American Horror Story: Cult – Great Again

By: Kelly Kearney

After all the twists and shockingly gruesome turns, the politically themed season of “American Horror Story” has come to an end. The finale Great Again finished just like the series began, with election results that were sure to claw at the very fabric of American democracy. Kai (Evan Peters) might’ve used fear to separate the strong from the meek but as the saying goes, “the meek will inherit the earth” and boy did they ever!

Orange is the new Kai

When we begin, Kai is in prison and he’s having the time of his life. We don’t know why or how he wound up behind bars, but it’s obvious jail time hasn’t quelled his cult fervor. The freshly shaven Kai is linking pinks all over the prison yard and getting some decent results considering most of the inmates are calling him Divine Ruler. Even guard Gloria (Liz Jenkins) has been easily taken in by Kai’s charms and blindly follows his orders to remove her top. It’s clear who’s running the show and it’s certainly not the state of Michigan’s prison system. The guards have unleashed Kai’s crazy on the prison population and seem to turn a blind eye when he murders inmates as a blood sacrifice. Apparently, his Charles Manson (also played by Evan Peters) delusion is still calling the shots and whispering words of murder and sacrifice in the already unhinged man’s ear. After receiving a ceremonial knife from his jail house cult crew, the word about his power gets out and everyone wants in. When one new inmate (Dustin Christenson) seeks to join Kai’s group the two sit down in the prison yard to talk about how the cult leader wound up in jail. Just like his hero Manson, Kai confesses it was a traitorous woman that stabbed him in the back and sent him up the river for crimes he most definitely committed.

We flashback eleven months to Kai’s last night of freedom. All the cult members are gathered in Kai’s basement headquarters listening to their leader plot out his masterpiece, “A Night of a Thousand Tates.” If you’re thinking that sounds quite innocent you would be dead wrong…A thousand times dead wrong. The masterpiece Kai’s describing is the mass murder of a thousand pregnant women, which he thinks will really launch his message of fear to the entire country, if not world. The only problem is finding a thousand pregnant women in their small town to kill is tough so he changes it to a hundred Tates, but the horror is still the same. His basement onesie bros are hyped for their big murder night and Kai even gives lessons with a Lamaze dummy on how to properly kill both mother and child. Ally (Sarah Paulson) listens until Kai is done and pulls him aside with some news the leader’s not going to like. Ally confesses she found a wire two weeks ago and is just telling him now because she was protecting his feelings. Kai flips out and asks why now- doesn’t she know how vulnerable she left?  In another flashback, she tells him the story of catching Speed Wagon (Cameron Cowperthwaite) with a wire and how he’s working for the police to reduce some drug charges against him. He was ordered to dig up information on the dirty Senator Herbert Jackson (Dennis Cockrum), but after he joined the cult the focus switched. Now he’s afraid Kai will kill him and rightly so as Speed Wagon just watched him kill Winter (Billie Lourd) for being the mole that he was all along. Ally asks if the wire he’s wearing is a live recording and when he says no, she reaches across the car seat and stabs him in the throat! Speed Wagon is dead and the mole’s been dealt with, which pleases Kai with how Ally handled the situation. If only he hadn’t killed Winter and you can bet Ally brings that up in her signature passive aggressive style. It has the effect she was hoping for because Kai breaks down knowing he killed the only person who ever truly loved him.

The Climax to Mayhem

While Kai’s crying his eyes out over killing Winter, Ally heads to the kitchen to prepare some snacks for the women hating onesie crew. Chopping up vegetables, a traumatized Beverly (Adina Porter) is so broken from playing the good little cult member that she tells Ally she’s going to kill herself as it’s the only way out. She lifts a knife and just as she’s ready to drive it into her own gut, Ally smiles and stops her by saying that after tomorrow things will be better. Beverly just needs to trust her and hold on until after the Night of 100 Tates.

As Kai and the boys are arming up for their mass murder, Ally heads across the street to gather some snack supplies, at least that’s what she tells one of Kai’s men when he wonders where she’s going. Of course, she never gets the snacks because she bolts to a parked van full of FBI agents and tells them to go now before it’s too late. The Feds bust through the basement door and throw smoke grenades down the steps, its total mayhem. Kai and his cult engage in a shootout with his men taking the bulk of the casualties. Even Beverly gets in on the action when she grabs a gun off the body of a fellow cult member and uses it to shoot another one in the head. Kai and his remaining alive members get handcuffed and dragged outside right past Ally who’s doing her best Oscar worthy performance. First Beverly thanks her for giving her hope and then Kai is escorted out and he is rabid. He’s screaming and spitting threats at Ally that would make even the strongest person shrink in fear, but she keeps her head held high and pretends to be shocked.

