S05.E04: Devil's Night

[Bruinsfan]

Leonardo DiCaprio is going to make a movie about H.H.Holmes and apparently he has the rights to the name. That is what I am seeing posted online.

How can he prevent anyone from depicting a real 19th century person whose exploits are a matter of public record?

[Happytobehere]

I think the fact that John was invited to the serial killer dinner means that he will one day BE a serial killer. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the killer John's been hunting with the police all season is, indeed, John himself.

I have suspected that John is the killer he is seeking for the past two episodes. I think that's why he can stay at the hotel with no harm coming to him and why he was invited to the party. He is a rightful resident and like the others at the table, John is destined to achieve historical infamy for his crimes, both because of their nature and because he is a cop.

My take on this episode is that John is mentally broken due to losing his son and had a personality split that has him killing in the worse way but not realizing that it is he who is doing the killing.  That is why he hasn't been harmed by any of the beings in the hotel and also why March stated that he was "not ready" for the SKiller group as yet.  

I agree. The discussions about the killers pasts was meant yo serve as a trigger for John, but he is not ready to own the truth of who he has become and what he has done.

The one thing that doesn't make sense if John is the latest serial killer is that he actually spoke with the killer on the phone that one night when he was leaving work late. But otherwise it would be a good twist.

We know that John believes he spoke to the killer. Absent independent confirmation, it is just as plausible that John is creating these links with the killer as a way for him to come to terms with his actions.

Having said all of this, I actually hope John isn't a killer at all and that he makes it out of the hotel because poor Scarlett needs one non-nut job, parent who actually gives a damn about her and that clearly isn't mom of the millennium Alex.

[RazzleberryPie]

I think there r other serial killers that should have earned a spot rather than the ones chosen.

Hitler anyone? Bundy?

Im not a serial killer expert...but I know some killed a lot more people than the ones chosen

Yeah, him at the dinner probably means he is the killer...that sucks

Fight Club anyone?

Hitler would have been more of a mass murderer than a serial killer, but I thought the guy Sally picked up for dinner was gong to be Ted Bundy. Guess I was wrong.

[RedheadZombie]

I think there r other serial killers that should have earned a spot rather than the ones chosen.

Hitler anyone? Bundy?

Im not a serial killer expert...but I know some killed a lot more people than the ones chosen

Yeah, him at the dinner probably means he is the killer...that sucks

Fight Club anyone?

 

Oh my.  I think even Ryan Murphy knows not to make a comedic character out of Hitler.  The Holocaust is pretty sacrosanct.  I know Mel Brooks wrote The Producers, and Seinfeld mocked Schindler's List, but those were different times, and the men themselves are Jewish.  I'm glad RM didn't go there with Hitler.

 

Me too!! No amimals allowed from now on!!

Just like the horses and dog in Walking Dead...

[Captanne]

Also -- this was a serial killer dinner.  I'm not sure foreign genocidal maniacs were on the guest list.  (Ted Bundy, for example, was sorely missed.  Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot?  Not so much.)

 

Edited for spelling - my blue tooth keyboard added an extra "l" to killer.  Killler just looks weird.

 

ETA:  Now that I think about it, Richard Speck (mass) wasn't there, either.  Neither was Henry Lee Lucas (serial).  Nor was Andrea Yates (mass).  Nor was Seung-Hui Cho (rampage).  Or Eric Harris and Dylan Kliebold.  The USA has no dearth of high-number killers.  So, there must have been a rationale behind the guest list.

Edited November 1, 2015 by Captanne

[Free]

And how the posters in The Whispers threads hated her.  They said she was a one note actor, with a constant blank expression.

 

I didn't, it was the show itself and the writing of her character on that show that restrained her.

 

For a dead serial killer convention, this was incredibly boring.

 

My problem is that this happened just when the narrative was starting to go somewhere after a very slow start and this killer fest slammed the break on that momentum.

[queenanne]

I think John has to be the killer that he's looking for. Maybe he could have an accomplice or maybe there's some twist where he isn't responsible for all of the murders but I agree that they wouldn't invite him to the club if he didn't have a few kills under his belt. 

