'American Horror Story': Angela Bassett Checks In, Everyone Freaks Out

As the episode title suggests, "Mommy" is all about American Horror Story: Hotel's various mothers: Alex the Miserable Pediatrician, Iris the Pitiful Front Desk Clerk, and the Gold-Digging Vampire Countess. The reunion and grieving that they're in when we leave them opens more wounds. Read on for a speedy recap of the episode's main events! Please do not continue if you do not want to know what happened on American Horror Story: Hotel season 5 episode 2 "Mommy". She leads him back to his room where they share a moment of affection before Alex comes to her senses.

"The first day, the first scene, we were clinched in an embrace", Bassett told The Wrap. Alex's story does gain a new level of excitement, however, when she finds Holden in the hotel that will either save her marriage, slowly destroy her even further, or maybe even both. Leading up to the Halloween episodes, the AHS narratives spend a good deal of time unpacking narrative before presenting the two-part Halloween specials, that are more bottle-episodes than important squares in the narrative quilt. I also really like seeing a lot of him.

On the last episode a fashion designer named Will Drake spruced up the Hotel Cortez; a model got the attention of the Countess; and John learned about the hotel's first owner.

Claudia, Drake, and his son appear, so James vanishes, but not before he overhears Drake's plan of remodeling. He wanted to die and she wouldn't let him. It looks like we're seeing an alliance here - and we love it! And when she realises that daughter Scarlett wasn't lying about Holden being "alive". well, let's just say it only took two words to keep us awake for the rest of the night: "Hi, mommy". Alex goes on about what she went through, then we see that she's in a therapy session with Scarlett and John.

She told Variety: "It's been a lot of fun". The young girl tells them that Holden didn't seem to have normal feelings and that he smelled like lavender, something that Alex mentioned earlier. She was a blaxploitation actress who ended up with Countess Elizabeth (after the Countess took away her other prospects) for a time.

Assuming it was all her imagination, she laid down in bed just for junkie Gabriel to reach his hands out and grab her neck. The Countess proceeds to take a blade from her gloves and cut her own breasts, allowing Bassett's Ramona to lick up the blood, before she says, "It was glorious". Unsurprisingly, John is the only one who is willing to listen (for obvious reasons). It nearly worked, actually, it would have worked, but Sally vanished. Liz Taylor said that Donovan was lucky, though, and that he abused Iris. But Donovan refuses her outpouring of affection instead offering the suggestion that she kill herself and put an end to the torture of their broken relationship.

"You're starving, too. I can taste it on you." .

Things don't get any easier for John. She tried to get him to drink before showing him divorce papers. He friggin' loses it-and who can blame him. Gaga-as-Countess isn’t really doing it for me so far, so you bet your ass that I’m hoping Ramona wins out in the end. Royale swears revenge by promising to kill The Countess' kids, Holden among them.

Meanwhile, Tristan begins to feel the effects of the seductress ways of The Countess.

As Tristan seeks out the ghost of Mr. March, he's interrupted by Drake.

Tristan is kissing Will Drake when he takes out a knife to kill him.

Alex stumbles across Holden in the hotel later in the episode which, at the same time, plays host to another mother-son reconnection story between Donovan and Iris. Oh, waaah. Sally's concern is whether or not Iris has unfinished business there, and wants the old woman gone after she dies. But when she turns him with her blood so they can be together forever, she falls on her ex's bad side in a big way - the Countess follows them to a recording studio and kills everyone, Ramona's new love included. Talk about family drama. (Thank you, Ryan Murphy.) The second half, though, got the jolt it desperately needed: a bit of plot tension and, more crucially, Angela Fuckin Bassett. Ramona tells him that she's also a vampire, she and Countess used to be lovers until Countess dumped her. Ramona fell in love with a man and turned him. Angela Bassett says nope, not today white devil, and electrocutes him before he can shank her and throws Donovan into the trunk of her auto. Ramona is out for revenge, and wants to use Donovan to do it.

Thus, we get to "Mommy".

Also, just a quick observation, but Kathy Bates is truly AHS's unsung hero - the HBIC of the last three seasons, in my opinion.