[For American Horror Story – Hotel “Room 33” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]
FX Summary:
Room 33 Ramona and Donovan enact their plan for revenge; Liz Taylor finds true love.
The title of episode “Room 33” raises the hairs at the back of one’s neck because in the first episode we heard Iris say she was “going to feed that thing in Room 33,” with a dreadful tone – an indelible detail. But the real fun of “Room 33” comes from the ways the episode follows through on this theme of three with titillating threesomes.
The episode begins with The Countess in 1926, when she was a mere Mrs. Johnson. Married and pregnant with a gargantuan belly, she visits a doctor to help her with this problem. She claims her husband somehow has no idea she’s pregnant and that she’s only three weeks along. So, her doctor/patient relationship is off to an honest start at least. He takes her to a dirty basement where a nurse shows concern about Mrs. Johnson’s temperature being only seventy five degrees. So, she must already be a vampire at this point, a pregnant vampire. The doctor then extracts the baby and the nurse whispers, “It’s alive,” in horror before the baby seemingly lunges at her. Then the creepy doc swaddles and places it on the pre-countess, Mrs. Johnson’s chest saying, “Congratulations, it’s a boy.” A bit later she visits the baby in a dark attic nursery and tells him, “Mommy’s going to Paris but then she’ll have lots and lots of money and will never have to leave you again,” thus providing this mysterious being with a lifetime’s worth of mommy issues in a mere one minute scene. We won’t see his face until the very last shot of the episode but soon find out his name is Bartholomew.
In the next scene John Lowe wakes up to find Holden in his bed and chases the vampire boy down the hall to his casket room in the empty swimming pool. There John sees the vampire kids in their clear coffins as well as his wife, Alex, who wakes just enough to see him seeing her. And yes, he sees her seeing him seeing her. It’s a trifecta of terror that perfectly encapsulates their marriage. They see each other perfectly well but inevitably deny they see anything, as will later happen when Alex pretends this incident never occurred between them.
Then Liz Taylor and Tristan are having great sex in Ms. Taylor’s bedroom. Liz gives him some Bronte and Oscar Wilde to help develop Tristan’s tiny starved model brain cells a bit. The better to fall in love with, Liz hopes. In fact, they talk about love and Tristan seems genuinely smitten with her. Part of it seems to be that he can still tell himself he’s not gay because Liz Taylor identifies as a hetero female though she still has a penis. She may even feel the same way about Tristan, Liz admits but she’s concerned The Countess wouldn’t approve of their relationship. So, there’s already a third wheel in their relationship at the very beginning. Speaking of The Countess, it’s now time for another, less industrious sex scene. What this sex scene needs is a third participant! The Countess tries to entice Will Drake but can’t get him off or even a bit hard because Will’s hardcore into dick. So, she texts Tristan asking him to come to her suite and fluff Drake a bit for her. Tristan insists he’s not gay but gets busy with Drake for her sake anyway. He’s such a trooper, that Tristan.
Alex then approaches Liz Taylor at the front desk for help because John saw her in her coffin so now he knows. Then she and Ms. Taylor “get rid of those coffins,” before Alex goes to John’s room. Lowe immediately confronts her saying he saw her in a coffin but she’s got a story about him calling her to say he was having visions. She tells John it makes sense because that’s the same story Scarlett told them. He’s just empathizing with his little girl by having the same visions she had. John then runs out on her and back to the coffin room to prove what he saw was real but, of course, she and Liz had removed everything by now… so, he’s back to his appearance vs reality conundrum. Time to hit the bottle.
Ramona and Donovan then visit the Hotel Cortez together. While they ride up in the elevator she’s pulls a shiny hunting knife out of her handbag, ready to slice up some vampire kiddies. Ramona’s excited and eager but Donovan’s a bit hesitant (still hung up on The Countess) so she says she’ll take care of the killing part herself. In the empty swimming pool she gets pissed that the kid coffins are missing now. Iris joins her and says she agrees the kids have to go first if they want to take out The Countess. Along with Bartholomew, they are The Countess’s only reason to continue living. Ramona then searches further for the vampire babies, especially Bartholomew. She finds the black-eyed-baby-monster-we-still-can’t-quite-see in a creepy bedroom. Ramona sing songs for him to come out and see “Auntie Ramona” while she holds her shiny hunting knife high and ready for stabby time. But then in the next scene she’s nursing a scratched cheek at the bar with Liz and asks if “they found it” about Bartholomew so the little monster somehow escaped her dagger and Alex has thus now been enlisted for the job of finding the baby monster. Ms. Taylor tells Ramona she has to get out of the Hotel Cortez right away because the sight of her will upset The Countess. Liz explains that things need to be calm right now because she’s in love with The Countess’s hottie, Tristan. She wouldn’t be able to negotiate with a fired up and feisty Countess.
