Another week has come and gone, which means that three more episodes of American Horror Story season 13 have dropped. After plenty of confusion about what is going on this installment, things are finally starting to take shape in this “tribute” season, although the stories are still separate. Here’s what you missed.
American Horror Story season 13 episode 4 recap: “Is That All There Is?”
We open with what we can presume is some sacrifice going on down in Club Hell, where all the “kids” from the previous episode are. As a reminder, this includes Tate Langdon and Kai Anderson (Evan Peters), Adelaide Langdon (Jamie Brewer), Winter Anderson (Billie Lourd), and Elizabeth Short (Mena Suvari).
Wilhemina Venable (Sarah Paulson) walks up to Elizabeth Short again, saying this was a “portal to hell” before placing a red hood over her body and guiding her, along with the other kids, into the room. At the same time, Ben (Joey Pollari) seems to wake from his drug-induced sleep and looks for Mr. Nas. As he stumbles through the apartment bathed in red light, he finds Mr. Nas standing and staring out a window, drinking that same black sludge.
Mr. Nas forces Ben to suddenly levitate and come over to where he is standing, making Ben drink the sludge too. Ben closes his eyes, and when he opens them, we’re suddenly faced with a younger man (Paul Anthony Kelly), who says it’s easier when he doesn’t have to force Ben.
Ben is put back in his bed while we cut to the group once more, and we hear Elsa Mars’ (Jessica Lange) voice, saying, “What a dream to get the band back together. Now we sing for our supper.”
We return from the credits to see Elsa sing a song about her childhood and tell stories from her youth while the people in the red cloaks, Veneble, and the children watch her, titled "Is That All There Is?" Elsa imagines a crowd cheering for her when she is done, but really it’s just Addie. Before Elsa can leave the stage, Veneble makes her stay.
Then they suddenly welcome Mr. Nas out; he sits on a throne of sorts on a pedestal, where Elsa introduces him and talks about the same holiday we heard about in the last episode, “Rauhnacht.” Venable steps forward and says that they offer these 13 girls to their dark lord as a sacrifice. The ground opens beneath the group in red hoods, and we suddenly see lava. A ton of lava.
One by one, each girl has their red cloak ripped off, revealing a woman who is “a leading lady” in society who could also be seen as sinful in some way. They use several famous faces, like the original Jezebel and historical figures, but a few from previous seasons appear too, like Hypodermic Sally and Tuberculosis Karen (Sarah Paulson). They toss them all into the lava pit as a sacrifice to the dark lord.
They sacrifice the girls, including Elizabeth Short, after Tate says a quick, dark prayer but realize they have miscounted. Venable offers herself up as the last sacrifice, throwing herself into the lava pit. Once she is in there, the lava pit suddenly turns into a fiery tornado beneath them.
Ben suddenly wakes up after that, and Constance (Jessica Lange) is standing over him, saying that the delirium from him passing out from her “strong drink” has passed and that he has been asleep for some time and is adamant that nothing happened the night before.
After that, we see Constance and Mr. Phibes (John Waters) sitting at the table discussing their pasts. After discussing the sacrifice of the 13, where Constance doesn’t really understand why those specific ones were brought back, and Phibes explains Mr. Nas’ reasoning, Phibes opens up about his past and how he made a deal with the devil for his immortality, which is how he ended up in the apartment.
Constance says her story is similar: Mr. Nas brought her here because he looked so beautiful (basically the Paul Anthony Kelly version we saw earlier), and he was luring her in. They made a deal — if she could help him fulfill his destiny as the dark lord, he would bring back her children so she could be a mom again, this time “properly.” It was the only thing she asked of him. And he agreed, which explains why she is there.
After her story, she and Phibes check on Mr. Nas, saying his blood will spike for a certain biomarker and that once it reaches 100, he will “rise again.” Phibes tests it, and it’s in the high 90s, meaning he'll soon be with them once more. Phibes declares “Hail, Satan” before the screen cuts to black, confirming that Mr. Nas is actually Satan himself.
American Horror Story season 13 episode 5 recap: “Date Night”
This episode is a little different from the previous one, as it focuses solely on Ben and one of Kira’s (Madelaine Petsch) former friends, Ashley (Elle Chapman), who visits him. She texts him that she’s ready to get back out there and “not talk about the crash,” revealing she was the one other survivor from the friend group.
Ben invites her over to their apartment that night, and they connect over their shared trauma and their past, as well as Kira and how she was the kind of person who could easily “walk all over” someone. Ben confides in her and says that since the plane crash, his dreams have been strange, and she agrees, apparently saying it's a trauma response. He admits that he signed up for therapy but that he wants to get settled at his job first.
As the night goes on, they keep talking, and we learn how she survived. She says that the crash must have been over the Bermuda Triangle, and she remembers suddenly barreling towards the ocean and then waking up in a hospital room. Before the flight took off, she had consumed a bunch of Xanax to calm herself, and because of that, she didn’t brace before hitting the water; she “rag-dolled.”
