'American Horror Story' Season 13 Episodes 7, 8 Recap: Is Marie Back?

In episode 4 of American Horror Story Season 13, Nas was seemingly concerned that Ben was his son and forced him to drink the black liquid that he kept vomiting up. Then Nas went to Club Hell, where an event had been organized by Wilhemina and several other acolytes to sacrifice 13 legendary women into the sacred Hellmouth to age up the Dark Lord. One by one, Sally, Eva, Wallis, Ayn, Brigitte, Catherine, Mamie, Elena, Jezebel, Karen, Margaret, and Elizabeth were chucked into the fiery pit. Since they were one short, Wilhemina sacrificed herself, thereby fulfilling the purpose of the event–which was to age-up Nas until he reached 100. During that episode, we learned that Phibes was an original member of the Church of Satan, and that Nas had recruited Constance into his mission to take over the world by bringing her children back from the dead. In episode 5, Ben and Ashley met each other for a casual dinner date. But then things got pretty steamy and they ended up sleeping with each other. The following day, Ashley pointed out the 616 that had been branded onto Ben’s lower back, and Ben had no idea how it got there. In episode 6, Cordelia prepared her Coven to take on the evil that was quickly approaching them. In addition to that, Cordelia contacted her dead mother, Fiona, to help her and her witches. But March, Dahmer, Ramirez, and Zodiac barged into the Academy and killed Cordelia before Fiona could get to her daughter. What happened next? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

In episode 7 of Season 13, while Mallory stays by Cordelia’s body (on the first floor of the Academy), Madison, Coco, and Queenie go upstairs to help the witches who are being attacked by Dahmer, Ramirez, and Zodiac (while March plays the piano). Madison and Queenie confront Dahmer. Initially, it seems like Madison will one-up Dahmer, but then Dahmer gets the jump on Madison and stabs her to death. Morwenna comes to Madison’s rescue and Queenie goes to town on Dahmer. As Dahmer is going down, Madison comes back to life and burns Dahmer to death. Madison orders Ophelia to go with Mallory and fight Ramirez; she points Coco and Queenie in Zodiac’s direction; and she tells Morwenna to come with her. Queenie questions why Madison is suddenly calling the shots; Madison states that since the Supreme is dead, she has given herself a promotion, and she is going to act as the interim leader of the Coven until someone more powerful than her shows up to take charge. Madison takes Morwenna to Cordelia’s body to get her to resurrect the deceased Supreme, but Morwenna is unable to pull off that feat. Coco and Queenie tag-team to give Zodiac some extreme form of diabetes, which causes Zodiac to suffer a cardiac arrest and he dies. 

Mallory sends Ramirez back in time so that he can be beaten to a pulp; and when the death blow lands, Mallory brings Ramirez to the present day and he dies. That said, Mallory asks Ophelia to keep her time manipulation powers a secret. As March’s piano performance comes to an end, Fiona makes her grand re-entry into the Academy. After a brief exchange of words, Fiona takes on March, while telling him that the reason she is back is because Cordelia beckoned her. Fiona thought it would be a happy reunion, but that has been ruined by March. Hence, she uses March’s own weapon to hurt him. Then, she resurrects Ramirez, Dahmer, and Zodiac and forces them to mercilessly stab March to death. Weren’t Ramirez, Dahmer, Zodia, and March supposed to be immortal and invincible? So, what happened there? The show doesn’t really provide an explanation, so I am just going to assume that Fiona undid whatever spell was powering the Cortez Devils; that’s how she managed to kill them. Fiona then goes over to Cordelia’s dead body, thanks Morwenna for trying to resurrect Cordelia, and brings her daughter back from the dead.

Episode 8 opens with Cordelia caressing Fiona as she is lying down with her head on her mother’s lap. Fiona remembers the times Cordelia fell ill and she nursed her back to health. But as things get too emotional, she leaves Cordelia’s side and opens the windows to let some air into the room. Then she starts ranting about how she spent her past life eroding Cordelia’s faith in her, and how her time in a purgatorial maze has compelled her to repent for all the mistakes she had made in the past. To improve Fiona’s mood, Cordelia tries to give the label of “Supreme” to her mother, but she rejects it and tells Cordelia that since she is back from the dead, she will continue to be the Supreme of the Coven. When Fiona orders Cordelia to stand up so that they and the rest of the Coven can prepare for the evil that approaches them, Cordelia says that she can’t, because Fiona never taught her to overcome hurdles like the one they face now. Fiona states that she will make up for that by empowering her enough to take on the aforementioned source of evil. Cordelia asks Fiona if she has any clue what they are up against. Fiona tells Cordelia to perform an autopsy on any one of the Cortez Devils; if they get to know what they are made of, they will be able to get to their maker. Cordelia, Queenie, and Morwenna partake in the autopsy process, and the subject that they select is Ramirez. When Cordelia cuts open Ramirez’s belly, the same black liquid that Nas keeps vomiting starts oozing out of him, and then a white snake also emerges from the dead body. Cordelia traps it in a glass jar and orders Queenie and Morwenna to gather all the girls. 

