American Horror Story: Apocalypse season 8, episode 9 recap: Fire and Reign
By Ariba Bhuvad
American Horror Story presents…the Illuminati.
American Horror Story takes an interesting turn in the season 8 penultimate episode as Michael Langdon takes down the entire Coven–minus a few. With each episode this season, the story has been making its way back to the season 8 premiere, and this week we found out how the Outposts came to be.
If you’ll recall, in the present post-apocalypse timeline there are only six witches, but we know the Coven was much larger than that–and now we know what happened to them. This week’s episode, “Fire and Reign”, picked up with Eichner and Peters’ characters, Mutt and Jeff as Jeff talked about how horrible the world is.
In fact, he hates it so much that he would love to burn it all down. But an upcoming meeting with a group known as the Cooperative has them feeling optimistic. The same thing can’t be said about Venable, however, who is denied her request to join them for the meeting which leads her to quit.
Back in New Orleans, Cordelia is trying to help Mallory with her powers, who is frightened at the prospect of Michael coming to take them away. And while Cordelia tries to appease her by saying that they are protected by her magical shield, that assurance fizzles away when Dinah breaks the spell for Michael and Miriam as they walk into the Coven.
Credit: FX
While Cordelia, Myrtle, and Mallory are upstairs and find a way to escape, the rest of the girls meet their end as Miriam pulls out her robotic arm and shoots them all down. Sorry Michael, better luck next time.
Unbeknownst to Michael, Mutt and Jeff planted a camera in Miriam so they could spy on him, and even better yet, they can control what she says so they suggest he burn the world down and recruit them to do it.
And then American Horror Story channels something we did not see coming–the Cooperative is actually the Illuminati. This is revealed to Michael when he goes to see Jeff and Mutt and they tell him they can start an all-out nuclear war.
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For those who don’t know what the Illuminati is, its a popular conspiracy theory about a group of the most elite (includes world leaders, etc.) that have been controlling the world for centuries.
In the world of American Horror Story, this group includes Warren Buffet, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, and others.
As soon as hears the idea, Michael is all in and ready to take over the world Antichrist style. Meanwhile, Mallory, Cordelia, Myrtle plus Madison, and Coco all gather in Misty’s cabin as they decide that Mallory needs to travel back in time to prevent the world from ending.
Can she pull off what no other witch has done before? Nah, but she does her best.
To test the waters, American Horror Story crossed paths with the royal Russian family, The Romanoffs (anyone watching the Amazon show?), and sent Mallory back to the time of the infamous assassination of the family. It turns out that the youngest daughter, Anastasia, was a witch (in the show) but couldn’t save her family from their untimely demise.
The hope was that Mallory could prevent the assassination from happening, but the first try did not go as well as they would have liked, and almost cost Mallory’s life. And perhaps this is because Cordelia has to die first for Mallory to really get a hold of her true power, so Myrtle suggests asking the warlocks for help.
It’s an unlucky streak for the witches when they arrive to find all the warlocks dead, no thanks to Michael. All the while, Venable is truly ready to quit and walk out the door when Jeff and Mutt finally reveal their plan.
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They intend to start a third World War and kill off everyone (or almost everyone) in the world. They want her to take over as an administrator of sorts for the outposts that will house the people they want to ensure survive the impending doom headed their way–and she is completely on board.
The Cooperative/Illuminati are filled in on the plan by Michael and how all of them including their families will have a place to survive and thrive in the wake of the new world. Oh, boy, next week’s season 8 finale of American Horror Story ought to be a doozy.
Don’t miss the season 8 finale next Wednesday on FX at 10 PM EST!