EPISODE: CHUTES AND LADDERS
THE SCOOP: As the Countess goes prowling for fresh blood, a haunting Lowe family secret is unearthed when Skyler sneaks her way into the Hotel Cortez.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW. IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE, STOP READING HERE!
THE SKINNY: My oh my. This always happens, doesn't it. Murphy always tends to deliver with the pilot episode (like SCREAM QUEENS), only to pass the torch to some hapless bastard to take the ineluctable fall back to reality in the sophomore slump of a second episode. Always happens. That said, "Chutes and Ladders" isn't all bad. I was glad to see that despite a new director (Brad Buecker), the action lifts off right where the pilot landed. The sexy German girl who was strung up in the neon lair is at the end of her rope, as Iris oversees a pair of those creepy blond kids sucking blood from the poor gal's moribund wrists. Worse yet, Iris then takes blood from the kiddies, clinically, and sends it up to The Countess and her boy toy Will Drake to sip like fine wine. They do, but it isn't enough for our insatiable diva vampiress. She wants fresh blood. Ah yeah, it's hunting night kiddies!
Wait, there's just one thing. Being the snooty glam-vamp she is, The Countess decides to hit the runway for some purloin feeding? Seriously? Okay then, project runway it is. Here meet the breakout star of last season, Freak Show, Finn Wittrock, who plays a male model here named Tristan something. Along with Claudia Banks (the still gorgeous Naomi Campbell), bad boy Tristan catches the hungry eye of The Countess. When he awakes in the siren's palatial estate, he wanders the halls and eventually runs into James March (Evan Peters), a drunk millionaire eccentric who sputters nonsense about how pleasurable it is to kill a person. Tristan shakes it off and ends up boning down with the Countess, who not only turns him into an immortal bloodsucker, but kicks old Will Drake's ass to the curb. Dude lost the battle of the metro-hairstyles, bully for him. As for March, turns out he was the original owner of the Cortez, a man now so deeply tormented by the hotel's history that he can barely stomach a sober moment. We're given a glimpse to his sadistically murderous past, where a hefty bulk of guts and gore are spilled.
Meanwhile, at the witching hour (2:25 to be precise), Detective Lowe is awoken by the haunting jazz refrain that plays at the same time every night, at least in room 64. The poor bastard is wracked by haunting visions and twisted night terrors. Luckily he finds a shoulder to cry on in Hypodermic Sally, who offers a lending ear after giving a great speech about addiction being like an endless ladder of futility. This impels John, a recovering alcoholic, to recount the last day he was drunk. We get a gnarly flash to a man shooting himself in the dome after finding his wife and kids dead of carbon monoxide poisoning from a backup generator. This threw Lowe into a besotted spiral. And now, with the horrors of the Hotel Cortez bubbling up, he's about to fall off the damn wagon in a quick hurry. You see, it all makes sense when young Skyler somehow wanders into the Hotel Cortez and is lured in by one of the SHINING like cherubs. It's her brother Holden! That's right, John Lowe's second child is seemingly still alive, ageless, and dwelling among the evil walls of the hotel. Either that or he's a purgatorial phantom out to haunt the living. Lowe confronts Iris for answers, but like us, gets the lowdown on Marsh's murderous mien. But is he really to blame for the Hotels hideous haunts?
Like I mentioned, this episode was noticeably less effective than the ultra-chaotic and hyper-gory opening salvo. Not bad, but the inevitable step back had to happen, as the gory action and over the top mania was dialed down in order to tell some cogent back-stories to make sense of things. That, and to introduce new characters. Problem is, there were too many flashbacks. Some good acting moments definitely shine, Paulson for one, Wittrock for another, Peters for a third. It's really quite fun to see them play such wildly different characters from last season. But outside of that one gnarly black and white sequence where March goes ballistic, for a 90 minute episode, the overall amount of murder and mayhem were nowhere near the level of last week. Plus, at the very end, said sequence (along with the Countess/Tristan feast) felt like a tacked on double feature, almost completely unhinged from the rest of the narrative. Quite impressive on its own, and the best part of the night for sure, but not quite jiving as a whole with the rest of the episode. Let's hope Buecker rebounds with "Mommy" next week.
KILL OF THE WEEK: No one of great import. But the showstopper with Countess and Tristan luring in a hipster, puncturing his throat until a fountain of gore juts out, only to feast and f*ck in the blood smear it produces. Yup, has to be that one.
BLOOD & GORE:
MOST BIZARRE SCENE: Like the March black and white flashback. Felt like a weird 50s b-movie, something Ed Wood might produce without the strictures of the Hayes code. Hyper gory but also Leave it to Beaver innocent as well. Bizarre.
WTF CHARACTER MOMENT: Why oh why would little Skyler go back to the hotel after seeing those kids comatose in a coffin the first time? Only because she saw her dead brother? I know she's a kid and all, but that's crazy as f*ck!