American Horror Story: Cult :: The Handmaid’s Tale

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In the two previous episodes of American Horror Story: Cult, we saw the beginnings of Kai’s new male-dominated regime as his Blue Shirts volunteers lined up to do whatever Kai asked of them. And that left Beverly Hope feeling … hopeless. And while she thought she had some support from the former lover of Valerie Solanas, well, she was in cahoots with Kai as well (although we don’t know how or why she came to be in league with him and will probably never know). The only purpose she served was to give the women in Kai’s cult the false hope that they could overtake him.

Instead, they’ve become his handmaids, put to work in the kitchen at The Butchery on Main, “baking fucking cookies” as Beverly spat out at him, with Ivy subjected to not just the servitude but the sexual harassment and general disrespect from Kai’s men. The only one keeping a cool head is Winter, who stops Ivy from gutting one of the men and tells her and Beverly that Kai is a good person, he’s just lost his way and they need to help him get back on track. But we learn in a flashback that Kai has already abused his power on the City Council by making veiled threats to one member about the safety of his children should he not vote to install Kai’s Blue Shirts as the town’s security force.

Winter relates a story about a time two years earlier when they were trolling religious fanatics on the dark web and an invitation appeared to visit Judgment House, which turned out to be one of those Christian haunted house attractions that hit people over the head with images of drug use, abortion and homosexuality to get them to reflect on their own nature and find a path to God. This place, run by a really creepy Rick Springfield, had all of those attractions except … it was all real. A woman was really bleeding to death from what was presented as an abortion. A drug addict was being pumped full of his favorite drugs of choice. A sexual deviant was going to be impaled by a row of knives. When Kai realized it was all real, he got the man off the table just before the knives were released. And he sent Winter for help, but you can’t get out of a locked house, and just before she became one of Pastor Charles’ exhibits, Kai intervened and gave the reverend a taste of his own medicine. And it turns out the pastor had misrepresented the “sins” of the people in his exhibit, so that just added fuel to Kai’s fire. So without Kai, Winter would not be here today. What she fails to understand is that without Kai she also wouldn’t have been placed in that situation to begin with. Beverly is willing to let her try to get through to Kai but if there isn’t a change by the end of the week, she’s taking him out. Cut off the head of the snake and the rest of his army will fall apart.

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But there is someone else interested in Kai’s welfare too — his brother, Dr. Rudy Vincent. And you might have noticed that Kai called him Vincent so his real name is Vincent Anderson. There’s no real reason given as to why he uses a different name for his professional life, but it may have been easier for Ally to put two and two together. But Rudy, or Vincent, decided to pay his little bro a visit, even offered to help him shoot some videos for the cause. But what he saw disturbed him so much that he went to Ally and revealed his familial relationship with Kai. And Winter. To say Ally took the news well would be a complete lie. But she believes he was working with Kai the whole time to drive her crazy, not Ivy. The doctor swears he wasn’t and that Kai must have broken into his office and looked through her case files. That may or may not be true as a later flashback is found to be unreliable. As much as he now believes and want to help Ally fight Kai, maybe get him committed, and get her son back, that confidence is shattered.

Shattered to the point that Ally invites Kai over for a bite to eat. Of course he suspects she will try to poison him and has some volunteers on stand-by to protect him and taste the food first. Ally assures him he’s not there for a murder. No, she has vital information for him but it’s not free. She wants one thing in return from him — her son. Insisting on having his word, his promise to do that, he seems to agree and she tells him that his brother is coming for him. Now, if I was Ally, I would have insisted on having Ozzy back in the house before revealing such vital information because when you make a deal with the Devil, can you really expect him to keep his word?

Unfortunately, his brother isn’t the only person he has to worry about. Winter is beginning to show signs of dismay with her brother and his decided lack of a real plan. Oh, but he has a plan: the two of them will start a new breed together. Umm, wait what? Winter is a bit grossed out with the whole incest thing but he assurs her it won’t be that way at all. Detective Samuels will, as Kai says, enter her while Kai enters Samuels, which will still make him the father in some twisted way. As the bizarro ceremony proceeds, Samuels (who was having a relationship with Harrison) is having … difficulties below the belt and Winter has just had enough. This scene did have a moment of humor when Kai was talking about the messiahs they’d create and Winter questioned him about the plurality of the word since the whole point of a messiah is that there’s only one.

But for her insubordination, Winter is forced do to litter pick-up along the roadway. Samuels drives up to bring her lunch and then tells her there’s more trash in the trunk to scatter because Kai doesn’t believe in global warming. Okay, so she’s not picking up trash, she’s actually littering. The orange prison jumpsuit and dunce cap are a nice touch. When Winter asks Samuels why he’s so devoted to Kai, he tells her how Kai helped him as well, helped him realize that he was having problems with women because he needed a man. Samuels said he wasn’t gay and Kai told him to stop restricting himself to labels. When Samuels had sex with women, they took a little of his power. Sex with a man would just be an exchange of power, nothing lost … and Kai proceeded to have sex with Samuels. To which Winter retorted, “You’re totally gay.” That set Samuels off to the point that he was going to try again to make that baby with her right there in the car and the only way he could perform was with his hands around her throat. But Winter fought back, managed to get his gun and shot him right between the eyes. And so begins the end of season bloodbath.

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Back at Kai’s headquarters, his clown posse is lined up in a circle as two people are brought in, bags over their heads. One is obviously Beverly, the other it turns out is Vincent. Kai knows his plan but appeals to his family bond to make him put down his guard. Vincent talks about the pinkie power he came up with that was their own special brotherly thing. Pinkies joined, Kai suddenly lopped off his brothers pinkie and then stabbed him in the neck. Another one bites the dust. Beverly, however, is a little more feisty, not afraid to talk back to Kai, calling him a “turd” (which Winter also called Samuels before she killed him), reminding him that he went back on his word to her about an equal partnership. At this point, she didn’t care if he killed her because she just wanted off this crazy train. Beverly, though, is still unsure why Kai has put her in this position. Turns out his dear sister told him the story of how Beverly came and shot Samuels in the head while she was peacefully eating her gruel. Kai decided death was too good for her so he had his men take her to isolation, ending this ceremony with a speech about loyalty as each member of the group removed their masks. But who is that in the mask Beverly once wore?

Why it’s new cult member Ally. But this is the new and improved Ally 2.0 so we can expect she’s there to do a little more than just worship at Kai’s feet.

For any literary fans out there, the episode’s title, “Winter of Our Discontent”, has a double meaning. The play on words of course as Winter’s discontent with her brother is growing. But it’s also the title of a John Steinbeck novel about a family conflict that ends in death, very much like this episode. RIP Dr. Vincent. We barely knew ye.

American Horror Story: Cult airs Tuesdays at 10 PM on FX.

What did you think of this episode? What is Ally up to? Who dies next? Sound off in the comments below!