American Horror Story: Delicate – Multiply Thy Pain

Anna Victoria-Alcott (Emma Roberts) is laying in bed. Laying on her side she feels an arm wrap around her waist, but when she holds it – assuming it to be her husband – she quickly remembers he isn’t there and turns in horror as a masked figure slips from the bed. Standing before her dressed all in black and hidden by the shadow of night the stranger momentarily waits before taking off though the house, knocking over lamps as they go. Anna pursues them but gives up as they escape through the front door. She tries to call the police, but they aren’t helpful nor do they seem to believe her.

Taking us back to one week earlier, Anna’s husband Dex (Matt Czuchry) calls her as she gets ready to attend a fertility appointment. The two have been trying and failing to conceive and have enlisted the help of the most highly rated fertility clinic in the city. Apparently Anna is twenty minutes late to her appointment though she was positive it wasn’t for another hour. She throws on clothes and speeds through the hallway out into the street. Seeing herself on a nearby billboard, she stops to take photographs with a smile on her face, but her face changes when she notices a curiously dressed woman with sunglasses (Cara Delevingne) leaning over something on the pavement a few yards away. Approaching it as the woman moves away, she looks down at what appears to be some kind of nest filled with a pink animal foetus surrounded by a broken blue shell.

Anna makes it to the appointment just in time to be seen by the doctor to begin extracting her eggs. As she is injected she is told that during the procedure she may fall asleep or remain conscious and when left alone, she asks if her husband still loves her even though she cannot provide them with a child naturally. He reassures her telling Anna that it will all be worth it in the end. When she is in the surgery room, nurses dressed ominously in a deep crimson colour prepare Anna and tools for surgery as she begins to fall asleep.

What feels like moments later, hearing her name being called, she opens her eyes to the familiar faces of her husband Dex and Dr Hill (Denis O’Hare), who asks her name and other simple questions to ensure she is ok. As she tries to regain her bearings and groggy from the procedure, she asks if it is normal to feel pain inside to which the doctor replies that it is normal for such discomfort. He enthusiastically informs them that he feels very positive with the results of the procedure, having received a good amount of eggs from Anna and tells them that she will need to pick up suppositories from the front desk when they make the next appointment.

Anna, having now dressed, is reluctantly pushed in a wheelchair to the front desk still clutching her body in pain. A nurse tells her a dull ache is common, but Anna insists the pain is much worse than a dull ache, but this apparently falls on deaf ears. At the front desk all attention is placed on the box of progesterone suppositories that they are told several times to keep refrigerated. She continues to protest using the wheelchair as Dex leaves her in the waiting area to have the car brought around. She looks around the room and notices a woman on the other side of the room reading a magazine with her face on, giving her a blank stare, while others give her dirty looks and whisper to one another. Ignoring her ringing phone and eventually finding the situation too uncomfortable, she stands and heads to the front doors to meet her husband outside but bumps headlong into a sour-faced old woman. She blocks the exit and leans over to say that she knows Anna as a grin appears across her face. Assuming she means from TV she thanks her for watching, but that was not what the old woman was referencing. Behind them a receptionist runs to tell the old lady that she is not welcome there and calls her Mrs Preecher (Julie White), possibly having caused issues at the clinic before. As she exits she hears the sound of photos being taken and as she turns, she sees the old lady, grin still spread across her face, putting her phone back into her pocket.

Barely outside, she looks to the corner of the building and notices a woman with sunglasses that Anna recognizes as the lady by the birds nest only a few hours earlier. She stands still, watching Anna with a grin on her face before turning and walking away. She mentions the woman to her husband who justifies her as perhaps being a patient of Dr HIll, but Anna thinks that’s unlikely given the fact that she is smoking. Her husband says that although she’s now a star, she isn’t at the level to have gained a stalker. They then head off to put the suppositories in the fridge and to get some lunch.

As her husband eats, Anna sits lost in thought until he puts down his fork and suggests they choose baby names, which they do in a playful manner. They talk of where the child will go to school and giggle together, helping take Anna’s mind off the strange events of the day. After teasing each other about which school their future child will attend, Anna pauses to ask Dex what if it doesn’t work, but he interjects that the process will work this time and knowingly promises her.

