American Horror Story: Coven Review: “The Dead” (Season 3, Episode 7)

Of the many characters in Coven, Zoe has mostly remained unchanged until tonight. After Delia finds out that Madison is alive again and that Fiona indeed killed her, she teams up with Zoe to kill Fiona back for good measure. It’s already been established that Zoe has immense power, but her aggression never really came through until this episode, even if it seemed a bit misplaced. She enchanted Spalding’s tongue to get confirmation that Fiona was the killer, but then kills him immediately after. As disturbed as he was, Spalding had a childish feel to him, and I always looked forward to the excursions through his doll-infested room. But hey, as the title of the episode reminds us, about half of the cast is either now dead or was recently dead, so there’s always hope the creepy butler can return, tongue and all.

Queenie and LaLaurie are finally given something to do this week, providing both characters with some much needed screen time and growth. Queenie begins to feel estranged from the coven and seeks out Laveau for help, who insists that Queenie bring her LaLaurie. Queenie eventually does this, officially turning over to the dark side and leaving LaLaurie imprisoned in Cornrow City (the best combination of words ever).

While I can understand this decision based on her shared history with Laveau, Queenie’s betrayal feels off. There’s a great scene near the beginning where Queenie takes LaLaurie out on an early-morning fast food run, and the two finally became interesting to watch. It’s a shame the friendship had to end so abruptly, because the two were polar opposites begging to be stuck in a small room together. Hopefully future episodes will use LaLaurie’s imprisonment to define the relationship, because if not, they’re missing a huge opportunity.

Each episode thus far has managed to push the plot forward quickly and efficiently, but The Dead rushes it onward, showing signs of past seasons seeping in. Coven has the advantage of fewer stories with tighter focuses and characters that are easy to care about, but if it starts to push everything too fast it might lose track of what is working so much better this season than in past offerings.

Yet despite these miniscule missteps, American Horror Story: Covens continues to be high caliber entertainment packed full of characters that are interesting and developing quite nicely. Let’s just hope the show stops resurrecting every single person that bites it, because sometimes characters die for perfectly good reasons.