In season 7’s exhilarating finale, Ally comes out on top, Kai is confirmed to be the scum of the earth, and women everywhere rejoice, for they’ve finally found a hero (and a TV show) to believe in again.
This season of American Horror Story was unique and singular in many ways, the most obvious of which being that it tackled a subject not yet thoroughly explored in a fictional realm — the 2016 election. And though many of us thought we’d had political ennui to last us to 2020, I think it’s safe to say that once the season got going, there was no convincing us not to stick with it to the end like the faithful followers Ryan Murphy knew we’d be. This season had everything one could hope for: modern characters living in a world accessible to us, Evan Peters acting up a storm, Sarah Paulson wearing blazer-outfits for days and most importantly, many, many women yelling at and working hard to destroy many, many bad men. And destroy, they did. In lieu of a traditional recap and because there is simply no escaping that, once again, Sarah Paulson is the reigning champ of yet another AHS season, let’s explore the best Ally Mayfair-Richards moments of this twisty, feminist-y finale.
The Past
The beginning of “the past” is really the future, so bear with me here, because we start off in a prison in 2018 after Kai has presumably been arrested for, you know, attempted world domination plus many bad haircuts. He’s already begun to rebuild his army in prison, and everyone is calling him Divine Ruler from the new guy (Trevor who’s puny, in need of the cult’s protection and important) to the prison guard (Gloria, who’s fierce, in cahoots with Kai, and way more important).
Now, to the real past, we get a flashback to a year prior, where Kai and Ally are playing house in a weird way. This consists mostly of Kai running around being mad at nothing and Ally offering him Manwiches. Kai mentions several times that he’s mad at Speed Wagon, who’s late for the meeting. In his tizzy, Kai tells the cult that the Night of 1,000 Tates is canceled … in favor of Night of 100 Tates. He admits that he’s hoping to get women to rise up in solidarity with their slain sisters; he believes that if the female population gets mad enough, they’ll essentially overtake those in charge who failed to keep them safe. Spoiler alert: more on that later!
In the kitchen (unfortunately), Beverly can no longer endure the menial tasks she’s forced to perform for the cult and begs Ally to kill her. Ally refuses and instead, lectures her about how she needs to hang on until she regains her faith in the cult. Ally calmly and creepily assures Beverly that the Night of 100 Tates will be glorious, and also offers to make Kai another Manwich.
Upstairs, Ally pulls Kai aside to tell him about the bug. We flash back again to the time when Ally hopped into Speed Wagon’s car. There, he explains to her that he had agreed to give the police inside information on the cult if they’d let him off for a drug charge. Obviously, Ally kills him immediately after his confession. Back in the present, she tells Kai that Winter hadn’t betrayed him after all. Kai breaks down, and Ally urges him to not let her death be in vain by becoming the leader Winter had wanted him to be.
As the men chant and prepare to go out on their murder spree, Ally, the little sneaky sneak that she is, slips outside under the guise of going to get snacks. No word on which snacks she’d promised to return with, but likely Manwich-related. She crosses the street, quietly panicking, and hops into the back of an FBI truck; she aggressively tells them to go now. And so the FBI infiltrates the house! It’s all really happening!
Once inside, the men and Kai grab their guns (of course) and frantically start to shoot. Beverly shoots one of the cult members in the head to stop him from doing further harm to the agents (or to herself), and she gets arrested. Outside, Beverly, handcuffed, thanks Ally for urging her to hold on. The FBI drags Kai outside and shove him into a truck. He screams at Ally that he’s going to kill her. No, thank you.
The Present
In the fake present, which is really sometime in 2018, we’re a few months out from the whole incident and Ally is once again wearing perfect blazer outfits and being a queen who is back on her restaurant grind. As she checks on the diners, a woman recognizes her and calls her one of the most inspirational women of their time. I happen to agree, just on principle. Suddenly, Beverly comes in looking for a table, so she and Ally sit down for a meal. Beverly reminds Ally that Kai plead guilty for everything without even going to trial, and admits that she’s worried the other shoe will drop and the FBI will come after her.
