American Horror Story: Apocalypse review: Michael rebuilds his army

This week on American Horror Story, the focus is back on Michael Langdon, and things get a little weird as he tries to find guidance.

This week’s American Horror Story: Apocalypse begins with Michael Langdon and Cordelia meeting up once again as Michael discovers that Cordelia and her witches have killed his allies, including his adopted mother. She tries to appeal to his human side and explains that she has placed a spell on Ms. Mead so that Michael can’t find her soul to bring her back from the dead. Still, Michael vows to find a way to bring Ms. Mead back and to kill all of the witches, too.

Michael goes to the wilderness and refuses to eat or drink until his father (yes that’s right, his father Satan) helps him. The scene is definitely a play on a biblical story of Jesus, but instead of being tempted by demons and the devil, he is tempted by angels of light.

In his search for help, Michael stumbles upon another church full of people who are waiting for the Antichrist to appear. The preacher urges her congregation to sin saying that sins will help usher in the apocalypse and the Antichrist. To be honest, the whole Satanic church thing is a bit hard to buy and is kind of a shame because the true Satanic church is a pretty cool organization. It’s a television show though, so as best we can, we’re rolling with it.

At the church, Michael meets a woman who takes him home and gives him some food, which doesn’t really seem like something people who want to sin would do, but hey. Clearly, Michael is looking for guidance and really craves a mother figure.

We see another Black Mass ceremony, which honestly wasn’t super interesting to watch or shocking at this point. This whole Satanic church bit was pretty campy, and I didn’t find it super compelling. But, maybe it’s difficult to do an Antichrist story without some of it being a bit ridiculous.

Michael realizes that instead of the people of this congregation giving him guidance, they are looking to him for guidance now. Poor, angsty Michael Langdon. He definitely comes off as a child at multiple moments in this episode, and it’s quite the difference from the Michael we’ve seen earlier in the season — granted he’s older and wiser post-apocalypse.

Michael’s new mother figure takes him on a road trip, promising him that she knows someone in the network of Satan worshippers who can help him. We see Billy Eichner and Evan Peters in new roles once again, as well as Ms. Venable from Outpost Three who is… a secretary?

The new characters seem to be some sort of tech bros who spend their days inhaling copious amounts of cocaine. I honestly have no idea why these characters were introduced. It felt like a strong push for some humor in the season, but wasn’t funny. The joke about having sex with Ryan Reynolds was the possible highlight of this storyline, but otherwise, unnecessary.

The Silicon Valley Satanists agree to help Michael after he proves he is the Antichrist by killing a sex worker. They explain that they are his servants, and he tells them to use their skills in robotics to bring Ms. Mead back.

The episode ends with Michael being reunited with Ms. Mead, now in her robot form that we’ve known from the start of the season.

Though this episode of AHS felt much weaker than previous ones we’ve seen, we’re hoping that our Coven favorites return next week — they seem to be carrying the show more than our angsty Antichrist.