'American Horror Story: Coven' Recap: The One With The Mare Winningham Incest

Spoiler: this woman is going to fuck her sonSorry, did we spoiler at you there in the title of this, our American Horror Story: Coven recap for Season Three Episode Three, even though we said last week it was American Horror Story: Coven Episode Three but it was not American Horror Story: Coven Episode Three because this is American Horror Story: Coven Episode Three? Math is hard. What else is hard? Kyle's peener, when he does sex with his mom, Mare Winningham! AIYEEEE!

First, it is 1971, and a young Fiona who looks NOTHING LIKE JESSICA LANGE is ready to seize some power for herself from the former Supreme, Anna Leigh (Christine Ebersole, hooray!). Anna Leigh does not think Fiona is ready to be Supreme, because of how Fiona is not only a “selfish, craven little child” whom she will see burn in hell, but because Fiona is also a “vicious little gash”! Hmmm, “vicious little gash” sounds like somebody else we know, and that person is Ryan Murphy! Just kidding, that guy is awesome. Thanks for the cool show, dude.

Luckily, Fiona has her handy Murder Knife ready, because Anna Leigh was taking just a little too long getting the life sucked out of her by the “blossoming” power of Fiona. “Fine, save me a spot,” Fiona tells Anna Leigh as her Murder Knife slashes the Supreme's throat, because even when she was like 17 or whatever, she already had all the best lines.

In present day, Fiona regards her portrait, drink in hand. There is then an incredibly great interlude of Fiona narrating the “dance.”

“A dance I've known since I first saw my reflection in my father's eyes.”


“My partners have been princes and starving artists. Greek gods and clowns. Every one of them certain they'd lead. Primitive beautiful animals. Their bodies responding to the inevitability of it all. It's my dance. I have performed it with finesse and abandon with countless partners. Only the faces change.”

We are just gonna ignore the part where “the night comes when the dance ends,” because of how Jessica Lange is such an ugly old cow whome nobody wants to fuck anymore, because IT IS NOT TRUE AND WE CAN'T HEAR YOU AND LALALA JESSICA LANGE WILL GET FUCKED HARD OR SOFT OR HOWEVER SHE LIKES IT BY WHOMEVER SHE WANTS FOREVER AND EVER.

Zoe is in Mare Winningham's living room –!!!– and Mare Winningham is smoking some pot and is a sort of white trash punk Loser with a chin stud, gross.

mare winningham

Mare, Kyle's mom, was gonna hang herself till Zoe called and wanted to hang out and watch her smoke doobs and talk about Kyle and stuff. “I don't know how it works, Mrs. Spencer, but Kyle has not left us,” Zoe intones. Oh, that's right, he is a zombie slave at Misty Day's, I actually forgot.

Queenie and Nan are watching the newly moved-in neighbor boy be shirtless and whorey. His mom sees them and Madison and makes witch eyes at them. But she is not a witch! She is a Bible humper. She just looks like a witch because OOOOEY SHE IS PATTI LUPONE.

Kathy Bates is watching the Magic Box, stuffing herself and crying. “That magic box lies. Somebody in there says that NEGRO is president of the UNITED STATES.”

kathy bates

We will pause here to note that much of Kathy Bates's writing is a little “on the nose.”

And here is Fiona to rub it in by saying she voted for him … twice! Which just proves that racism is over, because if someone as racist as Fiona (oh yes she is) can vote for a black man, then we are obviously all post-racial.

Here, let us remind you how post-racial Fiona is:

And we’re BACK in the hairdresser’s again, and Fiona is throwing down to Angela Bassett (Marie Laveau). First she is all like “black don’t crack,” which is just true. But then she is talking about “your kind” and “my kind” and calling Tituba illiterate, which, why is that necessary? And they are both arguing about whether white witches (meaning literally caucasian witches, not “white witches” like good witches) got their Magicks from African witches. But we thought the witchery was genetic? And this is sounding like it is just a matter of knowledge and spells? Meh, show.

So Fiona is being super-racist for no reason at all, and then asks for eternal youth. This does not seem like a way to win friends and influence people? Flies and honey, all of that? She ends with “Maybe in another century you could have two shithole salons.” Fiona does not seem to be that good at talking to women — except, with Kathy Bates, while she is generally condescending and laughing at her, she is also friendly. Why bring out this race bullshit? Why antagonize the great Voodoo Queen when you want something from her? We guess they are setting up ANOTHER battle, or maybe a buddy-cop movie (one is by-the-book! one is trying to murder all of humanity and take over the world!) and beautiful friendship. But this is playing awkwardly. Bad writing, and dumbness.

