American Horror Story: Coven Recap Episode 6 “The Axeman Cometh”

By: Urethra Franklin

It’s New Orleans in 1919. The Axeman is a charming handsome fellow in a suit & hat, and he carries his axe in a saxophone case.  He has been on a killing spree after taunting & eluding the police for months. He sent a letter to newspapers announcing his plans to kill on Tuesday night, and swears that if you play jazz, your ass won’t get axed. The student witches at Miss Robichaux’s Academy plan to ignore his warnings because they are powerful Feminist Witches. The Axeman is casually stalking the neighborhood, and the sounds of jazz music fill the air except for the opera music blaring from the Academy. #NoHipHop.  All the student witches are dressed in dark hooded cloaks and are waiting for him. They ambush him and repeatedly stab him to death, and then they trapped his spirit within the Academy’s walls…. Did you notice the student witch reading from the newspaper looked like Meryl Streep? It was her daughter!!!

It’s present day and Zoe is going through Madison’s things looking for clues about her disappearance. A mini-bottle of vodka falls and rolls into the closet where Zoe finds a hidden compartment concealing a spirit board, student journals & pictures for the Academy Class of 1919…. While looking at the old photos Nan, Queenie, & Zoe notice how populated the school once was.  They conclude that the Salem witches are a dying breed, especially within their own Coven. They can’t talk to Fiona because she sets witches on fire. #BurnWitchBurn.  Zoe takes charge, and they make pact to watch each other’s back followed with a shot of absinthe, the drink of the Divine.

Zoe wants to find Madison using the spirit board, but Queenie warns against it because it could RELEASE a spirit. Zombie slayer Zoe is a #ToughWitch now and tells Queenie to “witch up”.  They start asking questions to the spirit board.  They make contact and get answers from a spirit, and he thinks they are the girls from 1919 that killed him. The session ends with a spelled out answer of “AXEMAN”, and Queenie immediately shuts down the session and warns Zoe that she better know who she is talking to.

Fiona is at the hospital enduring chemotherapy treatment. She can hear the thoughts of the patients around her, and is tormented by their dying thoughts. She has NEVER had this mind reading power before, and thinks it may be the effects of her medication. She yanks out the needle from her arm to leave because it is “noisy”. The doctor convinces her to continue, and she tells him that she is cooperating with the treatment for her daughter because “she needs me”, and vows to beat cancer. She is not ready to die by tearfully saying “I want one more great love affair in my life. I want to belong to somebody.” #FiftyShadesOfGrey….  The scene ends sweetly with Fiona comforting one of the other patients.

The three student witches are doing research on the Axeman and learn about his notoriety as serial killer. In the old journal there was an entry that the Class of 1919 killed the Axeman.  Zoe wants to use the spirit board again with hopes that the Axeman knows where Madison is. This time Queenie & Nan refuse to be involved… Zoe is back on the bad decision train again and promises the woman killing witch hating Axeman spirit that she would release him if he told her where Madison is.  Why doesn’t she just search the school house? #Dummy.  “Attic” is spelled out on the board which is also Spalding’s room.

Zoe goes into the attic to find that it STINKS horribly. She opens the trunk and finds Madison’s decaying corpse as creepy Spalding grabs her.

Hank brings Cordelia home from the hospital. Fiona is preparing her daughter’s bedroom for her. Cordelia’s smells roses in her room, but she does not want them there because they draw in love and romance. She wants a lot of chrysanthemums instead because they attract strength & protection. When Hank touches her she gets ZAPPED again with images of him having sex with Haylee. She asks him “Who is she? Who is the redhead?” He acts like he never fuck-killed a redhead, and Cordelia yells “BULLSHIT”, and that she will see the truth soon or later. Hank is looking worried like he is on The Maury Povich Show. #LieDetector… Cordelia said it is a bad cosmic joke that she had to go blind to the see truth. But though blind, she sees with an absolute clarity that she has never had before. Fiona yells BOOYA at Hank for being caught. Cordelia or Fiona telekinetically swung open the door #WitchBitch style as they tell him ‘see ya don’t wanna be ya’, and Fiona calls him a ‘jughead’. #LOL.   Fiona tells Cordelia that she now has ‘The Sight’, the greatest power to have but the hardest one to live with. Fiona touches Cordelia to help her undress, and she is ZAPPED with the images of her Auntie Myrtle burning at the stake. Cordelia is in tears and shocked as Fiona tells her Myrtle was her attacker. Cordelia doesn’t believe this is possible.

Spalding got his ass whooped by a teenage girl. #HAHA.  Zoe hit him over the head with one of his porcelain dolls and knocked him out. The witchy Charlie’s Angels have him tied down in a chair, and they are grilling him about Madison’s disappearance, and Queenie is literally GRILLING him by burning him with her voodoo doll powers. Nan is a bad ass here too, and she is on the action by reading his mind for answers since he can’t talk.  When asked if he killed Madison, he thought/said “YES, I’m a man of uniquely developed appetites.” That’s a DEPRAVED way of saying he fucks dead girls.  Poor Madison, in life and in death she was grossly sexually violated. He said she was his first dead-fuck, but he just had to have her. He may be telling the truth about his necrophilia, but he is certainly adept at lying his thoughts about Madison’s death, and Zoe thinks so too.  He seems mentally strong willed in controlling his thoughts for protecting & loving Fiona.  I thought for sure this is where Fiona’ gets busted.  He taunted them that they can’t report to him the police because it would expose the Coven, and besides Zoe doesn’t believe he killed Madison.