 

The only thing that's throwing me is the fact that John still seems to be alive. Maybe he isn't but the Ramirez character was talking about how Manson can't be there yet because he's still alive. Why is John the exception unless he's already dead? 

 

Yeah, that's a really good question, but it's all good questions:  Why is John here in the hotel?  Clearly he, too, could leave and go home at any time, since he can leave and go to work, but he's not.  

 

-did this episode institute the concept of an alternate dimension?  Clearly they did, IMO, because without it, then how Sally can be in a warm lamplit blood-bathed room and simultaneously in a cold gray cement one, talking with John.

 

-why is John in Murder Room or, basically, the worst room in the hotel (Room 46 I think)?  Just because it's a cliche?  There has to be a good reason.  High on that list of reasons would be, that John is a murderer or potential victim, and as for the latter, they've had two goes at killing him already, therefore I call the former most likely.  (Acceptable variation would be that Liz Taylor is the good rootable trapped soul, or similar, and longing for the hotel's spell to be broken, thus inviting/tolerating John.)

 

-if John is "there", why is Room 46 also being given to others?  I would have sworn Naomi Campbell got placed in it at minimum, unless I mis-heard...?  I feel like someone other than the Swedish meatballs or John were placed there, because I remember thinking, "but that's John's room".

 

-the Countess's clarification of John as "neglectful", seems pretty sweeping and generous for his taking 15 seconds merely to look at a text. Maybe we're missing part of the flashback/missing time.

 

-even though Dr. Wifey (aside: seriously, would anyone wear that watch cap and cardigan together if they had eyes?) has her own vested interest and angle, she's still a doctor who's been through med school.  If she's right in her diagnosis and John is, in fact, no alcoholic, why does John not drink?  Was he drunk when Holden was taken?  In order that he seems a better and more responsible person?  So many questions...

 

-Agreed that Mare Winningham is having an odd reaction to the death of her son at the hands of a serial killer - to serve as an exceptionally servile Girl Friday to another.

[Bruinsfan]

-if John is "there", why is Room 46 also being given to others?  I would have sworn Naomi Campbell got placed in it at minimum, unless I mis-heard...?  I feel like someone other than the Swedish meatballs or John were placed there, because I remember thinking, "but that's John's room".

Room 64 is also where Gabriel (the bleach blond junkie) was attacked by Drilldo and Sally. In fact, he was under the bed when John first searched the room and decided to take a nap there.

 

I think the hotel itself must exert some sort of pull to draw evil in. Otherwise there's no good explanation for why Aileen Wuornos, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer would all stay at some obscure hotel so far from their own stomping grounds. At least Ramirez and Manson were locals, and the Zodiac killer would be more likely to have happened across the place.

Edited November 1, 2015 by Bruinsfan

[ClareWalks]

 

I think the hotel itself must exert some sort of pull to draw evil in. Otherwise there's no good explanation for why Aileen Wuornos, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer would all stay at some obscure hotel so far from their own stomping grounds. At least Ramirez and Manson were locals, and the Zodiac killer would be more likely to have happened across the place.

 

They said they went there because of March, who was a known serial killer. They may not have known his "ghost" (or whatever) would teach them stuff, but they at least knew the legacy of that hotel and would be interested in that.

[Snookums]

Ha! I see now where this Dr. Alex plot may be heading. Not curing vamps but turning sick kids by neglectful parents into them.

 

 

I saw it as her having natural immunity so Elizabeth can't turn her, and she becomes the vamps' greatest enemy by shooting them up with her own blood and making them regular humans!

 

And my theory about John was pretty much all but confirmed tonight.

 

 

That he's the worst most terrible cop ever and has no survival instincts at all?

 

 

Why the HELL would Miss Evers, after suffering a heartbreaking loss due to a deranged maniac killer, collide with another serial killer in his crimes?

 

And also the way she gets so excited about gloriously blood-stained sheets when the only answer she got about her son was his blood-stained sheet costume!

 

 

I had problems with that too, and finally chose to read it from her line where she says she "goes mad this time of year." I heard it as her saying that this is the one time of year she's actually sane, and feeling the unimaginable horror of having your child taken and destroyed in that fashion. The rest of the time she's crazy; crazy enough to have sought out the very worst murderer she could find and bind herself to him in a desperate effort to change herself enough not to feel the pain anymore. It makes a twisted kind of sense.