Oh hey, Nan is not a virgin, she does it all the time and guys find her hot, she would like you to know! Yay Nan! Queenie is a virgin. She is saving herself. You probably assumed the other way around for both of them, because you are racist and also ableist. Well, stop being those things!

will rock your world don't you forget it

Queenie sees Madame LaLaurie (Kathy Bates), and is like, “Hey, you're the bitch that blindsided me with that candlestick.” Madame LaLaurie is having trouble with this New World Order of not getting to torture her slaves and is all like “negress says what?” Queenie throws down an unconvincing “cracker bitch,” as though Gabourey Sidibe reeeeeally can't bring herself to say racial slurs even if she is acting.

Fiona sweeps in to grant Queenie her own personal slave in the shape of Undead Slave-Torturing Mary Todd Lincoln. “There is nothing,” Fiona sniffs, “I hate more than a racist.” Fiona is apparently not terribly self-aware.

Now we are back to Misty Day, lonely witch of the Bayou. She is singing Stevie Nicks to zombie Kyle, as you do.

Misty has unFrankensteined all Zombie Kyle's scars mostly, and he is golden again, but with dead eyes because of how he is dead. Zoe comes in all, remember me? He runs his zombie sausage fingers through her hair. Misty is about to abandoned by her zombie she bathed and fed and nursed to health. She is not happy. And she is not stable. But being a hippie she is fighting her feelings of CRAZY. She wants to be giving and generous and perfect — a GOOD witch — but it all cracks into a thousand shards as she sees that even those she has given life itself will abandon her. Welcome to motherhood, Misty Day. Maybe try not to fall in love with your kids or whatever.

“I'll come back for you, I promise,” says selfish Zoe. “No you won't,” Misty says. She knows. She's bereft, her whole life has been, she is the loneliest dead girl in the world, and Lily Rabe is amazing in this, and she starts twirling like Stevie Nicks.

Nan and Madison go to see Hot Guy and Madison plays it allllll wrong. “Saw you move in, looked pretty good without your shirt. Made me wonder about the rest of the package,” she says, like a total whore, while Hot Guy only makes eye contact with Nan, smiling kindly. His total disinterest in Madison just makes her try harder, and she's basically got her skirt up over her head, twiddling her bean, all “ayo boyo, you want some of this?” He's like “meh.”

Patti LuPone comes in and is like “get out whores we're going to church,” and Madison is like “cuss cuss cuss fuck baby Jesus I'm a giant slut who's inappropriate all the time” and then she Carries a butcher knife into the wall and sets fires to the curtains with her mind, because that is how you make a boy's mom like you, SCIENCE FACT.

Cordelia's bloodwork came back. I keep forgetting about Cordelia, because she is boring. “Miss Fox,” the doctor says, “we have a problem.” Fiona also has a problem with her bloodwork and can't have a facelift. They have EVIL BLOOD and are TOTALLY FUCKED. But remember last week?

Sarah Paulson and Hank (her Dear Hubby, who is apparently important enough to own a name) are doing baby magic in the potted garden. She is a good witch! She loves to make things grow! She probably isn’t even racist!

Now he is naked, for the blood spell where they rub blood on each other’s faces and then do sex. I am totally relating to this scene because every time I do sex, eggs break and snakes appear and fire starts, it is just how I roll.

How could that possibly not have worked? THERE WAS FIRE.

Zoe takes Kyle to his mom's, the one person he'll remember, and he looks back at her with dead zombie eyes, he remembers nothing, he is a baby zombie with only his body and nothing in it, and he does not know how to be just a body and he is Sad.

Patti LuPone comes to see Fiona, bringing her a Bible, as she always does when she comes into someone's house for the first time. She has come to tattle on the girls' property invasion. Fiona, making friends and influencing neighbors, calls her a hypocrite pervert. “One of your girls threw a knife at me!” says Patti LuPone. “She has to work on her aim,” Fiona explains. Fiona finds out she is a firestarter too, and you see that she suspects Madison is the new Supreme, and that is why she is weakening. Madison lights her cigarette with her mind.

