American Horror Story – Hotel: Season 5, Episode 11 – “Battle Royale”

When we last checked in with the gang, Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare) and Iris (Kathy Bates) had reversed their Thelma and Louise onto the denizens of the hotel, most notably the Countess (Lady Gaga). As we resume the storyline, we see that even the worst laid plans go awry. Liz and Iris gun down the Countess but Donovan’s (Matt Bomer) the only casualty. In an episode that really narrows the lens on all their abandonment issues, we finally get to see some Elsa-like (Frozen not Freakshow letting go happening. Iris asks Liz to cremate her son so he doesn’t end up in the trash chute of death, and in her life- and death-long fight to hold on to her ungrateful spawn, she’s defeated.

Meanwhile, Sally (Sarah Paulson) rescues the Countess by digging out the bullets, sewing up her wounds, and making her kill her the remaining Children of the Corn babies in order to suck up their healing blood. As she stitches up the fallen queen, we finally get to see the fountain from whence her neediness flowed. Checking into the hotel back in 1993 with folk-grunge Kurt and Courtney lookalikes, Sally just wants to be adored. The threesome’s menage a drugs climaxes when Sally literally sews herself to their skins. Naturally, the duo overdose and Sally’s stuck in the human caterpillar of her own making getting tortured by the Addiction Demon until she finally rips herself free. Never one to learn her lesson, she enlists the Countess’ help in getting John (Wes Bentley) back.

Meanwhile, Detective John Lowe and his wife Alex (Chloe Sevigny) veer off into their happy ending with their vampire son, and magically remember they have a daughter, Scarlett (Shree Cooks). A daughter who knows perfectly well what’s going on, and point blank asks them if she’s going to be eaten. While eating one’s young is perfectly normal behavior in less-developed life forms, like guppies, we can’t help but applaud Scarlett’s stoicism. Too bad John fails at keeping them safe and is lured back once more to the hotel.

Liz and Iris rally and convince Ramona Royale (Angela Bassett) to not eat them but help them kill the Countess because really, they’re on borrowed time at this point. With a nice tie-in to American Horror Story: Coven Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) checks into the hotel, and provides Ramona with the strong-as-hell witch blood she needs to get her full powers. But instead of a Caged Heat showdown between the two alpha bitches, we get a surprisingly poignant moment where both reveal their constant need to save and hold on to love when all it does is slip away. The Countess wants death; there’s nothing left to live for (except her one last romp with Ramona). However, John manages to deliver the final nail in her coffin, so to speak, as he shoots her and completes his Ten Commandments; thou shalt not kill with the trophy head of the one who started it all.

James Patrick March (Evan Peters) is delighted to have his bride dead and with him forever, much to the laundress’ dismay. You see, she framed him because she knew he would never let himself get arrested. She wanted to be with him forever in death; the hotelier Romeo to her housekeeping Juliet. Too bad for her, he was never informed of his role in her fantasies. The laundress is banished, the Countess is trapped in her fortress, and everyone’s greatest fears of lost love traps them in their endless cycles of hell. This would’ve been a good episode to go out on, but we’ve got a couple more to see exactly how the remaining characters will self-sabotage with misguided attempts at happiness via the reluctance to just let go.