“The Sacred Taking” American Horror Story: Coven (Season 3) Episode 8

The coven plots to push Fiona to suicide in order to invoke a special ritual and declare the new supreme.

**CONTENT WARNING: Violence, suicide, death, rape**

Synopsis

Queenie murders a hobo who has raped multiple girls in order to give Laveau a dark heart for a spell. Zoe and Madison confront her, but she refuses to return to the coven.

“Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me!”

Misty and Myrtle seek refuge at the school, having been hunted by some unseen killer. Myrtle convinces the coven that Misty is the next supreme, since she’s brought several of the members back from the dead. The coven decides to perform a ritual called the sacred taking, only enacted in times of crisis, in which the supreme must sacrifice herself to help the coven survive. Since Fiona will need to take her own life for it to work, they come up with a plan to trick her into it. Fiona doesn’t know yet that Madison and Myrtle are alive, so they visit her in turn and convince her that Madison is the new supreme and that it would be better for Fiona to overdose on pills than to be burned at the stake for murdering them. Fiona, who has gone back to the Axeman for love, hesitates and plans to flee with him, but Myrtle convinces her that he’ll ditch her once she starts to wither away due to her cancer. Fiona takes the pills, but after Myrtle leaves, Spalding’s ghost appears to her and tells her this is all a trick and they believe Misty is the next supreme. He gives her ipecac and she throws up the pills.

Nan goes next door to save Luke from his awful mother, but on their way out, Luke and his mother are both sniped. The mother dies and Luke is taken away in an ambulance. Misty comes to see what’s happening, and Fiona talks her into reviving the mother, which she does. Cordelia finds a silver bullet casing outside and has a vision that a witch hunter is responsible, though not that it’s Hank. Fiona holds no ill will towards the coven for their murder attempt, and actually is impressed with their gumption.

LaLaurie, locked in Laveau’s cage, taunts Laveau knowing that Laveau can’t kill her. Laveau wants her to suffer, so she cuts off her head and sends it as a message to Fiona, though LaLaurie remains alive even still.

Off with her head!

The Students

Queenie is still going down that dark road, though she did have a moment of regret over turning LaLaurie over to Laveau. Nan is becoming jealous that the others don’t think she’s capable of becoming the supreme. To be fair, Nan has never shown any other powers besides clairvoyance, while Zoe actually has done a few things. Misty seems like the easy red herring now, so it might actually be Zoe after all.

The Staff

I appreciate that Fiona chooses to be proud of the coven instead of turning on them. Not sure I trust that she’ll stay that way, but hey, if anyone respects power plays, it’s Fiona

Power moves

Others

Why the heck did Hank (presumably) shoot the neighbors instead of the actual witches? One of the witches was even there in the room with the neighbors, but she made it out unscathed. It’s not like he doesn’t know where the witches live or what they look like. Unless this was someone else altogether? Maybe Laveau was frustrated with Hank taking too long and hired someone else who has no idea who they’re looking for.

Great, Misty brought back Luke’s abusive mother from the dead. Joy.

Conclusion

The trick on Fiona seemed kind of silly. Just kill her outright. Why go through this whole ritual? Why convince Fiona that Madison is the supreme instead of telling her about Misty? At least the episode looked pretty.

Score: 5/10

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