American Horror Story: Apocalypse Recap: Spelling Tests

Warning: Contains spoilers for season 8, episode 7 of American Horror Story, “Traitor.”

The battle lines have been drawn on American Horror Story: Apocalypse, and it’s probably not the best idea to be fighting alongside the Antichrist. Now that we know for sure that Michael Langdon (Cody Fern) is the son of the devil, the witches need a plan of attack, and that involves recruiting a few extra team members.

The first new recruit, Dinah Stevens (Adina Porter), is the voodoo Queen of New Orleans, following in the footsteps of Coven season’s Marie Lavoe (Angela Bassett). Dinah is making her living using magic to help women get revenge on their cheating husbands when Cordelia Goode (Sarah Paulson) arrives asking for a favor. The witches want to convince Papa Legba (Lance Reddick), gatekeeper of the spirit world, to open up the gates of hell so they can trap Langdon there. The only way Legba is willing to do his part is if Cordelia agrees to give him the souls of her students. No deal!

Over in Hollywood, we meet another witch/actress named Bubbles McGee (Joan Collins). She has the power to read minds, which Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts) and Myrtle Snow (Frances Conroy) hope to use to find out what the warlocks are planning with Langdon. This leads to a very awkward dinner between Bubbles, Myrtle, Grand Chancellor Ariel (Jon Jon Briones), and Baldwin Pennypacker (BD Wong), where Bubbles discovers that Ariel betrayed John Henry (Cheyenne Jackson) and is plotting to destroy all of the witches.

The young witches are all hanging out at Coven house when Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt (Leslie Grossman) reveals that she discovered a new ability: being able to mentally calculate exactly how many calories are in a food. They have fun playing with that power until Coco takes a bite of a sno-ball and chokes to death. Mallory (Billie Lourd) leaps into action using a never before seen ability, opening up Coco’s throat and removing the lodged food without even leaving a scratch. This leads Zoe (Taissa Farmiga) to believe that Mallory might be the new Supreme instead of Michael Langdon; she reveals her theory to Cordelia, who is in a weakened state now there is a new Supreme rising.

The girls hold what might be their last meal together and Behold Chablis (Billy Porter) questions why they’re just sitting around while the Antichrist is running around out there. Cordelia announces that she’s known for a while that trouble was coming, which is what prompted her to resurrect Myrtle two years earlier. The witches decide to take the first shot. The first step in the plan is getting John Henry back from the dead, which is accomplished by Mallory as the final test, proving that she has what it takes to be the new Supreme. The newly revived John Henry lets the witches know that it was actually a woman (human Miriam Mead) who killed him.

Cordelia convinces Coco not to be limited by her abilities and to serve a greater purpose by helping the witches kidnap Miriam Mead (Kathy Bates). After nabbing the Satanist, they head to the warlock school, where Ariel and Baldwin are preparing a powder that would instantly kill any woman who inhales it. The two warlocks are stopped in their tracks and Cordelia literally shuts them down by sealing up their mouths. The episode comes to a close with John Henry lighting the fires that burn the warlocks who betrayed him and the woman who murdered him. The war is on!

We still have three episodes left in the season and Michael Langdon seemingly has nobody left on his team. Still, there’s just no way he’s going down that easily. Previous seasons of AHS have done away with the big bad before the season finale. That may be the case again, but more likely the witches will fail at their first attempt to take Michael down. The failure might lead to that whole time travel theory that has been floating around online since the start of the season.

What we know

• At least one version of the Antichrist battle timeline results in an identity spell erasing the memory of several witches, and a nuclear war destroying the earth.
• Somewhere along the way, a robot version of Miriam Mead was built at the request of Michael Langdon, even though the real Miriam was burned at the stake.
• In the post-apocalyptic timeline, Dinah wants nothing to do with the battle between the witches and Langdon.

What we need to find out

• Why was Michael nowhere to be seen while the witches were making big moves? Maybe he paid a visit to Murder House?
• Have we really seen the last betrayal on Team Coven?
• Who was the actual traitor in this episode? Is it possible that Cordelia made a deal with Legba in a scene we’ll see in a later episode?

What the internet thinks

• Roses may hold the key to defeating the Antichrist.
• There’s a shred of doubt about Mead’s support of Michael.