She came out with several burns and gashes, resulting in her developing scars and having pigskin used as a graft. Ben says he thinks her scars are badass.
They continue to talk, and she says she heard what he did and how he contacted all of the girls’ families to check in on them, and that it touched her, saying he’s a “good guy.” She asks him what he misses the most about Kira, and he’s honest, saying it was “the sex,” because they weren’t really together for that long.
Ashley then admits that part of her is happy Kira is gone because she was manipulative. Ben is visibly surprised by this but says he saw her more as "demanding" and that he never really saw that intense side of her before. Ashley says she’s not the only one who knew, since barely anyone showed up for her funeral, but they move on after that and decide to watch a movie.
While they're looking for a movie, they come across Ocean’s 13, and Ben freaks out, stands up, and turns away from the screen. Ashley asks what’s wrong, and he confides in her about his trauma and that it happened out of nowhere as a kid. But surprise, surprise: she also fears the number 13, which is why she was so annoyed at Kira for planning the party around the number when she knew Ashley’s past. Ben asks what happened, and Ashley is shocked that he doesn’t know, so she tells him.
At a wedding during COVID times, a very small one to social distance, guests were suddenly murdered by a maniac wearing a pig’s head. Ashley ended up being the only one who survived, but 13 other people died, which cemented her fear. Ben once again confides in her about his past, saying that he was born on Friday the 13th and that his father died while drunk driving, and then he was in foster care.
He was taken care of by a woman named Martha who genuinely just wanted to be a mom, but she died of cancer on his 13th birthday. After that, it was back to foster care. Ashley comforts him, and they kiss, which leads to sex.
The next morning, they wake up, and Ben sees that Ashley’s scars span the rest of her body. He takes a shower and is surprised to find her standing there watching him, but he stops when she says she notices some kind of “tramp stamp” on his back. He feels it and asks if she drew on him at night, and she says, "No." She feels it and suddenly says it’s not ink; it’s a brand. We see the number "616" before the episode ends.
American Horror Story season 13 episode 6 recap: “The Return of Devil’s Night”
If you thought we were going to follow these two or Mr. Nas again, that’s hysterical, because now we’re finally back in New Orleans. We see someone in the street licking blood from something dead — Jeffrey Dahmer (Seth Gabel) — as he’s suddenly picked up in a car by James Patrick March (Evan Peters), who tells him to get in. Both of them had appeared in another popular season: Hotel.
In his old Transatlantic accent, we hear March explain that he, alongside several people from the Hotel Cortez, was “reanimated” for a certain task, and all of them were serial killers, saying it’s “witch-hunting season.”
We cut back to Coven House, where the girls are practicing their magic. One witch, Morwenna (Alex Consani), has very strong magic: she can cause an animal to revert to its earliest stage of life, straight from death. Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) is shocked, then furious, and demands to know when these powers suddenly manifested. Morwenna is adamant that they appeared out of nowhere only a couple of days ago.
Cordelia walks away, and both Madison (Emma Roberts) and Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) go to see what is wrong. Cordelia says it’s rare for so many girls to manifest new powers so close together, as if the magic knows something is about to happen. Queenie says it doesn’t matter what happens, since she’s the Supreme, and these girls need her to see what will go on, but Cordelia says she can’t see the future or what is about to come.
She says she is beginning to lose her temper and barely recognizes herself, and that her former desire to keep girls safe in her care feels like a limitation right now in the face of danger.
Queenie asks what she needs, and Cordelia says they must contact her mother from beyond, Fiona (Jessica Lange), to see what she would do, since she had a darkness Cordelia can’t quite embrace. They agree to help her.
The witches all drink a single shot of absinthe, then hold hands and begin summoning Fiona around a Ouija board, with some offering their powers. At first, it seems to do nothing, but then the shot glass on top begins to spell out “Here.” Cordelia tells everyone to leave, as this is between her and her mother.
Once the girls are gone, Cordelia walks around the house, seemingly looking for her mother, but instead there’s a knock at the door. She opens it, only to see James Patrick March coming in. Cordelia immediately senses the danger and tells him to leave, but he refuses, taking out a sickle to kill her with. He throws it at her, but she stops it midair and sends it flying back into his head.
However, this doesn’t kill March, and he simply pulls the sickle out of his head, calling in the other serial killers. One of the girls comes down the stairs to see what is wrong, and one of the killers attacks her, but Cordelia can get him off with her powers, urging her to tell the girls to run and hide.
But just as she turns towards the stairs, March throws the sickle at her once again, and this time, it lands in the back of her head, seemingly killing her. The episode ends with March and the killers standing in the house, declaring that the “Cortez Devils” were there to hunt.
The next two episodes of American Horror Story season 13 premiere on Oct. 8, 2026. Read our recap of the first three episodes here.
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