‘American Horror Story’ proves that men are the root of all evil while spending time in the past for a transparent episode
“Death to the patriarchy!”
“Valerie Solanas Died For Your Sins: Scumbag” is a mouthful of a title, but for good reason. This is an episode that begins to examine the alternative type of cults that are out there and allows the word “cult” to become more fluid. In this sense, celebrities or the people behind movements are no different than tyrannical figures like Charles Manson or Jim Jones. That’s what this season is trying to articulate, more than anything. No one has tried to assassinate Gwyneth Paltrow, but if some GOOP-obsessed sycophant tried to take her down, it’d only help reiterate the message that’s being attempted here.
On June 3rd 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol and Mario Amaya at The Factory because Solanas said Warhol had “too much control” over her life. This is someone that was ostensibly just an artist, but his reach was so grand and his words so inspiring that someone had to try to murder him because they felt they were losing control over themselves. Sometimes assassination isn’t just to protect other people. It can also be something that’s done to save yourself. As this episode frenetically illustrates, Valerie turns into someone who operates in an extremely similar fashion to Kai, but she’s still just a byproduct of that rage towards Warhol in the first place.
As hacky as all of this may seem with Lena Dunham doing the grating New York accent and hamming it up as the scorned Valerie Solanas, Ryan Murphy and company are still saying something rather poignant here. This point, as clumsily handled as it may be, comes into focus by Evan Peters being the mascot of all of these leaders (and for what it’s worth, he does a commendable job as Warhol in his limited time in the role). This is the first of several episodes from this season that will Russian Roulette Evan Peters into other Kai-esque cult leaders as the season wraps up.
American Horror Story then juxtaposes Valerie Solanas’ angry example of violence against her oppressor to the bloodshed and gunfire that Kai had to deal with in his rally last episode. This footage morphs like a nightmare into the announcement that Kai has won his bid for city council and that all of his scheming has gone completely according to plan. The faux martyr doesn’t know whether to be more excited over his recent win or getting a re-tweet from Trump’s son. If I was making jokes before about how Kai is just the poor man’s Tyler Durden, the similarities between his movement and Project Mayhem continue to grow. He’s basically running his own fight club at this point.
Amidst all of this, Frances Conroy joins this quickly-sinking ship to hopefully bail out some water and steer things back in the right direction as Bebe Babbit. Conroy is always a welcome presence on American Horror Story, but she feels almost intentionally caricaturesque here. She speaks about how the world wants “Lady Cults” and how everyone is hungry for a “Mother Leader.” Seeing Conroy go all Deep Throat as she asks Beverly to give her a “ring a ding ding” or complain about how “history will change but her-story is here for good” is easy to roll eyes at, but this feels like the season’s big end game here. Very quickly Beverly gets swayed by this “Conroy ex machina” and suddenly all of the women within Kai’s cult are ready to overthrow the guy and prove that the future is female.
Bebe pulls back the layers a little more on her cause and in the process turns this episode into a history lesson on Valerie Solanas and her Scum Manifesto. Consequently, the perspective of the season shifts from people with power being dangerous to the narrower angle that men in power is the problem. It’s not like this is the first time that American Horror Story has done lengthy flashbacks and glimpses into the lore of its seasonal subject matter. This feels like a lot more style over substance in this case though. Babbit shakes everyone’s world and moves them into the next phase, which would be believable enough without all of the convoluted storytelling. Or at the least, the season should have started playing with this multi-generational scope much earlier in the year.
All of Bebe’s teachings gets so out of hand that the episode eventually posits that all of the Zodiac killings were actually Scum Manifesto slayings. In fact, Valerie’s assassination attempt on Warhol was the activation code to begin the Zodiac killings. These deaths aren’t even on people’s radars until some man comes along and begins to co-opt the Zodiac killings and take that away from Valerie and womanhood, too. She even tries to confess to these murders and turn herself in as the Zodiac, but everyone just ignores her and doesn’t take her seriously. It’s an incredibly glib metonymic connection between everything that this episode puts in its crosshairs, but I suppose that’s the point. American Horror Story wants you to chuckle over how one of the biggest unsolved serial killers of all time actually came down to gender dynamics. That being said, the series’ tendency to so obviously crib from David Fincher’s style for Twisty’s killings at least gets some sort of resolution here with how the Zodiac nod continues to be echoed here.
All in all, “Valerie Solanas Died For Your Sins: Scumbag” is a weird, fun episode of AHS: Cult, but an offering that honestly would have made more of an impact as one of the opening entries of the season. At this point a deviation of this nature risks steering the rickety project completely off the road. An Ally-free entry at least makes for a tiny bonus here. As much as Conroy’s Babbit showing up in that final scene annoyed me, I think I’d have been a lot more dismayed if it was Ally instead. This episode goes out with Kai in search of a new mission statement and philosophy to embrace. He doesn’t seem to be worried in the least, but Ivy, Beverly, and Winter better watch out. If they don’t turn out a legacy of their own they’re bound to become the pieces of someone else’s. Just like Valerie Solanas.
2.5/5
AHS Cult 707-2
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