Guess Fiona's gonna have to kill her.

So now Kyle and Mare Winningham are having some mom-dead-son time, and they are kissing on the mouth, WHUT AND THE NECK WHUT AND SHE IS REACHING INTO HIS PANTS WHUUUUUUTTTTT.

Now that we have seen some incest, because “Wednesday,” Cordelia is consulting with Marie Laveau about her fertility issue. She is looking for a spell that “ain't no picnic for anyone involved.” Eye of newt, two ounces of baby gravy in a mason jar, the usual. Laveau eats a ghost pepper to show the gods the suffering she is willing to endure. The baby gravy starts to cook in the fire. Some hot black dudes pick up Paulson and … rape her with a baby goat? Whassagoinon?

Oh, she just gets showered in the blood of the goat, no big. That'll be 50k up front, in cash — except MIND FUCK. Laveau won't do it! And she is crazy and laughing and crying and evil and beautiful and angry. She tells Cordelia, “You were born into the wrong tribe. You're the daughter of my sworn enemy.” That is kind of true, since Fiona is everyone's sworn enemy, including Cordelia's, but Laveau does not seem to know the enemy of her enemy is her friend.

Madison and Fiona are bonding over attempted murder. They're terrible, Muriel!

Queenie and LaLaurie are bonding over LaLaurie insulting Queenie's weight and Queenie telling her “Get back to work, SLAVE.”

And oh right the minotaur is there to ravish and murder them. Almost forgot about the Minotaur.


Gabourey and Kathy are playing off each other oddly. Gabourey is surprisingly monotone. Kathy's energy is thrown off so she too is flat, while trying to reach for something.

Now Queenie is bonding with the minotaur, but hers is about being fat or something. “We both deserve love the way we are.” Queenie is not impressing me tonight. Oh, now she is masturbating herself and asking the minotaur to fuck her, so … he does and that is weird. Oh, now he will murder her or maybe not, who even knows. This is really a lot for one episode?

Mare and Kyle are having a mom and son convo about hey, let's invite your nice girlfriend over, we don't have to incest anymore, and he is like I'm a zombie and she's like who are you I know your body [TOO WELL] and that is not your body and he doesn't talk because zombie. But man he looks so angry. And she's like “she can't please you like I can,” she is not stable really. He is Frankenstein gonna kill the little girl with the flower now, except Mare Winningham isn't really holding flowers so much as a handful of cock.

frankenstein and child

Oh yup, with a trophy, so many whacks. More than 40 even. (But not as many as she gave him, RIM SHOT!) You are dead Mare Winningham now.


Madison thinks she is being sexy leaning over the pool table. We've seen better.

Zoe shows up, but is probably not expecting her future mother in law to be dead in a pool of her own skull. My, Kyle, what a bloody face you have!

And now Fiona is informing Madison she will be the next Supreme. “I am the old one. I'm dying. My time is up. And you? Are killing me. I've led a disreputable life but I've done it in style. And I'll die likewise.”

Now they are figting over the knife because Fiona is TRYING TO GET MADISON TO KILL HER and hahahahaha Fiona accidentally slashes Madison's throat (BY ACCIDENT) and that is hilarious. Here comes the tongueless butler what got no tongue with a paper towel to get the blood off Fiona's hands out out damn spot.

She smiles. “Bury her deep. God knows what all that shit in her body will do to the lawn when it comes up in the spring. This coven doesn't need a new supreme. It needs a new rug.”

But the old one really tied the room together.

TV Show: American Horror Story

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  • TrixieConQueso

    Wish this was Walking Dead so at least Mare could have gone for a 2 episode deal and come back as an awesome Incestuous Zombie.

  • I, uh . . . is “Wow” too cliched?

  • Annie Towne

    Your recaps are getting funnier and funnier. Good work on a weird, jaw-on-the-floor episode (incest is fine, but chin studs are just so NOT). Do you read Colette Lala’s Bitchy Survivor Blog? It’s great, often brilliant, and you seem to be hitting many of the same notes. Liking it.

  • Klem Johansen

    I just realized that I am now watching the show only so that these recaps will make sense. The show itself is just a means to an end- a sexy, sexy end.

    • rebecca

      Let me guess: THEY STILL DON’T MAKE SENSE.

      • Klem Johansen

        But in a sexy way, so I don’t mind.