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Despite the warning from Belle and Austin, bodies are piling up in P-Town and the new Chief of Police is getting suspicious, especially with all the newcomers in town. Chief Burleson pays a visit to Harry and family at the top of the episode, asking to take young Alma to the station for questioning after being seen eating a rabbit in the cemetery. Her mother Doris had just finished cleaning the blood off of her, but the stress gave her some false labor pains and she ended up being rushed to the hospital in Hyannis, leaving Harry and Alma to fend for themselves.
But Harry isn’t feeling like the best dad in the world now that his daughter is hooked on the pills, but having a little private time with her revealed a couple of things — she’s very hungry, she doesn’t care anything about growing up and getting married and having children, she just wants to play music, and she feels they don’t need Doris because she really has no talent when it comes to her interior design. Can’t argue with that. But they also can’t tell her about the pills or the side effects. Harry’s issue is that he can take them, work for three months and have a pile of scripts ready to go so that he can be off of the pills the rest of the year, but Alma will have to take them every day to maintain her musical career. And he’s okay with that as long as she doesn’t kill anyone to feed, he has to be the one to bring her the blood so that if he gets caught, he’s the one who will take the fall.
After their dinner at The Muse, Harry went on a solo blood run, finding a Craigslist seller to hit. But he was the one who got hit, in the head, and tied up in the basement, finding himself about to be the star of a porno snuff film. While the couple were fiddling with the camera, Harry had enough time to remove his caps and chew through the bindings, surprising his captors, tearing out the woman’s throat and letting the guy bleed out after shooting him, taking a Thermos of blood home to Alma. But things get even more complicated as a suspicious Ursula travels to the cape to find out exactly how and why Harry has become such a good writer, different than anything else he’s ever written. Oh, and Quentin Tarantino wants Harry to write his very first limited series which has already been greenlit by Hulu. But Ursula is determined to find out what has gotten into Harry.
Staying in town for a few days, Ursula grabs dinner at The Muse, the only place in town open year round. First she’s annoyed by the low rent Captain & Tennille act put on by Austin and Belle, and then she’s further annoyed by Mickey. She insults the pair into stopping their song, and then she has no time for Mickey after he tells her he’s a writer and wants to show her his scripts. She leaves without finishing her dinner, but the next morning Mickey catches up to her on the beach with his scripts in hand. She finally agrees to read them, or toss them in the fireplace, but he’s sure after she reads a few pages she’ll be sold. She finally does and is shocked by his talent, which only makes her even more curious as to what’s going on in Provincetown.
Things begin to go downhill quickly as Austin, Belle and Harry go on a run and find themselves at a veritable smorgasbord, with one victim each. But Austin and Belle catch Harry draining the blood from his feed into a Thermos, and on the way home Belle pulls a gun on Harry and asks who the blood is for. He admits it’s for Alma, which is bad enough, but when they learns she’s just nine-years-old, they insist that he stop giving her the pills, but after he exits the car it seems his fate is sealed.
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Ursula confronts Mickey with his scripts and wants to know how some meth head can turn out these scripts that are ready to go into production without so much as a rewrite. He tells her about the pills, but doesn’t have a chance to tell her about the side effects because all she can see now is green, believing she can start her own boutique agency with hand-picked clients to whom she will give the pills. She must know how they’re made and who makes them. Mickey’s day begins to spiral as Ursula demands he bring her some pills, then he kills a townie on the beach (after almost being killed himself during the scuffle), unaware that the killing was witneesed from afar by interior designer Holden Vaughn who told the police chief he believed it was a gay bashing, and is confronted by Belle in his shack who tells him he has to kill the agent … because she insulted her singing among other things.
Mickey does steal some pills from Belle, but in order to not be killed himself he goes to Ursula’s hotel room. She’s quite aware why he’s there, and he even asks if she can recommend another agent since she’ll be dead. But she gives him the news that she’s gotten him a job writing the remake of the Speed Racer movie. And not only that, but she insists that he take her to the person who makes the pills, known as The Chemist. He does, reluctantly, and The Chemist isn’t thrilled to have visitors on her doorstep. But Ursula is nothing if not persistent, so she lets them in and listens to Ursula’s deal about how rich she can make The Chemist. The Chemist then promptly pays a visit to Belle and Austin telling them about the deal — which she didn’t take because she doesn’t like strangers — and tells Belle and Austin to kill the agent. And Mickey. And Harry. And his wife and kids.
That night, Harry says he’s going to visit Doris (but I think he has to go on another solo blood run because he can’t let Belle and Austin know about Alma, and baby girl is hungry … again), so he puts Ursula in charge of babysitting. Ursula decides to go for a nap instead, leaving Alma to read and study. But a knock on the door reveals Chief Burleson there to talk to Alma (she was watching the house and saw Harry leave). She reveals to Alma that she isn’t as oblivious to what’s going on as everyone thinks she is, but the bodies piling up on the beach are getting to be a bit much. She tells Alma she doesn’t hold her responsible because she’s just a child, but she needs to know why this is happening. Alma asks her if she’s ever had a dream, and Burleson tells her about how she wanted to be some type of military ranger, the first female to do so. Alma asks how many people she’d kill to make that dream come true, but when Burleson says she wouldn’t kill anyone, Alma tells her she’d kill everyone if she had too. And then Alma suddenly slashes Burleson’s throat, making a mess on the carpet that’s going to be hard to explain to Doris.
When Harry comes home, Alma and Ursula are sitting at the bar between the kitchen and living room playing cards. He’s shocked to find the police chief splayed across the coffee table, blood draining into some bowls, and Ursula calming telling him they need to have a talk. It should be an interesting chat indeed.
This was another terrific episode filled with horror and humor, particularly Leslie Grossman’s put-downs and Denis O’Hare describing the untalented creatures roaming town as ‘those pale strange homeless creatures wearing the AIDS-era couture’. And I have to say it again — Macaulay Culkin is just terrific as Mickey. I’m sure he was pretty much written off by Hollywood, but he’s really proven himself to be such a good actor here, giving Mickey so much warmth. Mickey is actually one character this season you’re rooting for to make it through all of this in one piece. Kudos to Ryan Murphy for taking a chance on him. It’s paying off beautifully.
What did you think of the season premiere? Sound off in the comments below!
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