American Horror Story: Cult - Episode 6 Review (Spoilers)

In this review I will be discussing the sixth episode of American Horror Story: Cult. At this point we are well over half way through the series and it's virtually impossible to discuss the episode without spoilers. Anyone who plans to view it has had ample time to catch up now and so in this review I will divulge plot points and character motivations to better explain my points and analyse the episode. This will not be an Episode Synopsis or Breakdown however. If you truly want to go into the episode blind and not having any future enjoyment of it spoiled then I recommend bookmarking this review and reading it after seeing the episode. If you don't mind spoilers however then dive in. 

Episode 6 - "Mid-Western Assassin"

  There can be no better example of the significance and relevance of this season of American Horror Story than the real life events which directly affected the airing of this episode. In the wake of the horrifying and tragic mass shooting in Las Vegas the cold open was heavily edited. This was because it focused on an incidence of similar gun violence against a mass of victims in a realistic and brutal way. Art imitating life in the worst and saddest way imaginable, but maybe emphasising what a cautionary tale this season may have to be. This isn't horror for kicks, it's a terrifying warning of a real nightmare that is perilously close, and in some cases arguably already here. It's tough to watch, but enlightening, reflective and vital.

"My parents were Reaganites. I interviewed Barry Goldwater for my high school paper. I've seen conservatives up close — you're not a conservative. You're a reactionary. You use fear and the fantasy of a time that never was — when people "left their doors unlocked." People like Mr. Anderson, and Trump, are not the garbage. They are the flies that the garbage has drawn. It's time that we stop worrying about the flies and start hauling away the garbage."

  After the aforementioned edited cold open and credits we flash back immediately to rejoin Ally where we left her last week, fresh from Meadow's revelations. This seeks to ease the discomfort slightly and, as I predicted, gives us answers and a deeper dive without teasing this out for too long. It's good storytelling as we see Ally getting a call from Dr Vincent, having been called by a concerned Ivy. It's left in doubt obviously whether this is concern for Ally, or concern that she has been found out. It's also increasingly uncertain to me how complicit Dr Rudy is in all this. I realise he is related to Kai and has disdain for Ally and initially this looked damning, as did the fact that we've seen his patients be immediately killed utilising the fears they've confessed to him. But Cheyenne Jackson plays the part so well that I genuinely believe he is unaware of the cult's activities, and that he truly believes Ally is having paranoid delusions. He's also never been shown with the group and so definitely doesn't seem like a member. Interesting. Hanging up on the doctor Ally finally takes some action and goes to the neighbours house, sneaking past Detective Samuels and Harrison in mid-coitus and haphazardly rescuing a bound Meadow, despite her "clumsily" knocking over a toolbox on the way out. This didn't even register on first viewing but is potentially a genius touch. Ally then takes Meadow to the restaurant where she reiterates the cult's ubiquity, identities and that they do indeed include Ivy. She has a vendetta against Ally, presumably due to her voting for Jill Stein, and has been helping the clowns get access to their home. At this point the motivations and repetition seem a little flimsy and disappointing but this is a really minor quibble and is all relevant, developed or reversed brilliantly later on. When Ally insists that her wife has never believed in anything strongly enough to join a cult Meadow states that's how Kai gets to his acolytes; by identifying this emptiness and giving them something to believe in, which transitions nicely into a flashback to the Wiltons' "induction". Kai is explicitly shown to prey on Meadow's insecurity; being in love with a man who clearly feels nothing for her. He makes her feel attractive, special and loved. But then she overhears Kai repeating the same speech verbatim to Ivy that he used on her, about being special and "burning brighter than anyone". Buoyed by this betrayal she reveals her doubts about Kai. That a city council seat is meaningless in the grand scheme of things and he is a nobody whose great plan is terrible. The other group members then predictably turn on her and imprison her, with Kai threatening that they should tell the police that something awful has happened to her. So far the motivations and character development are top notch and completely engrossing as we cut back to Meadow insisting to Ally that Kai is too powerful and connected. They have to kill him! 

  Our next flashbacks introduce us to another AHS regular; the great Mare Winningham. She always gives an outstanding performance and that's no different here as she is introduced as a brilliant and instantly likeable character; a foil for Kai with the wisdom to see through and challenge his b.s. Naturally this doesn't end well for her when she announces her plan to run against Kai in the council election, leading Ally to run to her for help in the present moment after leaving Meadow with Dr Vincent. The ensuing scene is unsettling and unnerving as we see the cult close in on Sally despite her lack of fear and assurance that Kai will get nowhere in the long run. Kai does his usual trick of getting straight to the root of his victims fear though, here by ruining her reputation on social media declaring her past words a lie and announcing her suicide. This leads to the best line of the episode, if not the series;

Sally: "Nobody's going to believe any of that!"

Kai: "Of course they will. It's on Facebook."

Nail, meet hammer. I honestly laughed out loud at the satirical genius of this. It's the most succint expression yet of the cautionary reflection of our times that this season is trying to be, almost as if the writers are confirming that things really are as crazy as they seem, you're not imagining how bad things have got (like Ally is not paranoid) and they absolutely see it too. Brilliant. Amongst all this we also flash back to Ivy's meeting with Kai and her actual, true motivations. It's yet more brilliant writing and believable character development as she reveals that she has grown to resent Ally for being the one to carry their son, due to Ivy's inability to do so. We see her begin to believe that Ally is taunting her with her continued closeness to Oz, nursing him directly and leaving Ivy feeling unimportant. And of course Jill Stein didn't help (ha!) and nor do Ally's "bullshit entitled phobias" (aaaaahhh!).

  Finally we get even more genius as everything we thought we knew gets flipped on its head. We see Kai meeting secretly with the incarcerated Meadow and agreeing with her criticisms. He preys on her vulnerability again, insisting that she is actually special, so much so that she has to be the one to take his plan to get power to the next level. Cutting back to the shooting at Kai's organised speech rally we see that Ally has tracked down Meadow: she is the shooter! We see Kai in the past insisting that she has the strength to lie and deceive Ally and everyone to get him noticed, since "everybody loves a resurrection", touching on religious intolerance as motivation too. Meadow shoots and wounds Kai as Ally tries to reach her before Meadow calmly turns the gun on herself and delivers the chilling, brilliant and evocative line;

"this is the face of true love"

  

and then swallowing her gun barrel and blowing her brains out, leaving Ally and the audience reeling. Love, insecurity, fear. All have been exploited by Kai and the cult mentality. But even worse is that Ally is again left holding the gun, and it appears that she had shot Kai, killed Meadow and was the gunman who instigated the chaos. And all when she'd previously found her strength and self-determination.

  This episode was brilliant! Although I was initially disappointed that the show wasn't what I'd thought, expecting a straight up slasher thriller with possible supernatural elements. It soon became clear what the show is and what it's trying to say. Although we still got no Twisty, disappointingly, we do get a lot of answers, character explanations and reveals. We are even told that the strange chemicals were nothing, water trucks with dye used by Kai to make people untrusting and scared. Says it all really.

***** (5/5)

MM