 

Mare scrubbing those sheets was everything. She would be one of the best Lady MacBeths of all time.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Snookums

[jnymph]

Also -- this was a serial killer dinner.  I'm not sure foreign genocidal maniacs were on the guest list.  (Ted Bundy, for example, was sorely missed.  Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot?  Not so much.)

 

 

 

Yeah, besides, it's American Horror Story.

 

I really hope no victims of serial killers families were watching. : (    Nor families of the killers themselves.  

[peacheslatour]

I wonder how it came out of favor.

I think because of WWII Hollywood became very rah rah USA! We don't need that there fancy, high fallutin, namby pamby English talkin'!  Also in the Forties there was the rise of Film Noir with tough talking detectives and dames.  It was further eroded by the likes of Marlon Brando, James Dean and the gritty realism of the Fifties.

[Terrafamilia]

I was wondering if Dahmer's long haired zombie toy was the same actor as the long haired conversion therapy guy Sarah Paulson was made to feel up in Asylum?

[DollEyes]

Fascinating episode. It was predictable in some ways & shocking in others. The dinner party was bizarre, to say the least. A dinner party thrown/attended by the ghosts of  some of the country's most famous serial killers on James Patrick March's birthday-which, appropriately enough, is Devil's Night-was as crazy as the guests. As for why John was invited, while he might be the Ten Commandments killer, that so many posters seem to believe that means one of two things to me: that it's either completely true or one of RM's biggest mind fucks yet and given his track record on this show alone, I'd say it could go either way. The hints that John may be a serial killer may be legit, but they could also be more of RM's typical red herrings, or there could be a compromise-namely that while John has probably killed in the line of duty, his real skills could be used to kill The Countess & her ilk, whom I don't consider to be real vampires because like I said about them in the first episode, they may have some of their traits, but they don't have others. John may be a fellow comrade of the other killers at the party, but he also could have been invited so that he could learn to think like the real killer in order to stop them. About John's visions, I blame the hotel. So much crazy shit has happened/is happening there it's no wonder John is seeing things. Regarding another poster's theory that Liz Taylor might be one of the good guys, Liz was the one who told the ghost of Richard Ramirez about the couple whom Ramirez ended up killing and Liz helped Iris and Mrs. Evers dump the bodies of the two Swedish tourists who were murdered early in the season, so while Liz is fabulous, Liz is not one of the good guys. Speaking of which, I still consider John to be one of the good guys. He may be haunted by Holden's disappearance & tormented by what he's seen on his job, but until I actually see him killing those people, he's innocent until proven guilty, as far as I'm concerned.

 

 

I think the idea that [John] is the killer is neat.

 

  Why's that in spoiler tags? It's just unspoiled speculation.

 

  Poor Mrs. Evers. Her son's abduction/murder probably drove her so mad in life that she not only killed herself, the madness has consumed her ghost as well, hence her helping March. Performance-wise, Evan Peters & Mare Winningham were great as usual & Anthony Ruivivar, John Carroll Lynch & Seth Gabel were perfect as Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy & Jeffrey Dahmer, respectively. As for Lily Rabe, while her Aileen Wuornos wasn't better than Charlize Theron's IMO, she gave it a run for the money. Those who judge LR's talent on The Whispers alone probably never saw her on AHS: Asylum, in which she stole at least half the scenes she was in & considering that some of them were with Jessica Lange, that's saying something.

 

  About Alex, her obsession with Holden has figuratively and literally become her undoing and I've got no sympathy for her anymore. Alex's not telling John about finding Holden was bad enough, but her bringing Holden home despite her better judgment was batshit crazy, as was visiting The Countess. Alex is so blinded by her love for Holden that not only have John & Scarlett and their dog suffered for it before, now that she's been turned, John & Scarlett will probably suffer even worse. Alex will probably try to turn or kill Scarlett and/or John, leaving John with no choice but to kill Alex & The Countess to save Scarlett & Holden.