Cordelia takes the trapped snake to the dining room for observational purposes. That’s when Fiona comes to her with a bowl of chicken soup, to help Cordelia regain her physical strength. Cordelia advises her to avoid being motherly in the traditional sense–because that ship has sailed–and asks her to help her with the snake in the room. They come to the conclusion that they are up against the devil himself. Now, the issue here is that neither Fiona nor Cordelia has dealt with the devil in the past. Hence, Cordelia comes up with the idea of summoning Papa Legba, the Gatekeeper of the Spirit World. Queenie is tasked with sending Cordelia to the realm of the spirits, but she expresses concern regarding this plan, because Cordelia has just come back from the dead and she feels that Cordelia isn’t up for this ordeal. Cordelia convinces Queenie that this is the need of the hour, so the faster they get this done, the better. On that note, Queenie sends Cordelia into the spirit realm. After Cordelia calls out Papa Legba’s name a couple of times, he appears before her. Unhappy with the manner in which Cordelia has summoned him, he burns her eyes and most of her face. Cordelia warns Legba that everything that he does to her will be avenged by Fiona. This is when Legba learns that Fiona has actually escaped hell and returned to the realm of the mortals. Cordelia tells Legba that if he wants to bring Fiona back to hell, he has to get her himself. Legba appears in Fiona’s room and realizes that Cordelia has been telling the truth. He starts reprimanding Fiona for cheating him. That’s when Cordelia reveals that the reason Fiona is out is because she used a spell to bring her out of hell. Cordelia threatens to pull more souls out of the underworld–thereby rendering Legba’s job pointless–if he doesn’t help them deal with the devil. To sweeten the deal, Cordelia says that she’ll allow him to expunge all records of the spell that was used to resurrect Fiona so that no one exploits it and jeopardizes Legba’s job. 

Legba says that he needs Marie Laveau’s help with the Satan-killing matter. Fiona protests against that idea, while Queenie thinks that they should hear him out. Cordelia asks Legba why they specifically need Marie for this mission; Legba refuses to answer any more questions until the witches sacrifice a soul to bring Marie to the mortal realm. Fiona offers to sacrifice herself, but Cordelia says that she can’t allow that, because she needs Fiona’s help to deal with Marie. Queenie is the one who decides to go to hell to fulfil the deal with Legba. Fiona and Cordelia reluctantly accept that decision; Fiona adds a caveat: Legba has to eventually bring Queenie back to the mortal realm, or else Cordelia and Fiona will shake up the Spirit World until there are no spirits left in there for Legba to gatekeep. Legba and the witches shake on it, and Queenie goes into her personal hell, which is dealing with Delphine at a fried chicken outlet. Yeah, Queenie shows Delphine who’s the boss by using her powers to deep-fry Delphine’s face. And, in episode 8’s ending, Papa Legba brings Marie to the realm of the mortals. Immediately, Marie and Fiona start exchanging verbal jabs, but Legba gets them to pipe down so that all of them can join forces to kill Satan. Now, while all four of them think that they can defeat the devil, I suppose Mallory’s the only one who can actually do anything about it. I mean, she is the one who essentially rebooted the whole timeline to defeat Satan. Maybe Mallory has to do something similar again to stop Satan, but since it either takes a lot of her life force to reverse the flow of time or that power can be exploited if she falls into the wrong hands, she is keeping it under the wraps. She is probably waiting for Papa Legba, Fiona, Cordelia, and Marie to come up with a solution. If their combo of witchcraft and black magic works out, then she’ll continue to keep her time-traveling powers a secret. If they fail, then she’ll reveal her cards. Do you also think that’s what’s going to happen? Let me know in the comments section below.