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Let’s Talk About ‘Blue Moon’:
- In 1954, the aliens force President Eisenhower to sign a treaty to prove he was on board in case he tries to back out.
- Two hundred, ninety-eight ‘incursions’ by 1957, one of the first being a nine-year-old girl from Topeka, Kansas, Caroline Gibbons.
- An emissary named Valiant Thor arrives, the first contact with the aliens since the signing of the treaty, to show Eisenhower a sample of the tech the aliens are going to provide.
- Mamie Eisenhower is trying to show up Eleanor Roosevelt with her idea of making traditionally child-related events suitable for adults like birthday parties and Halloween.
- Ike hears bizarre screams coming through the White House ventilation system and makes a terrifying discovery in a sub-basement.
- Mamie has formed a too close friendship with Valiant, who insists she call him Val after he samples her fudge.
- Ike discovers Mamie and Val having a very close encounter.
- Marilyn Monroe is jabbering about the alien abductions on a movie set, and Nixon runs an idea up the flag pole to deal with the situation.
- With space below the White House becoming crowded with abductees, Eisenhower is forced into a plan to give the aliens more space in an area not far from Las Vegas, Nevada.
- In the present, Troy gives birth and lives. The baby, the best one yet according to the attendings, is quickly dispatched.
- Calico tries to get the four friends with the program and shows them her own safe space — the soundstage where the Apollo moon landing was filmed.
- Cal goes into labor, and Troy wants to make sure their baby survives. But will Cal?
There was a lot crammed into this week’s penultimate episode of the season, and surprisingly no one died. At least not any of the major players as often happens as we rush to the season finale of American Horror Story. And with just one episode left of the shortest story told on the series, how in the heck are they going to wrap all this up?
1954
We’re back with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, aka Ike, with the alien treaty before him and an ‘occupied’ Mamie Eisenhower imploring him to sign, or else they’re going to give all of their wondrous technology to the Russians. Ike wants to know why he has to sign the paper if they already have an agreement, and he’s told that it’s basically leverage should he renege on his promises to them. They will present the signed document to the American people to prove he was on board with their plans if he tries anything to scuttle the agreement. With a metaphorical gun to his head, he signs and the abductions begin almost immediately, the first taking place in Topeka, Kansas where one abductee was a nine-year-old girl named Caroline Gibbons.
1957
In three years, there have been 298 ‘incursions’ as Nixon calls them, and not a single word or contact from the aliens. Was the president played? Perhaps by design or just coincidence, an emissary arrives named Valiant Thor, who is neither human nor alien … he appears to be mechanical as he reveals some sort of mechanical brain under his scalp. He has come to show their partners the new species they have created, neither human nor … them, but one that can survive on Earth. He also presents them with a glimpse of the new technology they will be receiving — a hand-held computing device more powerful than the new IBM computer that currently takes up an entire room (the device looks like an iPhone). This is the future.
While Mamie is decorating the White House for Halloween — another event she’s trying to show isn’t just for children — Ike hears odd screams coming through the HVAC system in the White House. Venturing down into a sub-basement, he discovers a terrible truth: this is where the abductees have been taken. Ike had no idea about the tunnels under the White House that were built in case of a nuclear strike, and it seems the best place for the aliens to perform their experiments. Valiant shows up and tells him creating a hybrid has been difficult, and he can sense the president is really not on board with this happening under his home. Valient warns him though that his people are only telling him they’ll give the tech to the Russians. They want nothing to do with them since they are about a decade behind the US, but if Eisenhower goes back on the agreement, they will just take what they want by force. Ike sees another subject and immediately recognizes her as Caroline Gibbons.
Valiant has the ventilation system fixed so they can’t hear the screams in the residenc above, and Mamie is tired of Ike’s dour attitude. If he’s so upset, then give the aliens someplace else to go and do their thing, perhaps that place in Nevada. A light bulb goes off over his head, and he signs an executive order creating Area 51 … reminding the men in the room that what just happened didn’t happen, and no one outside of that room will ever know for as long as the republic stands. Unfortunately for Ike, he finds Mamie and her new friend Val having their own close encounter, but Mamie brushes it off as the same as when Ike ccaught her in the bathtub with her ‘personal massager’. Val is a machine so what’s the big deal? Plus, he’s also a visiting dignitary so she gave her body for the national cause.