Ally explains that she’s not worried about being indicted because she was the informant all along, ever since Dr. Vincent had put her in the psych ward. Beverly reminds Ally that Kai had taken credit for every murder except Ivy’s. And by “reminds,” I mean “questions without actually asking and probably knows much more than she’s pretending to.” In any case, Ally seems bothered by her past as a literal murderer, but not too bothered- her new girlfriend comes over to the table and they do some cute stuff, which includes inviting Beverly to Oz’s birthday party that weekend.
At the party, Rachel Maddow’s people (!!) call Ally again (!!!) to get her to come speak on the show. It’s at this point Beverly casually mentions that Ally had turned down the invitation to speak to Lana Winters, and I temporarily lost all motor function because I imagined a world where 80-year-old Sarah Paulson on AHS interview 40-year-old Sarah Paulson on AHS about feminism. Anyway, rudely, she declines all offers, but soon gets a call from Kai. He, again, promises to get out of prison with the army he’s built inside, track her down, and kill her. Gloria, that prison guard, yells at him a little once he’s off the phone, but still returns to his cell with him and they ~get it on~. While they do the deed, Kai sees Ally on TV announcing that it’s now time for her to be heard: she’s running for Senate, y’all!
The Future
As one would expect, Ally’s sudden political career is truly bonkers and utterly beautiful. Her campaign ads are absolutely wacky and pretty perfect because her platform is basically that she’s trying to help all of us escape our “cults,” meaning the antiquated two-party system. She actually says the words, “Now that I’ve escaped a cult, I’m running for Senate,” which is now the only line I will accept from my potential leaders.
During a brief meeting, Ally tells Beverly (who appears to be a campaign manager of sorts) that she wants to separate herself from Kai by removing all mention of him from her campaign. Beverly reminds her that, unfortunately, they’re forever intertwined, so even if they concretely cut him out, it’s kinda useless. This makes Ally even more jazzed about showing the world that she’s a strong woman who’s about to take her story back.
Back in prison, Trevor (the new guy) presents himself to Kai after having drawn Kai’s tattoos on himself. Kai quickly stabs him a whole bunch, then proceeds to slice his face off so that his dead body can be framed as Kai’s dead body. Gloria sneaks Kai a guard uniform, and the two of them slip off campus together, looking like regular guards.
On debate night, Ally is holding her own in a pantsuit, quickly shutting down her opponent by telling him not to mansplain. After just a few minutes of actual debate, a question from the audience arises from none other than Kai Anderson. The crowd gasps and hides in their seats as he gets up to rant at Ally. As he makes his way up the aisle and to the stage, Gloria hands him a gun, which he points at her and screams about how women can’t lead because they’ll always be outsmarted by men. He pulls the trigger, but it doesn’t fire.
Ally looks to Gloria, and we flash back to presumably several weeks prior, when Ally met with Gloria to warn her against Kai’s power. In the present, back onstage, Ally confronts Kai once and for all. She tells him that he’d been wrong, and that “there is something more dangerous in this world than a humiliated man — a nasty woman.” Beverly shoots Kai in the head. I am crying just recapping this for you all. I hope you’re happy, because this is the catharsis I’ve needed since election night and I didn’t even think it would include murder, but the world is full of shocks!
A bit later, Ally is tucking Oz into bed as they discuss her Senate win. She says good night, explaining that she’s off to a meeting with powerful, empowered women who will ensure that no one like Kai will ever be in power again. We see her getting ready in the mirror, putting on makeup slowly until she finally pulls her emerald velvet hood onto her head to reveal to careful (and, in some cases, like mine) ecstatic viewers that she’s revived Valerie Solanis’s SCUM. The future is female, nevertheless she persisted, and holy Sarah Paulson’s not-lonely-for-long Emmy, has Ryan Murphy done it again.
Next: Game of Thrones marathon: Some survival tips
If you need me, I’ll be either scheming ways to write and publish a thesis on this season’s necessity within the cultural conversation, figuring out how I can run for Senate using Ally Mayfair-Richards’ experience as a template, or watching over and over while writing a (wo)manifesto that insists we regard this season as sacred text. Or making a Manwich. Probably the latter.