Winter is coming: American Horror Story Cult episode 8 recap and review

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – AUGUST 09: (L-R) Actors Leslie Grossman, Adina Porter, Billie Lourd, Alison Pill, and Sarah Paulson of ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ speak onstage during the FX portion of the 2017 Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour at Fox Studios on August 9, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

After loyalties are tested and new bonds are formed, the cult loses some members, gains some insight, and as always, somehow comes out on top.

Another week, another set of absolutely insane, perverse, and unfortunately, seemingly imminent realistic horrors brought to us by Ryan Murphy and his gang o’ misfits.

We open on Detective Samuels walking out of Kai’s house and the cult follows. Just a reminder: it’s all dudes now. Dr. Vincent approaches what we now know to be his family home. The two brothers have a drink in the basement, where Vincent congratulates Kai on his city council win. Kai brings up the fact that it had been his brother’s patient (Ally) who colluded with his shooter, Meadow. He asks if that’s why he didn’t visit when he was in recovery in the hospital. Vincent apologizes to Kai for not having been around, and admits he had been ashamed of his brother.

Then, he tells him that he thinks what Kai’s been doing is “awesome” and he believes he’s just trying to make a difference. Vincent offers to help him get his message out, to make it a national movement. He tells Kai he’ll film the videos for his social media campaign, and they hug like cool regular brothers whose parents aren’t upstairs rotting through their bed. Kai asks him to only refer to him as “Councilman” from now on.

At the restaurant, Ivy and Winter are serving the bros of the cult healthy food under Kai’s orders. They don’t like this, and immediately tell Ivy that she should smile so she’d be more “bangable” because I guess that is the automatic response for trash men? Ivy is infuriated, and laments to Beverly and Ivy that the men aren’t a cult; they’re just loser “dude bros.” Beverly reminds her that, unfortunately, they’re getting things done.

Flashback 1

We flashback to the previous night’s council meeting, where Kai gets the votes to allow his dudebro cult to protect the city armed. Back in the present, Beverly votes to take Kai down in order to destroy the cult. Winter reminds them that they have to play along for a little bit more, and Beverly tells her that he really doesn’t care about her. She says he’ll hurt her if he needs to, even though she’s his family. She doesn’t believe he’d do that, because says she’s only alive due to Kai.

Flashback 2

We flashback again to the previous Halloween, where Kai and Winter continue their tradition of trolling the dark web and pretending to be super intense social justice warriors. As they’re messing with people on abortion-debate chat boards, they get a message from a Pastor Charles inviting them to his super scary church house thing, so obviously they go because they’re FREAKY!!!

They arrive, and promptly enter even after Pastor Charles gives them long, scary, super serious speech about what would happen if they entered. Chill AF. They walk through the house into what looks like a baby’s room, but really, it contains a woman who appears to have recently undergone an abortion strapped to a hospital bed and begging for Kai’s help. He thinks it’s a show, but she tells him it’s for real. He TASTES THE BLOOD ON HER BODY to make sure and concludes that, yep indeedy, it’s real.

The next room has a man splayed across a bed, hooked up to a bunch of machines that are distributing various drugs directly into his veins; Pastor Charles has done this to him to teach him a lesson about his addiction.

They continue to find a gay man handcuffed in a chair in a room filled with a bunch of BDSM mannequins posed in precarious positions. The man tells him that when the Pastor finishes the rant he’s been going on, knives will burst through the chair and into chest — Kai inspects the chair and sees that that’s true. He quickly helps the man escape and tells Winter to go find help; they’re going to get everyone out.

Winter tries to escape the horror house, but Pastor Charles stops her and tells her that she needs to be in the show. Kai attacks him and brings him into the knife-chair room. He interrogates him, explaining that the woman was at Planned Parenthood because she simply had a UTI, the drug addict was trying to get clean, and the gay man was volunteering his time at an AIDS clinic. They consider calling the police, but Kai doesn’t think that’s justice for what Pastor Charles has done. Kai hits the red button, and knives shoot through Pastor Charles’ chest.

Back in the present

In the present, Winter is explaining to the other women that she believes his path can be straightened. She asks that they give her a little bit more time to try to get him to see that he’s gone too far. It’s at this point Ivy kisses Winter and calls her “baby” because I guess they’re, like, ~official~ now! Beverly tells Winter she’ll give her through the end of the week, at which point Winter better get out of her way so she can go after Kai herself.