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

Our American Horror Story: Cult episode 8 recap cont’d…

Over in the basement, Winter tells Kai that the women are restless after having been put on kitchen duty. He sits at the table and puts his pinky out; she takes it right away. #TBT to when the pinky thing was the weirdest thing about this show lol. Kai reminds her of their total honesty policy, and asks if she’ll always love him. He tells her it’s time she understands her place in the big picture and makes her promise that he’ll have her loyalty.

When he starts crying and breaks pinky time, Winter points it out as a first. He tells her he’s crying because he loves their family so much. When she questions him, he clarifies that he loves the baby THEY will have together. She assumes he means the two of them because he’s scary as hell and he would definitely suggest that. He clears up — no, no — it’s NOTHING crazy like that! Detective Samuels is going to do the deed and as he enters her, Kai will enter Samuels so that she can bear a messiah for them! Normal stuff!

Back at the Mayfair-Richards abode, Ally is yelling at Dr. Vincent for locking her up in a psych ward for 3 weeks. Vincent shows her a family portrait of he and his siblings, and Ally, upon learning that he’s related to Kai, concludes that Vincent is the reason Kai had such easy access to her family. Ally screams at him that he’s the reason her family was torn apart, but Vincent promises he didn’t have anything to do with that, and pledges that he’ll get her family back together no matter what.

Kai, Winter, and Samuels gather in the basement, where Kai puts on the song “I Swear” by John Michael Montgomery and declares that it’s a sacred song to be forever played whenever a messiah is conceived!

For reference: Here’s a link to the song. 

My brain has turned into MUSH!

Winter lies down on the bed and the boys start a-kissing. AND YES, “I SWEAR” BY JOHN MICHAEL MONTGOMERY IS JUST PLAYING. As Samuels goes to do the deed, he complains that he can’t get it up with girls anymore. Winter stands from the bed and tells Kai that this is all insane, even for him. He reminds her that it’s a holy ritual, but she’s like “Uhh you just made it up literally an hour ago.”

Back at Ally’s house, a proper freak-out is taking place, though it’s a calm one by her standards. She’s in Oz’s bed, holding his toys and having a little cry. We then see her downstairs, cookin’ up a delicious treat. There’s a knock at the door and she grabs a knife, and then lets Kai (and some of his dude goons) in. She informs him that she’s made him Manwich sloppy joes and it was then I became absolutely certain this season was written by MadLibs.

Ally asks Kai to make his dudebros leave so they can have a minute alone. She claims to know information he will want to hear. Also, she admits that Kai also has something she wants — her son — and she’ll tell him her secret if he’ll agree to help. She spills the beans that Dr. Vincent agreed to help her take him down. Furthermore, he wants to his brother committed. She also admits to him that after months of being tortured by him, she’s finally been cured: she’s not afraid of anything anymore. They’re … kind of colluding now. And so they share a couple of Manwiches.

Elsewhere in town, Winter is on the side of the road seemingly picking up trash when Samuels pulls up and she hops on into his car. He gives her a container of gruel and tells her there’s another bag of recyclables in the trunk for her to “put back” because Kai DOESN’T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING. Winter gets mad at him for treating her so poorly, and asks why he’s letting Kai control him.

Flashback 3

We go into a flashback, where Samuels explains that Kai used to be under his thumb. Back when he exclusively did detective work, he’d stopped Kai for writing false prescriptions and blackmailed him. Obviously, this involved a lot of sexy stuff in return. Samuels also recounts a story where Kai walked in on him having sex with a woman. Although, it ended … pretty weirdly. She ran out, and that’s when Kai begins to move in and talk up Samuels. Samuels tells Kai a few times that he’s definitely not gay and that he has sex with tons of women, but Kai tells him that there’s no such thing as gay. It’s just an energy transfer. Then, they have sex.

In the present again

Back in the car, Winter throws her gruel onto Samuels and yells at him that he’s def gay. He gets mad at this. Then, he aggressively pushes her over into the passenger seat, telling her he’s going to impregnate her. In their struggle, Winter grabs his gun. In a brief standoff, she admits that she wishes she left all of this sooner. But now, it’s too late for her. And it’s too late for him, too.

So she shoots him in the head.

At Kai’s house, the clown-suited folks are back in action, dragging Dr. Vincent and Beverly into the basement before a lineup of the dudebros after Kai has declared “Bring me the betrayers”. Kai questions Vince first about his plan to put Kai away in a psych ward. Vincent tells him that he loves him and only wants to see him succeed. Kai reminds him that it was Vince who’d taught him about pinky power; it was their own private world of truth-telling and forgiveness. Kai initiates pinky power, reminding Vince that it was so special for them because they’d never lied to each other. Then he cuts Vincent’s pinky off and promptly stabs him in the heart.

Beverly is next. We quickly learn that Winter has told Kai that Beverly had been the one to shoot Samuels in the head. Kai laments that he’d trusted her and had wanted her to fight alongside him. She reminds him that she’d trusted him, too. More importantly, she was ready to fight until his ego got too big, he turned on her, and finally just threw her into the kitchen. She also tells him that even though he pretends to be doing this in service of a greater good, nothing is bigger than his ego. He tells her that death is too good for her; he wants her to suffer. So they take Beverly down to the isolation room.

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Kai goes on a little rant about how important loyalty is, now more than ever. After, the clowns take off their masks to face him. Finally, he asks that they all welcome their newest member. The final clown unmasks itself, and it is the radiant monster that is Ally Mayfair-Richards.

And so I have to lie down for infinity. Or at least till next Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET. See you then.