When Anna is home alone, feeding the dog and dressed in fine silk pyjamas, she opens the fridge and takes out the first suppository and heads to the bathroom to insert it. When she stands in front of the bathroom mirror after, she finds what looks like a strand of grey hair and begins to pull it, but is shocked when it doesn’t stop coming from her head, like pulling a never ending strand of cotton.

In her publicist’s office she waits patiently for her to end a phone call. When she sits back down at her desk, Anna states that she is unhappy about having to sign autographs on posters from fifteen years ago. She tells Siobhan (Kim Kardashian) that her last publicist never made her do things like this, but is reassured that this is why she is a better fit for her. As they talk, a text comes through and her publicist excitedly tells her that Andy Cohen wants to interview her on his show on Thursday – making this her first late night show. She then hands Anna a figurine of herself, not too dissimilar to a Barbie, but instructs her to sign its body. The only surface area big enough is its stomach, so she reluctantly signs there… something that seems significant, almost like signing your name on a voodoo doll. Though she checks the potential implant appointment on her phone calendar, marked for 10am, she agrees to the late night interview. As she is marking the details into her calendar, she is interrupted by her publicist asking for the doll back and nodding to the direction of her bag. Anna is surprised when she sees the doll unboxed and sitting in her bag. Adamant that she hadn’t put it there, she hands it back.

After their meeting, the two of them head out to get a drink and sit on a roof terrace, talking about the fertility process. Siobhan tells Anna that she has an innate ability to always make the worst of a situation and tells her to keep positive as she has a world renowned fertility doctor who is positive about their prospects. Anna asks if it is difficult for her to hear about the IVF when her own didn’t work, to which Siobhan cuts her off answering no because as Anna’s best friend she sees her happiness as her own. She talks warmly about having met each other through an IVF support group and how thankful she is for that.

Later that day Anna and Dex walk their dog through the park and Anna is concerned about receiving no news from the clinic, worrying that the embryo’s have all died. When Dex tells her that the process is difficult for everyone in different way, the conversation turns to Dex’s previous wife Adeline, who apparently died in a tragic event. Appreciating that he finds it difficult to talk about her, she wants to know if they ever tried for kids. Dex shakes his head and says no, that it was never in the cards for them. Seeming like she has more questions, Dex keeps his gaze upon her, but says her name in a serious tone, scaring her slightly and reaches behind her head. When he pulls a spider from her head, she jumps and begins checking her hair for more spiders as Dex playfully laughs. He tells her it must have come from one of the trees around them, but then follows that up by saying the average person swallows over a pound of spiders during the course of their lifetime.

When they get home the suppositories are sat out on the counter, though she could have sworn she put them back the night before. Dex assumes the hormones and medicine must have made her forget, so she agrees that it must be the case. He moves on to reminding her that they are meeting their friends Natalia and Theo later that night and asks if she will be up for going. He asks if they can meet there as he needs to check in on the gallery and she agrees, looking forward to spending an evening away from the discussion of IVF. As he leaves the room she picks up the suppositories, contemplating the strangeness of them being outside of the fridge having remembered putting them back.

On the way to meet Dex and their friends, Anna walks alone down an alleyway and becomes startled when she hears the quickening steps of women’s heels approaching her from behind. She turns, fully expecting to find someone directly behind her, but there is still no one in the street let alone behind her.

