American Horror Story: Hotel
“She Wants Revenge”
December 9, 2015
Having only recently discovered that her dead husband imprisoned her undead boyfriend Rudolph Valentino in the hotel some 90 years ago and made it appear that he just ran off without her, Lady Gaga is having a sorry for herself. Blah blah, shrinking heart, illusion of control, she’s surrounded by fools and flatterers, wah.
But a little heartbreak isn’t going to distract her from her grand plan: marry Will Drake, kill Will Drake, take all of Will Drake’s monies. She and her betrothed bicker over their wedding plans: he wants big and lavish and a show, but Lady Gaga insists on something intimate. In fact, all he has to do is design her gown, she’ll take care of everything else.
As he leaves, Lady Gaga orders Liz Taylor to have flowers delivered for the wedding, and Liz Taylor is like, “I’M SORRY, YOU’RE ASKING ME TO ORDER YOUR WEDDING FLOWERS AFTER YOU KILLED MY ONE TRUE LOVE? NO MA’AM. ORDER YOUR OWN DAMN FLOWERS.”
As Lady Gaga receives a pedicure and is served cocktails by Dr. Chloë, she watches an alarming news report about a homeless man who was found exsanguinated and how the authorities are looking for a group of children who might have witnessed the attack. HMMM, THAT’S INTERESTING, DR. CHLOË. DON’T YOU THINK, DR. CHLOË? Lady Gaga sighs that a woman can only be pushed so far and she’s right on the edge.
But then, good news! A private investigator she hired to find undead Rudolph Valentino located him at a roadside motel, and they are soon reunited.
Not that this keeps her from having the sexxytimes with Donovan, whom she chastises for not fighting hard enough to stay in her good graces and pants. She then informs him of her plan for Will Drake, and first Donovan serious’d and then he lol’d. Lady Gaga declares that she wants to make a clean start of things, to clear away the “detritus of [their] lives,” so whom shall they kill first?
Downstairs, Iris begrudgingly checks in a trio who are at the hotel to film porn. Iris disapproves.
Blah blah blah porn is bad for everyone blah, and, rather impractically, she allows them to get started with their project before coming back up and slitting (most) everyone’s throat. Why not just kill them after leading them to their rooms? Why wait until the filming was underway?
Anyway, the point is, the male porn star flees to the bathroom, so Iris busies herself by draining his female co-star, which is where Donovan finds her. Iris is alarmed and warns him that he’s not safe in the hotel: someone released the Murder House Baby and now Lady Gaga is on the warpath (and psssst: it was Ramona Royale). But Donovan assures her that Lady Gaga thinks he’s back together with her, he’s perfectly safe. And with that, he kicks in the door to the bathroom to collect his prize.
Donovan then takes James Deen to Ramona Royale’s house as a hostess gift, explaining that he’s wormed his way back into Lady Gaga’s affections, but is still bent on revenge because he craves her too much or some strained metaphor for addiction. And instead of being suspicious of Donovan, Ramona Royale gives her long, boring backstory that no one asked for.
1992
After Lady Gaga killed Ramona Royale’s rapper boyfriend, Ramona Royale moved back in with her parents. Long story short: her mother died soon after and her father developed Alzheimer’s. Hoping that it would cure him, Ramona Royale gave her father some of her blood. It didn’t and he ate some hooligans. So, she drowned him in the tub. The end.
Back in the present, Will Drake and his child who is long overdue for a haircut get dolled up for the wedding when Ghost Maid swings by and warns him not to marry Lady Gaga, because the minute he puts the ring on her finger, she’ll bleed him dry. Will Drake is not amused and fires her, but she’s like, “LOL, OK. It’s your funeral. Literally,” before taking her leave.
Meanwhile, Lady Gaga is negotiating with a contractor to turn undead Rudolph Valentino’s former prison into some sort of torture chamber. The contractor is all, “have to order parts, hire many men, too hard,” which is when Mr. March materializes and promises to help the contractor get it done. Not that it makes Lady Gaga happy because BOY HOWDY IS SHE STILL MAD AT MR. MARCH.