Kai is sent to jail and later when Beverly goes to the Butchery to talk to Ally, we find out he confessed to all the murders – even Ivy’s (Alison Pill)! Beverly tries pumping Ally for the truth about her wife’s death, but Ally sticks to her story that Kai killed Ivy and the two made peace before she died. It’s a total lie but whatever helps you sleep at night Ally! We also find out that escaping from a cult can be very lucrative with the right book deal. Ally’s turned her trauma into a best seller and she’s kind of a local celebrity. She’s also sporting a new girlfriend and is trying to ignore the haters who think it’s too soon to be dating after the death of her wife. Ally’s a new woman and she’s ready to redefine herself. She even brags about turning down interviews from Rachel Maddow and AHS’s favorite reporter, Lana Winters. With her business booming and her celebrity status on the rise, Ally decides to turn her success into a Senate run.

With Beverly by her side, Ally throws her hat into the pollical ring but separating her identity from Kai’s is becoming a problem. If Kai were dead, Beverly wonders then maybe Ally could finally emerge from his shadow. The two women decide that something must be done and Kai gives them the opportunity when he breaks out of jail!

Senator Mayfair-Richards

At the prison, Kai’s been up to his usual tricks of sex, lies and manipulations while convincing Gloria to let him call Ally. Their phone conversation goes from bad to worse the minute Ally tells him Ozzy isn’t actually his son. This sets Kai off on a rant of deadly promises, but Ally seems to be one step ahead of Kai. While he’s convincing Gloria to help him cut the face off an inmate that looks exactly like him, (an old Hannibal Lector move) Ally’s meeting with Gloria and reversing all the mind games Kai’s been using on the woman.

After successfully tricking the prison into thinking the disfigured inmate was Kai, the cult leader walks out of jail alongside Gloria and heads to Ally’s Senatorial debate. The election is only days away and Ally’s doing her best to convince the town to put aside their political parties and vote for a woman who wants to break down those bipartisan boundaries. Ally’s speech at the debate is every liberal leaning third party’s dream. Chocked full of mansplaining accusations and snowflakes references, Ally schools her opponent and appears to sway the audience in her favor. Her political smackdown gets sidelined the minute Kai shows up and the audience scatters, like anyone would when a mass murderer shows up to the party. He approaches the stage and verbally whips Ally for stealing his spotlight. He rants some misogynistic gibberish about women making sandwiches because they’re subservient to men and that’s when Ally can’t take it anymore. She laughs at his blatant hatred of women and his failures as a man until Beverly puts an end to his nonsense by shooting Kai in the back of the head! The cult leader’s brains splatter all over the stage and all that’s left behind is Ally, Beverly and the Michigan voters. Of course, the female population rallies behind the woman and grants her a sweeping victory with 84% of the vote. Ally-Mayfair-Richards, author, ex-cult member, restauranteur and occasional murderer is going to Washington!

After her record breaking win, Ally is home doing what all Moms do, tucking her son into bed. Ozzy’s (Cooper Dodson) happy for his mother and her success, but when she kisses him goodnight and says she’s off to a meeting he asks if it’s a meeting like Kai use to have. Ally smiles and explains its nothing like the onesie wearing bromances in Kai’s basement. She’s meeting with some very powerful women who are going to help her change the world. She kisses her boy goodnight and raises her witchy hood in preparation for her get together. PLOT TWIST! The hooded cape is exactly the same as the robes Valerie Solanas’ (Lena Dunham) Zodiac killers wore when they tried smashing the patriarchy to usher in a new ruling class of women! BeBe Babbitt (Frances Conroy) and Valerie finally got what they wanted. Kai actually was the right man to unleash their feminine rage upon the planet. Ally is the embodiment of that rage and with her new position as Senator, this is a victory even Solanas couldn’t dream of. The student has finally surpassed the master and no matter what Hell Kai’s put Ally through, she owes a part of her success to him… and maybe a few TURDS, a cheating wife and a manifesto entitled “SCUM.”