1962
Eisenhower is no longer president, but his actions follow him into his personal life as Marilyn Monroe rants on a movie set about the aliens and people being taken up into flying saucers, and how Eisenhower knew about it. It’s assumed JFK told her this information, but does he know she’s revealing it publicly? Ike says no one will take her seriously because they know she’s on pills and drinking, and Nixon suggests that no one would question something happening to her because of that history. Eisenhower is not going to sanction murder, and Nixon says he wasn’t asking for Ike’s blessing, just floating the idea. But if any of this gets out, and it only takes one reporter to take her seriously, then his aspirations of running for president again are destroyed. Of course Nixon is only thinking of himself.
At her bungalow, Marilyn tries to call Jack (Kennedy) but the White House won’t put her through. The power suddenly goes out, and an alien hand touches her shoulder. She’s then attacked by the Men In Black, and it is implied that they forced a bottle of pills down her throat. With Marilyn’s death in the papers, Nixon calls JFK to offer his condolences but sincerity is not Nixon’s strong popint. He tells Kennedy that Marilyn knew a lot of things she shouldn’t have, and that he needs to watch the pillow talk with whomever he beds next.
One year later, a motorcade arrives at Area 51 with Eisenhower, Nixon and new president Lyndon Johnson. Valiant introduces himself to Johnson, who says his name is Calamity Jane, and Val says he may need to retain that sense of humor after he sees what he sees. Inside, they are shown a room full of containers with hybrid babies. Eisenhower can only say, ‘What have I done?’
The Present
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Troy is about to give birth but he keeps asking if he’s going to die. The hybrid attending to him assures him the birth will be painless and he will not die. Troy realizes they are now communicating telepathically, but he’s not sure how. The hybrid cuts open his belly and removes a large sack. An apparently human nurse cuts the sack open and removes the baby. It’s actually kind of cute with it’s big alien eyes. The nurse says this is the best one yet but the physical abnormalities are troubling (we never see what she’s talking about). Troy wants to hold it but the nurse slits the baby’s throat and they put it in a tank of water. Troy manages to get off the table but they sedate him again.
Some time later he’s back with his friends and tells them what happened. He felt connected to the baby and he didn’t care what it was, it was his. Now he wants them all to escape so their babies won’t be murdered but Calico tells them the delusion of escape id unfounded. She then reveals that they are in Area 51 and it’s existed long before them, and no one has ever escaped. They are at the mercy of the military industrial complex and they cannot win. They ask Calico how many babies she’s had, and she replies she’s had two or three ‘pups’ a year since 1969. ‘It’s best to just consider yourself a mongrel,’ she tells them. Their job now, their gift to progress is having these babies, and not to worry because you stop caring after the first few. To help them all deal with this information, Calico offers to take them to her ‘safe space’. It’s how she keeps from going insane. She takes them to a room which turns out to be the soundstage where the Apollo moon landing was faked in 1969, around the time Calico was abducted.
1969
Calico was working at a bar in Vegas as a waitress and ‘good time girl’. One night she spied Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in a booth when they should have been in space. She joins them and they talk about the rehearsals for the landing, and the line Armstrong was supposed to say: ‘That’s one giant leep for mankind.’ Aldrin thought the line sucked, so he fed Neil the line he eventually spoke when he stepped foot on ‘the moon’ and the director loved it. They all ended up in a room together and before she knew it, the Men in Black arrived and sedated her, and when she woke up she was pregnant and alone at Area 51. She managed to get herself out of the white room and stumbled into the studio where she saw Stanley Kubrick giving Armstrong directions. Richard Nixon was a huge fan of Dr. Strangelove, and after the ‘moon landing’ was such a success, Kubrick got a lifetime contract at Warner Bros. with no restrictions (well, that explains a lot!). The moon landing was faked to help prepare the people for the coming technological advances because you can’t just start giving them Velcro and computers without a lot of questions being asked. Armstrong and Aldrin flew to Hawaii to make their big return ‘from space’ and Calico lost her first baby … if you can call it that. And she’s been stuck in Area 51 ever since. But it’s nice to reminisce with someone other than Steve Jobs.
Back in the present, Cal is going into labor but he’s not ready for them to take his baby (he must have a psychic connection because he keeps referring to it as ‘her’). He wants more time after what happened with Troy. But Troy has a plan, and they go to the soundstage where he shows Cal the tool used to cut him open. He’s sure he knows the entire procedure for removing the baby, so he is not going to let them tear their family apart. He prepares Cal and tells him to try to not scream (except he has none of the painkillers or sedatives they used on him). But he proceeds to cut Cal’s belly open and remove the sack. (He doesn’t seem to have a plan for sewing Cal closed, but … details.) He cuts the baby out of the sack and they are in love with the creature. Cal is holding it when tentacles suddenly extend from the lower half of the baby and attach to Cal’s face while Troy struggle to extricate the creature from his boyfriend’s head.
Only one episode left, and I have no idea how this is all going to play out.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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