To bee or not to bee: AHS Cult episode 2 recap and review

In American Horror Story: Cult’s second installment, new characters appear, old characters break down, and the world is still a nightmare.

After last week’s onslaught of creepy clowns and the even more terrifying reflection of real-life current events, it became immediately clear that this season of AHS was going to be a pretty intense one. And after episode 2, I can confidently say that I was NOT mistaken, but boy, oh BOY, did I underestimate the amount of Nicole Kidman references that would soon come my way!

To start, we’re right back where we left off, in Ally and Ivy’s house, immediately reliving last week’s final moment. Also immediately, Ally is literally screaming “THERE’S A CLOWN.” In a scene that was surely art directed by a lesbian Nancy Meyers, a real hot Ivy in a denim shirt grabs a knife and walks through their bathroom ~that has a fireplace in it~ to defeat the alleged intruder. There’s nothing there, obviously, and Ally promises she’s not lying. Ivy tells her she doesn’t think she can take much more, and Ally admits that she thinks there’s something wrong with her and she doesn’t know what’s real. Ivy tells her that what they have together is real and now I guess the only American Horror Story is that Ivy is not MY wife?

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: CULT — Pictured: Alison Pill as Ivy Mayfair-Richards. CR: Frank Ockenfels/FX

Oz, in the other room, is woken up as his nightlight is shut off. He turns it back on and Twisty and another scary clown are in his room. They chase him into the (non-fireplaced) bathroom and break through the glass door, but we cut to Ally and Ivy who are finally about to get it on, but are interrupted by Oz calling for them. He’s having a nightmare, and when they comfort him, he tells them that the clowns are going to kill him.

We then see the iPhone footage of Kai being beaten by migrant workers during a news segment in which Kai announces he’s running for city council now that Councilman Chang’s seat has been vacated (because he was murdered!!!). A very white couple is interviewed on the news, and that couple turns out to be the new neighbors of Ally and Ivy. When Ally notices they’ve moved in, she sneaks over to their house and snoops on them, at which point the scene before me prompted to say out loud “I’M SORRY, I CAN’T LISTEN BECAUSE BILLY EICHNER IS WEARING A BEEKEEPER SUIT” while nobody was talking.

At Ally and Ivy’s restaurant, there’s a tiff between Rodger, who appears to be a manager, and Pedro, one of the busboys, because Pedro speaks Spanish and Rodger is a gross monster. Pedro pulls a knife on him in anger, and Rodger wants him fired. Ally tells him she won’t fire an immigrant in this climate.

While Ozzie and Winter are at home, Winter brings Oz a Twisty doll, but tells him not to tell his moms. Oz appears to be real scared, and Winter grabs his hand in that weird pinky-promise way Kai had done to her earlier. She tells him that she’s going to carry all his pain for him, which is a very chill thing to say to someone under 10.

When the moms get back home, Winter tells them that Oz is across the street with the new neighbors. Ally runs to fetch him and finds him inspecting Harrison’s bees. Harrison shows Ally the honeycomb and she freaks out because HOLES! Ivy joins them and introduces her family to Harrison and Meadow (Leslie Grossman), who explain that they’d intentionally snatched up the house after the (alleged) murder-suicide, citing money troubles. Harrison then gets really intense about his devotion to bees because of their fierce and communal dedication to one single task and hello, here comes the cult!

Meadow invites Ally and Ivy inside for lemonade where she immediately makes a v. unwoke reference to Beyoncé. Meadow tells them about her previous bout with skin cancer, but Ally is clearly super distracted by the many, many Nicole Kidman movie posters littering their living room. Meadow then explains that Harrison is gay, and as lifelong best friends, they’ve made an arrangement that works out for both of them. Clearly weirded out by their Kidman-centric, bee-filled nonsense, Ally tells them they have to go. Before she leaves, she sees the blood stains still on the walls and floor and asks them why it doesn’t bother them to have moved in so quickly. They tell her they don’t scare easily.

Back at home, Ally and Ivy get ready for bed when Oz, scared to sleep alone, joins them in their room. Just then, Ivy gets a text that the security system has been tripped at the restaurant. When she says she has to go, Oz gets visibly nervous because he’s about to be stuck alone to be possibly protected by the mom who literally cannot look at coral. Ally, noticing this, offers to go instead. At the restaurant, nothing appears to be amiss until Ally hears a noise. She follows the sound to a damn room full of hanging meats and backs into the dead body of that garbage racist manager, Rodger. Hey, Ally? Maybe just stop leaving the house.