Misty Day is at the swamp watering a body sized mound of dirt & dung.  Myrtle’s charred arm wiggles out of the dirt, and Misty tells Myrtle to be patient as she covers her back up. #Resurgence101.  Fraken-Kyle suddenly appears and startles Misty. He looks like shit too. He must be a like a dog and sniffed his way back to her.  At her swamp shack she is cleaning him up with a bath while playing Stevie Nicks’ “Leather & Lace” on a vintage 8 track player. He is agitated, groaning & grunting in the tub because he is having Mamma molesting flashbacks. He is violently freaking out & wailing in the nude. Misty is unable to subdue him as he smashes the cassette player & tape. All of a sudden Zoe walks in and Kyle runs & clings to her like a terrified child. Misty calls him a monster and tells Zoe to get him out of there, “He broke Stevie”.  Zoe tells her that she is taking them both with her because she needs Misty’s help.

Zoe brings Franken-Kyle & Misty to the Academy. They are all in the green house, and Madison’s corpse is on a table. Misty is trying to resurrect Madison, but she is already decomposing and missing one arm. She attaches her arm with some magic and mud and blows on her softly with other hocus pocus crap. Madison starts screaming & coughing as a roach crawls out of her mouth, and she is alive again. She sits up looking like a female Beetlejuice, “I need a cigarette.” …That is soooo Madison.

THE BEST SCENE of the show. Hank shows up to Marie’s Cornrow City Hair Salon, “We have a problem.” #SHOCKER…. Marie is sitting on her Voodoo Queen throne, and she is annoyed that he brought his face there in the light of day. Hank is ballsy & asks Marie about why she acid-attacked Cordelia. He tells her she just complicated his job.  Angela NAILS Marie’s Cajun/Caribbean accent, “You think I did that?  I look like the Taliban to you? If I wanted to blind your little wifey I wouldn’t have to leave my room.”  Marie has employed Hank as her professional Salem Witch Hunter for the last SIX years. He married Cordelia to get inside information on the identities of Salem Witches….  We get a flashback to Cordelia talking with Kaylee about admission to the Academy so she can learn Witch 101.  Kaylee is a witch with uncontrollable pyro-kinesis powers, who was charged with arson for setting her fiancé on fire when he dumped her…..    It was an inside job. That’s how Hank knew of Kaylee, manipulated her online, lured her, fucked & killed her; mixing business & pleasure. All part of Marie Laveau’s plan against the Salem Coven.  Hank has killed nine Salem Witch descendants in the last three years, and five were a direct result of his spying from within Cordelia’s Coven. Marie tells Hank she hired him to “Clean house, not play house. She made you hard. You went soft.” She gives him the side eye and accuses him of being in love with that sorry witcchhh. (I get goose bumps every time she says witch). Marie is furious that instead of Hank ridding her enemies, they show up at her doorstep mouthier than ever “DISRESPECTING MEEEE!!! And digging up my enemies. When I plant a fat-assed cracker bitch I expect her to stay planted. Not to come back up like a damn ragweed.” Plus Fiona killed Bastien/Minotaur. She is PISSED and orders Hank, “Go back there and bring me their heads. ALL OF THEM. Every witch-bitch in that house, and burn the place to the ground.” Hank protests, and Marie threatens to kill him if he does not comply……Award time for Angela: the BEST SCENE by a PISSED OFF Voodoo Witch.….

Zoe is explaining to Queenie & Nan about Misty & Madison, and that Fiona cannot find out anything until Madison gets better. All the while Misty is raiding the refrigerator and stuffing her purse with food. Misty declines to spend the night at the Academy. She feels bad vibes in the house and something foul is there, and they are not the tribe she is looking for.  She doesn’t want anything more to do with Franken-Kyle either.

Madison has no idea what has happened to her. Though disoriented, she knows who she is, a movie star. Zoe & Queenie tell her she died and came back. Madison only remembers something RED before she died (Fiona’s dress).  Nan asks if she saw a bright light after she died. Madison says NO. There is nothing on the other side. It is just black.

Cordelia is in her bedroom, and the Axeman is just sitting there in the exact same room he was killed in by the Witch Class of 1919.  Apparently he has manifested in a limbo state, his spirit is not yet released completely.  He terrorizes a blind Cordelia to make Zoe follow through on her promise to release him. The girls hear Cordelia’s screams & the jazz music. They know it’s the Axeman in there with her. They race down to the library, and Zoe magically picks the proper spell book to use. They recite the spell and the Axeman is released just in time from killing Cordelia. He walks out of the front door as he entered it in 1919.  With a casual stride wearing a suit & hat, carrying his axe in saxophone case as a car drives by playing 50 Cent’s rap song “Get rich or die trying”.

Fiona is at her favorite jazz bar sucking down dirty martinis, looking for her one last great love affair. A handsome stranger, the Axeman, sits next to her. “Well hello pretty lady. What you drinking?” Fiona is beaming with a flirtatious smile…..THE END

This was my least favorite episode thus far, but it had a lot of story development. We still don’t know who attacked Cordelia, but we do know who wasn’t involved. And of course the Hank/Marie development was a huge plot point that answered a lot of questions, and YAY I did theorize that Hank was a witch hunter working for another Coven…. But all the rules of resurgence seem to be so random for each person. Madison is back with no effort, but a burned Myrtle is rejuvenating under her mud mound. I want to see more of Nan acting like a bad ass, and I hope she gets a darker story line. Where is Luke? Well Nan made a brief reference to him. She mentioned he was not there (at the academy), and that his mother kept slamming the door on her, implying that he is home and not allowed visitors of the witch kind…..Marie wants to KILL all the Salem Witches, but Queenie is going to get caught in the middle because she is a descendant of both tribes. And poor Cordelia, she has suffered so much: blind, cheating husband, Myrtle, and the Axeman. She is going to snap real soon.  Who is the Supreme? …And the real Stevie Nicks will appear in episode 10. Please share all your thoughts and ideas…. You can stalk me on twitter @Urethra_F