Recap/Review: American Horror Story: Hotel - Room 33

Remember during the panel at Comic-Con that Ryan Murphy promised we'd see some characters from the past? Well, this episode somewhat helped with keeping that promise as we learned a little more about the Countess.

Written by John J. Gray
Directed by Loni Peristere

Bartholomew: It's 1926 this week in flashbacks and the Countess is paying a visit to the infamous murder house from the first season to terminate a late pregnancy with Dr Charles Montgomery's help. Except that this pregnancy can't be terminated and the Countess gives birth to a boy named Bartholomew. We also learn that it's this baby who has been kept in Room 33 and when Ramona and Donovan were trying to kill the child, it was Alex who rescued the baby and nursed it back to health. If I were the Countess, I'd start to worry about Alex. If anyone is going to take her down, it's going to be the overzealous and overly mothering Alex to be honest.

Purpose Found: Alex proved how toxic a mother's love can be in this episode. When she wasn't avoiding Scarlett like the plague, she decided to get the Swedish girls from the first two episodes to psychologically torture (and screw) John until he lost the rest of his marbles, so she can be left alone with Holden. Alex's mothering skills are certainly worrying to watch and her callous disregard for both John and Scarlett is rather unsettling. Maybe it's her that Ramona should be siding up instead of Donovan and Iris.

Not Letting Go: Both Donovan and Ramona could learn something from Tristan in a way. He might not be bright but he knew that the Countess didn't love him while these two are mutually obsessed with getting back at their former girlfriend. To be honest, I found Ramona more entertaining during her scenes with Iris and Liz Taylor and Donovan when he was giving the Swedish models a talk about finding a purpose than when either of them were sniping about letting go of the Countess. I don't think either Donovan or Ramona will succeed in taking her down though.

You Can Have Him: To be honest, I didn't really see Tristan and Liz coming as a couple and given how too quickly it was dealt with in this episode - the Countess finding out and slicing Tristan's throat, it was a little too hard to care about it. I haven't liked Tristan a great deal so the episode where he finally developed as a character, I should've seen his "death" coming (he'll probably be a ghost now). It could've been more effective than it was but at least Tristan got one moment where he got to call the Countess out on her hypocrisy with her collection of lovers. If only he had been this well written in earlier episodes though. I even felt bad for him when he was being used to fluff Will halfway through this episode.

Daddy Losing His Cool: This wasn't a fun episode for John Lowe, was it? Alex and the Swedish twins drove him out of his mind, his partner didn't want his help with the latest Ten Commandments Killer attack and worse still, he terrified the crap out of poor Scarlett (who at this rate is probably the only sympathetic character left on this show). At this rate, it might be more shocking if John isn't a killer but hopefully this plot is resolved fairly soon and he realises that Holden actually is alive after all.

Next week we see the connection between the Countess and Mr March.