Having now reached the restaurant, she finds the three of them already sitting and apologises for being late, though Talia (Juliana Canfield) tells her that she isn’t and jokes that it is them that are always early. Pouring Anna some wine that she says “no thanks” to, Talia makes a toast to her success with the horror film that Anna recently starred in, though she says how hard it was to watch. Theo (Zo Tipp) tells Anna that they loved the movie, then Talia turns the attention to Dex, congratulating him on the show that she is putting on with him. Anna is slightly surprised as she had heard nothing about it. Talia continues that she disliked the artist, but Dex had convinced her to show the work and it’s a good job they did having almost completely sold out. Things take a darker turn when Talia starts describing how the artist looks almost identical to his first wife and that she would be so proud of Dex. Becoming uncomfortable, Anna heads to the bathroom and calls her friend Siobhan asking if she thinks Dex is still in love with his dead ex-wife as she feels she’ll never live up to her. Anna says she is worried her eggs are so dusty and old that her baby will come out as a spider. Her best friend reassures her that it’s not going to happen, but even if it did she would help her raise the dusty spider baby as if it was her own. Anna cuts the call short when Natalia enters the bathroom to apologise for the comments she made and says she needs to stop drinking so much. Anna instantly forgives the comments as Adeline was Natalia’s best friend, to which Natalia tells her that Adeline and Anna had they met,would have actually loved each other. The moment between doesn’t improve when Natalia then starts talking about how much she dislikes children and wants them to move tables away from a child that has been sitting near them. To change the subject, Anna compliments Natalia on her lipstick who instantly turns and gives it to her. Anna responds that she doesn’t look good in red, but Natalia insists she keep it. Before leaving the bathroom, Anna hears a noise from one of the stalls and underneath one of the doors sees a set of silver spiked heels that she recognizes. Natalia calls her name and she reluctantly leaves the bathroom.

Walking back to the table, Anna sees Dex waving at her. He has Dr Hill on the phone who informs them that two of the embryos are still developing in excellent condition, meaning one of them should be viable. When he then tells them they can move ahead on Thursday, she hesitates over the fact that she has her interview that night. He tells her that the sooner they implant the embryo’s the better but tells her that it is her choice. She pauses for a moment before saying to do it Friday morning to work around her interview the night before. Dex isn’t happy but she tells him she has to and types it into her phone as 11am on Friday. When she closes the phone she asks if the artist does actually look like his ex wife. “Sonja?” he asks, and then reassures her that she doesn’t.

Back at home that night as Dex sleeps, Anna looks up his ex wife. A security warning for fifty-one attempts to profile her phone are shown above as she types Adeline Harding into the search bar. Anna scrolls through the list of websites with headlines regarding Adeline’s death from a tragic fire. She clicks on one that she appears to have already visited before, which has a picture of Dex and Adeline on their wedding day as well as details of the fire. At the bottom of the page Anna clicks on the comment section which is not only full of compliments toward Adeline, but threatening ones are made towards Anna. Her face drops when she sees a user named “annihilate Anna.” Horrified, she then clicks on them and sees a whole flood of comments filled with hate, calling her old and mocking her for planning to have a child.

She then heads over to her calender to look at the 11am appointment on Friday, but sits upright, rushing to change her password when she sees the appointment disappear in front of her face and change to 12pm instead.

The next day, while walking her dog out the front of her building, Anna calls Dr Hill asking to change the appointment and tells him someone hacked her calender. He tells her he is worried, but she doesn’t want to change the day, just the time of the appointment, so they settle on an earlier one at 10am. Feeling more at ease, she heads back inside. Back inside her apartment she makes a note for the new appointment and places it on her fridge rather than inside her phone calendar.

Preparing for the interview and having told her friend about what happened, she responds with a story about the police ignoring Courtney Cox after having a stalker break into her apartment three times. She tells Anna that they think if a woman is in the public eye she is looking to be harassed. Stepping back from her, Siobhan calls her a vision but tells her whatever she does not to cry.

Anna stands in the darkness by a red lamp, waiting to walk on stage for the interview. The memory of the weird bird nest on the floor plays through her head and a serious expression falls over her face. She is lost in thought but as the light turns red it is time for her to go on stage.

When the interview is happening, it is as though all the worries have fallen away and Anna is as charming as she is funny. Andy Cohen (playing himself) talks of the movie she starred in and for a second time it is referenced as being truly terrifying to watch. Host and actress banter and the chemistry on stage makes for a highly entertaining watch as the crowd laughs and engages with them. However, things turn sour when she notices the old woman from the clinic sitting in the audience watching her. She can’t stop herself from falling silent, unable to recompose herself and is visibly rattled.

