"The Morning After" – American Horror Story S08E02 Review

Wow. Just when you thought American Horror Story couldn't go any lower. Or maybe you didn't think it was that low. Neither did I. It's not that the episode was particularly reprehensible or twisted or sick or horrifying. They do that every season, so same-old same-old. It was just that there wasn't any redeeming quality to what happened in "The Morning After".

I could recap and will, but there isn't that much to tell. Tim and Emily keep having their forbidden affair. Michael starts winnowing out those who will go to Sanctuary and those who won't. He starts with Gallant (Evan Peters) because... well, it's Evan Peters. Rubber Man from the first season is running around, and has anal sex with Gallant. Which, since Rubber Man in season 1 was Tate Langdon, played by Evan Peters, I suppose there's a very mild joke in having Peters literally screw himself. Evie sees them together and tattles to Miriam.

Gallant figures Michael is Rubber Man. Wilhelmina figures Gallant and Michael are planning something. So she has Miriam whip Gallant. Gallant gets off on the pain so she stops, and Michael comes in later and tells Gallant he wouldn't have sex with him if he was the last man on Earth, and releases him. After confronting Evie, Gallant links back up with Rubber Man, still thinks he's Michael, and stabs him. Only for Michael to walk in and Gallant to discover that he killed Evie.

Oh, and Wilhelmina finds Tim and Emily together. She has her servant (Erika Ervin) and Miriam take them to a lower level to be shot. Tim grabs a gun and shoots Miriam in the stomach before the servant knocks her out. Miriam staggers outside and finds wiring and electrical parts in her stomach. Whether she knows that she's an... android? isn't clear. Since we never got that clear an answer of when the season premiere took place, we don't know if androids are standard or state-of-the-art or antiquated.

"The Morning After" pretty much failed on any promise that last week's premiere had. Michael questioning the survivors could have been a reason to reveal their backstories. All we learn is Coco is an idiot, and Dinah is obsessed with the past. We also get a flashback scene of Evie having a party to find Gallant a husband, and Gallant coming in wearing biker leathers and drinking bisque through a tube in his gas mask.

Oh, we do learn that Wilhelmina has… spinal bifida, I think.

"The Morning After" is basically an excuse to show off Gallant is gay. And to bring in Rubber Man, a fan favorite (?) from season 1. He hangs from the ceiling in one shot, and Michael apparently makes Gallant see Evie as Rubber Man. Or Rubber Man can transpose himself with Evie. Or something.

There's a bit of whipping and beating going on. But it doesn't seem to serve any purpose. We have no idea why Rubber Man is hanging around Michael. Apparently Michael has supernatural powers, but we already pretty much knew that from season 1 when they said he was the Anti-Christ. American Horror Story isn't the deepest story-telling in the world, but typically among all the weirdness it seems to have some kind of message that Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk are trying to send. If there was a message this week, I couldn't find it.

Like last week. It wasn't a great episode, but at least it told the well-worn tale of how people suck in a crisis. This week, there didn't seem to be any tale. It was just weirdness and kinky sex for the purpose of showing weirdness and kinky sex.

It's not even the sex. To paraphrase a line from the Rifftrax live show of Manos: The Hands of Fate, they've managed to make sexiness unsexy.

Take Emily finding snakes in her closet. And then Miriam killing them and serving them as snake soup. And then the snakes coming back to life, reassembling themselves, and crawling out of the bowls. Why? Who knows? Why were the snakes in Emily's closet in the first place? And then why and how did they come back to life? Does Michael have some magical power over snakes? If so, why bother using it in such a manner? Are they robot snakes, since Miriam is a robot badass? Don't know, don't care. I guess it has something to do with the "Coven" season of AHS. But... it has no meaning in this season's context. Or that season.

So overall, if you like the Murphy/Falchuk school of horror, then "The Morning After" is for you. If you're after something deeper--and American Horror Story is rarely that deep at the best of times--then you'll probably be bored.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?