American Horror Story: Apocalypse - Fire and Reign

“Fire and Reign” has Mutt and Jeff preparing for the Outposts and Apocalypse we saw at the opening of the season. The opening of the season was the least interesting to me. Michael and Robot Mead (Mutt and Jeff are actually behind almost everything Mead says, their ideas typed into her and spoken almost exactly as they want) get rid of the warlocks and almost all witches that gave them trouble (and were responsible for the death of Augustus and Pennypacker), with Cordelia, Myrtle, Mallory, and Madison getting away. The Coven attempted to prevent Michael from entering their school through a protection spell derailed by Dinah’s voodoo (Dinah got greenlit television shot from Satan as a result!). What Michael’s Satanic powers couldn’t do, Mead’s machine-gun arm could. Gunned down or stabbed by a litany of tacks, the Coven is left as a body count scattered across the room. Michael told Cordelia he’d make her suffer and does. When Cordelia and Myrtle visit the warlock school, they find John Henry, Behold, and others bloodied, dismembered, and displayed in a pentagram. Of course Madison realizes that Michael can destroy not just the body but their soul so Cordelia faces the horror of losing her girls completely. This episode is often quite bonkers. Like the Bolshevik Revolution and Anastasia appearing in a time travel sequence where Mallory is shown having the ability to go all the way to the basement where soldiers execute the Romanovs in an attempt to help Anastasia use magic to form a protective spell, nearly killing Mallory in the process! And coke-snorting tech Satanists, Mutt and Jeff, actually revealed to be the catalysts in the eventual apocalypse, inform Michael of The Cooperative, the .1% that influences the entire world is on the elite list to survive and he can be ruler and controller over them. The final minutes has Michael discussing Outposts for those who can offer him $100 million, all in attendance dressed in black suits and masks, as if anonymous and secretively hidden (like some kind of storm troopers). I don’t know if it is fatigue but I wasn’t “feeling” this episode. Maybe it is because I just despise Mutt and Jeff and everything they stand for (which is intentional) and the whole premise (which would be true) that only those really fucking rich and privileged get to shirk the impending doom of the apocalypse. Then I remember that all the Outposts supposedly fall once the apocalypse takes place to radioactive, flesh-eating survivors so all is well. Peters goes on a f-bomb tirade at the beginning that I thought would never end. I use fuck a lot but even I know my limit. Fans of Ms. Veneable (which I was surprised to discover are out there) get plenty of her in purple with red hair and toxic attitude, in this episode learning from her bosses, Mutt and Jeff, that she would be Administrator of the Cooperative. Oh, and before I forget, The Cooperative is actually The Illumanti…thank you, Mutt and Jeff, for finally putting that mystery to bed! It seems like the season hit its absolute peak with the Murder House episode, but Satanists might “hail” the previous episode and enjoy seeing Mutt and Jeff develop and reveal the machinations behind the apocalypse. I will say Paulson as Cordelia and Conroy as Myrtle give the season its core morality which is appreciated considering so much about AHS lacks any decent characters to emotionally invest in. Cordelia’s talk with Myrtle about Fiona, her mother, gives the episode some humanity desperately needed because, for the most part, the majority of characters we are subjected to could use some. **/****