After the interview Siobhan seems more interested in her phone and a potential interview that has just come through for Anna as she gives passively encouragement. Siobhan tells Anna that on her worst day she is more charming than Hillary Swank on her best day. Just then Anna notices another doll of herself sitting on a countertop with an X scrawled across its stomach. Disturbed she asks Siobhan about it who laughs it off saying they are making a comeback. When Anna says that they are discontinued, she responds by saying “Ebay baby.”

In the car on the way home Anna looks up “Annihilate Anna” and lands on a whole discussion board about herself. While scrolling through the disturbing list of topics, she sees a photo taken from inside the clinic by the woman who had stopped her in the hallway and she had seen during the interview.

Back inside her apartment she takes out her earrings and calls out to her husband, stopping when she hears a noise behind herself. Assuming it’s her husband she continues to call out to him but receives no response. When she hears another noise she rushes to pick up a knife from the kitchen and she lifts it up, she notices a figure reflected in the blade. She jumps and turns to see that there is no one behind her. Putting it back down she  opens the fridge to check the suppositories are still inside, but as she closes the fridge she sees that the note with the new appointment has been torn in half and she begins to panic. Anna then spares no time in calling Dex in a blind panic, but when he answers and she hears noise behind him, he tells her he is at his launch. She doesn’t seem to recall, but apparently they had discussed the launch and decided it would be too much for her with the interview and implantation the next day. She tells him she wants to go and begins to get ready, pulling the red lipstick she was given out of her handbag. She applies it, but there’s a brief moment where you can see the colour the lipstick goes on her lips is a pale subtle color. However, the moment she smacks her lips together, it becomes a brighter red.

Stepping out of the car onto the red carpet, the paparazzi take photos of her, one calling to turn and show her backside. Moments later she notices the other lady that is seemingly following her. The one with sunglasses who had been bent over the bird’s nest and had been standing on the street corner after the first fertility appointment. They stare back at one another until the mystery woman, without saying a word, smiles at her.

Anna heads inside, moving through the crowd to find her husband. She stops walking when a painting catches her eye, with the faint sound of a baby crying she looks at the detail within the swirling red mass that makes up the piece of art. Her train of thought is interrupted by the artist Sonja (Annabell Dexter-Jones) who introduces herself and compliments the red lipstick she is wearing. Sonja tells Anna that she is a fan of hers and also of her husband, which makes Anna tilt her head with curiosity. She looks down and notices metal studs covering her shoes, that though they are blue, are very similar to the ones she saw underneath the toilet door. Dex appears behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder and frightening her. She lets out a scream, telling him he startled her. Dex asks her to go outside with him but she asks why, telling him she is fine. A look of confusion falls over her face when he tells that she isn’t fine and shouldn’t have “brought this here” when it is his night. She turns and notices both Sonja, the artist and Dex’s friend Talia staring back at her.

The next day Anna sits upright in bed at the clinic with Dex by her side, as the doctor brings in a photo of the embryo. They both become emotional, holding hands and excited by the potential for it to finally go right.

Anna lays on her back in the operating room but feeling vulnerable, she asks if anyone else is allowed back there. Dr Hill reassures her that only medical staff can be back there and asks her to spread her legs further apart. Telling her that the procedure should be relatively painless, she winces as he begins. Almost immediately she notices someone walk up beside her and recognzses her as the old woman that she has been repeatedly seeing everywhere. The woman smiles before ripping out her own tongue. Horrified Anna can’t scream and notices her own mouth has been sewn shut and she is unable to speak as the woman bends forward placing her bleeding mouth over Anna’s.

What feels like only moments later she wakes to the sound of her husband’s voice. She looks around, confused as she is now back in her own bed instead of the hospital. Telling Dex she feels groggy, he offers her some tea and shows her that he placed the photo of their embryo next to a photo of her mom to watch over her. He kisses her on the forehead and she rolls over to see the photos and falls back asleep.

The episode ends right back where it started, with the figure sliding their arm around Anna’s waist before departing through the house. Though this time she looks down at her hands and floor covered in red and realized it has gone from the lipstick she had been given. She receives a notification on her phone for a new event and after opening it, sees the words “look in the mirror.” She hesitantly stands and begins to cautiously walk forward, almost instantly seeing the words scrawled on the mirror – “Don’t do it Anna” in red lipstick.