At home, where Ally belongs, a dude is drilling the windows permanently shut, which makes total sense but also … doesn’t. Ivy walks in with Ally’s therapist, who she says just “happened to be in the neighborhood.” Ally asks him if Ivy’s told him she’s coming completely unglued, and he brings up the murder in the restaurant. She says she’s the one who killed him, explaining that he was still alive when she found him but her trying to pull him off the hook is what did it.

We cut back to the scene, where Ally talks to the police but doesn’t want to say anything that would put the blame on Pedro. Ally then tells her doctor that she feels like this incident has vindicated her fears. She tells him about what she did after the restaurant sitch: went to Harrison and Meadow’s house, where Harrison showed her his gun closet. Ally shows Dr. Vincent the gun she’s now keeping in the house and tells him he can’t tell Ivy. It becomes clear that she’s super duper breaking down and losing sight of her reality when she accuses him of being a typical liberal when he flinches at her possession of the gun.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: CULT — Pictured: Sarah Paulson as Ally Mayfair-Richards. CR: Frank Ockenfels/FX

As Dr. Vincent leaves, he tells Ivy that she should be worried about Ally, as she’s exhibiting signs of agoraphobia. While they talk in the yard, someone knocks on the door. It’s Kai, there to talk to Ally about his city council campaign. He challenges Ally’s ideals, wondering why she’s fortifying her house if she really wants to “build bridges instead of walls,” as she claims to. He tries to force his way inside by saying he’s hot, thirsty, injured — basically, he tries to manipulate her just so he can ask her why she won’t help him now that he’s a victim. She tells him that he has to leave her property, and he freaks her out, shouting.

At the restaurant, Ivy talks to Pedro, who insists on his innocence. He says that the police had asked him for his papers even though he was born in America, and says that it’s scary to be a brown person nowadays. Ivy assures him that they’re a family at the restaurant, and they all know he’s innocent.

At home, Oz is preparing for bed and Winter (who has been hired as a full-time nanny) doesn’t seem interested in tucking him in. Ozzie tells her he’s scared because when the clowns come, he never knows if he’s awake or asleep. Winter tells him to just ask.

She leaves him alone because it’s not like that’s her job or anything, and instead, focuses her attention on Ally (which makes total sense to me), who is sitting at the table staring at a bottle of pills. Ally admits that she doesn’t like taking them, and Winter insists on drawing her a bath and giving her red wine. While she bathes, things get real weird when Winter starts to rub Ally’s back, tells her to relax, and starts to get a little too handsy. Ally, though seeming more regular and calm than she has since the beginning of the series, stops her, but Winter tells her it’s okay and that she won’t tell her wife. Winter leans in to kiss her (which, again, is very much the correct and most sensical move to make) and an alarm goes off and the lights go out.

In the hall, a clown skulks into Oz’s room. He asks it if he’s awake or asleep, and the clown tells him he’s asleep.

Ally tells Winter to check on Oz and set up some candles, and Harrison knocks on Ally’s door shouting “Lesbians! We’re under attack!” He explains that they’re in the middle of an 8-state wide blackout that’s likely the work of terrorists. He tells them to stay put because people are gonna go crazy. Winter, not wanting anyone to target her home and loot her stuff, tries to leave,but Ally begs her to stay. She goes anyway, and Ally panics, calling Ivy at the restaurant. She pleads with Ivy to come home, totally convinced that this is the work of “the Russians,” but Ivy, kinda fed up, assures her that it’ll be okay. When Ally’s phone dies, Ivy asks Pedro to bring a charger and some other things to their home.

Ally is at home fully losing her mind, roaming around the house and trying to turn things back on but mostly just seeing clowns where there are no clowns. She also sees that creepy ice cream truck that contained the clowns who murdered the Changs pull up outside on their street. She makes it up to her bedroom and grabs the gun from her bedside table, wakes up Oz, brings him downstairs, and tells him that they need to run as fast as they can to the neighbor’s house. The second she opens the door, she sees someone on the front step and pulls the trigger. Ally, in her perpetual panic, has killed Pedro.

And now here I am: just one gal, siding with Ally even though I know she’s messed everything up, wondering just how deep Ryan Murphy is willing to dive into our cultural and political divide, and waiting for someone to bring up The Hours.

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