this, he was just eating Chinese food and hating his mean old dad when he started getting voo-dooed from afar, and was on the edge of death before Marie reminded him that he has a job to do and heads to deliver. He tries to reason with Cordelia, who tells him that “his shit is in a box in the closet” (and to the left) before telling him to get out. He runs into Fiona on his way, armed with a female attack dog, and she overturns his box with a flick of her finger and goes on her merry way, only to find Frankenkyle (how has she not discovered him before?) Frankenkyle LOVES the dog, but is a little too much of a hugger, and all of a sudden, the poor pup is dead on the floor. If he hugs that hard, how did anybody survive the zombie three-way?! Anyway, Fiona fixes Kyle up somewhat and teaches him how to play gin rummy, reasoning that the coven “needs an attack dog.” Slick, Goode.

After all of that craziness, we are treated to a final sequence, set to “Oh Freedom,” the likes of which we’ve certainly never seen before. Hank shows up, fully armed, but not at the Academy – at Cornrow City. He lays waste to the entire salon, shooting Queenie in the stomach, and goes for Marie, but the human voodoo doll is ready to rock, and Queenie blows off the back of her own skull, plus Hank’s, to save Marie. Knowing this show, that won’t be the last we see of Queenie – at least, I hope not, but what a fucking death scene. Marie realizes that the shit hath hitteth the fan-eth, and heads to the Academy, trite and with her shot arm wrapped in a sling. Witches be coming together, bitches. This whole sequence was insane to watch – not only did we have the bloodbath at Marie’s, but this is when we saw Patti kill her son, Hank’s awful dad grieve his, and hilariously enough, Delphine getting deeply emotional over footage of civil rights riots. AHS, you’re killing it.

It seems cruel to give us such a face-melting episode as the mid-season finale, but that’s the way the melon balls, ammiright? Since we won’t have a new episode until January 8 (ughhh!!), this recap will also be taking a break, but never fear- the tenth episode of the season will be the Stevie Nicks-palooza, and I can’t fucking wait. See you in the new year, Coven, and the two people who read this!