On a completely different show, Dr. Chloë watches some suburban house when a pizza delivery guy steps inside and doesn’t come back out. Dr. Chloë heads up to the house where she finds a herd of blood-thirsty 6th graders noshing on the pizza guy, most of whom she indirectly created. And it is all Lord of the Flies up in this joint. The boys cheerfully explain that they killed all of their parents and are really into this adult-free life, while the girls are more reluctant and refusing to feed, which is making their measles flare up. Dr. Chloë offers to take them back with her to the Hotel Cortez, but the kids are like, “NOPE,” and scurry off into the night. The point is: vaccinate yo kids or they will become murderous undead hell spawn.
Back at the hotel, Donovan leads Ramona Royale to Lady Gaga’s room where he has supposedly drugged her. But when Ramona Royale closes in on Lady Gaga to “finish the job,” Lady Gaga leaps up because of course Donovan was in cahoots with Lady Gaga the whole time.
While a confused Iris looks on, Donovan loads Ramona Royale into a purple neon-lit cage in Lady Gaga’s new torture chamber (procuring the neon itself must have given that poor contractor fits) explaining that the cameras in the ceiling are so they can watch “our” enemies. Iris is like, “wait, you mean ‘her’ enemies…” but Donovan is like, “NOPE! I’m Team Gaga again. She loves me! It’s all good!” Iris, shocked that Donovan has double-crossed Ramona Royale and herself asks why he saved her in the first place, and he explains that he had a moment of weakness and should have let her die. Iris slaps him across the face, before warning him that he will be the one who is going to die. Ramona Royale is inclined to agree, hissing that Lady Gaga has already moved on from him, and if he doesn’t believe that, he’s dumber than he is pretty. And he is very pretty.
Over at the motel, Lady Gaga visits undead Rudolph Valentino while Natacha is out shopping on Lady Gaga’s black card. Lady Gaga confesses that she wants undead Rudolph Valentino all for herself, and promises that she is clearing the way so that they can be together. Soon she’ll have enough money to turn the Cortez into a fortress against the modern world! Because I’m sure where undead Rudolph Valentino would like to spend a little more quality time would be in the Hotel Cortez.
Natacha returns to the motel, and Lady Gaga invites her to a “girls night” at the Cortez.
Oh, and is it turns out, Donovan followed Lady Gaga to the motel and overheard everything.
It’s wedding time back at the hotel, and the preacher asks if anyone present knows why this Will Drake and this Lady Gaga can not be joined in matrimony.
But the wedding proceeds and as Lady Gaga goes upstairs to put on her traveling clothes, Will Drake heads to the bar to pour himself something fancy to celebrate. There he meets Mr. March, who describes himself as a “long-time resident.” They chitchat, and Mr. March commends Will Drake on creating a blended family. Will Drake agrees that Lady Gaga loves his son. “Oh, I wasn’t referring to your son,” Mr. March replies.
Mr. March then leads Will Drake up to Bartholomew’s room to introduce him to his new stepson, and Will Drake is like, “WHAT THE WHAT?” Lady Gaga happens to walk in at that moment, and disappointed in Will Drake’s disgust, explains that she was going to kill him in Paris, but instead will now make sure he suffers immediately. With that, she whacks him in the head with a toy train, which hardly seems to be a sturdy enough instrument to do the job, having spent more than my share of time around toy trains.
Anyway, the point is, Will Drake awakens in the torture chamber where Ramona Royale begs him to release her. He does, and for his trouble he gets a machete to the throat while Ghost Maid smugly watches.
Oh, and Lady Gaga watches the whole thing from her bedroom, because this is a meta statement on hate-watching or something.
American Horror Story: Hotel aired on FX.
This post originally appeared on the Hearst site Tubular.