Meanwhile Donovan is all up in The Countess suite, sniffing panties and such, until interrupted by the dead swedish model duo who are realizing that they’re dead. He tells them they have to find their purpose or they’ll be like hamsters on a wheel. That’s the hotel’s power over dead guests. Donovan tells them the story of a guest named Cara who killed herself in a Hotel Cortez tub. She remained aimless for months until she found her purpose – terrorizing guests of the hotel for kicks. That’s her reprieve from the hamster wheel. Her fun. So, they have to find their own kicks. In the Swedish duo’s first attempt they sex up a guest before killing him – threesome time! But it’s ultimately unsatisfying and they clearly haven’t found their purpose yet… Then they encounter Alex and she tells them killing isn’t where the fun’s at. They’ve got to mess with men’s minds. Alex proposes the perfect scenario. She knows this guy who’s always wanted two girls. Um, yeah Alex, pretty much every guy on the planet meets that criteria. But, of course, we know she’s talking about John and wants to mess with his mind so he forgets she’s now a vampire.
John’s already messing with his own mind, drinking out of a bottle in the hallway. Liz Taylor approaches him and tries to help but Lowe screams that he’d rather just have his breakdown, THANKS. After Liz leaves the two Swedish model types sidle up to him and before he knows it they’re headed to boner town – threesome time again! It’s all quite delightful until the Swedish duo start slicing each other up and bleeding everywhere, spilling blood all over his body while they still gyrate on his every skin cell. When the blood finally overcomes his lust, John runs naked and covered in blood to the lobby where Liz says it looks like his breakdown is progressing well. Then they return together to his room where the Swedish dead duo are so happy now. They say they’ve found their purpose, messing with the heads of horndogs. Goodie for them. James March even makes an appearance to John just to say it looks like he’s finally making himself properly at home in the Hotel Cortez. This propels him to leave. John packs his bags and goes home to Scarlet.
Sad Scarlet tells him Alex hasn’t been home for two days. He promises to make things right again for her. But then it seems like something is pulsating in his suitcase and suddenly he’s chasing whatever it is, eventually finding and shooting it in the kitchen. But then it still gets away, three bullets later, leaving a blood trail. After the shootout Alex and the cops come to the house to help and John’s boss ends up driving Scarlet away in his patrol car while Alex attempts to comfort John who’s upset that Scarlet’s afraid of him now. He says he knows Alex is going back to the Cortez for the night but she won’t outwardly admit it. Then he goes inside and Alex pokes around their yard, still looking for monster baby Bartholomew.
The Countess returns from a blissful getaway with the Drake when she encounters Liz Taylor who finally tells her she’s in love with Tristan. Ms. Taylor calmly explains that The Countess is just playing with Tristan but there’s a real love developing between them. So, let’s all three talk The Countess suggests. The trio talk in Liz Taylor’s humble bedroom. Tristan says The Countess only orgasm come from the heartbreak she causes. She gets a thrill from the moving on part, he says. Then Ms. Taylor pleads with The Countess, “Please just let me have this one, “ and The Countess asks Tristan if this is what he wants as well. When Tristan nods she says fine that Ms. Taylor can have Tristan. But then she slits his throat and tells Liz, “He’s yours. Bury him,” and leaves. It’s unclear what will happen now with Tristan. Does burying him kill him? Or will he come back different? Time will tell. After this she goes to Bartholomew’s room where Alex is caring for her monster baby. The Countess seems grateful that she “saved my son,” and Alex points out that The Countess saved hers as well, although kidnapping and turning a child into a vampire is a fairly progressive definition of lifesaving in some circles. Then we see that Bartholomew lives in Room 33 before the camera finally reveals his face. Let’s just say it’s one that only a mother could love.
–Katherine Recap