Edited November 3, 2015 by DollEyes

[Captanne]

I put it in spoiler tags because it was easy to do and there is both a separate spoiler and a separate speculation thread where if people want to read that sort of thing they can go.  I didn't want to say that aloud to anyone here who might not have expected it.  That's why.  Just courtesy and easy to do.

[peacheslatour]

My cat smell like lavender too.  Maybe it's because Johnson's Baby Shampoo is freaking lavender scented!

[BrokenRemote]

I worked with a guy who lived in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, during the Night Stalker days.  He said he was TERRIFIED and it was one of the hottest summers ever, so he remembered having to sleep with his windows closed and could barely get any rest.  I lived in the County next door and although I remember the murders at the time, they seemed so removed from us.

 

The Zodiac was such a great character.  I do wish they had done a bit more dialog or something from him or about him.  

 

Definitely agree we needed Ted Bundy!  Talk about a career murderer!

 

I think Mrs Evers, when she lost her mind, became enamored with March and stayed with him.  That's the only thing I can think of.  

 

The whole vampire line is making no sense at all when you put it into perspective with March and the killers.  It's stupid and I'm over Gaga (although I wouldn't mind a mannequin wearing her clothing in each scene - might work better.  LOL)

 

Finally with the vampire thing, the Countess losing all of her money to Madoff was STUPID!  Doesn't it seem like she has a bit of that vampire mojo when she looks you in the eye?  Why can't she just get her money that way?  

 

Naomi Campbell - please get off of my tv along with Miss Can't Act, Chloe.

 

What I don't get is when the Countess lost her money to Madoff, and it became obvious she couldn't get it back, why did she let him live?  It seems like he'd be a prime target for bloodletting, no?

[gunderda]

I'm morbid and read about serial killers. Richard Ramirez was one that I have read about. He is the whole reason I cannot and will not sleep with my windows open.

gahhhhhhhh! thanks a lot... I will be shutting my windows tonight lol 

 

What I don't get is when the Countess lost her money to Madoff, and it became obvious she couldn't get it back, why did she let him live?  It seems like he'd be a prime target for bloodletting, no?

Wasn't he already in custody when everyone realized their money was gone? She probably couldn't get to him.

[SPLAIN]

 

I think there r other serial killers that should have earned a spot rather than the ones chosen.

Hitler anyone? Bundy?

Hitler was a mass murderer, not a serial killer. Big difference. Also, the chat at the table explained how each serial killer came about to visit Hotel Cortez and learn to hone their murdering skills. I don't know how they could have explained Hitler having traveled through Los Angeles and staying at Hotel Cortez. Richard Ramirez was mentioned during the dinner as having stopped by the hotel. In real life, Ramirez once lived in a downtown hotel in Los Angeles called the Cecil Hotel. By the second episode, I thought of the Cecil Hotel, which is known for some strange deaths and other happenings: http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/before-the-ghost-photo-the-disturbing-gruesome-past-of-the-cecil-hotel/story-fnizu68q-1226813853089

 

I cannot forget the horror that Richard Ramirez brought to Southern California during his crime spree. His crimes occurring during the time when the weather was hot. Not being able to keep windows open made for some miserable nights, although that misery is nothing compared to what Ramirez's poor victims had to endure. Although Ramirez also committed murders up north, it was mostly here in Southern California where people, like me, were afraid to leave their windows open. It was a horrible feeling every night wondering when and where he would commit his next crime. We have had some well-known killers here over the years, but they usually stuck to a pattern, just as the Ramirez character mentioned at the dinner table.

 

I may be in the minority, but I really loved this episode. This is one of my favorite episodes of all time from the entire show. I couldn't help but wonder how it must be for the relatives and victims of these killers if they happened to watch this show.

Edited November 6, 2015 by SPLAIN

[Fable]

I can see why the Countess felt Holden was neglected.  While Scarlett looks fairly normal and healthy, he looks pale and sickly, and his family couldn't even take the time to put a comb through his hair much less get him a decent cut.  

[DollEyes]

 

I put it in spoiler tags because it was easy to do and there is both a separate spoiler and speculation thread where if people want to read that sort of thing they can go. I didn't want to say that kind of thing to anyone here who might not have expected it. Just courtesy and easy to do.

 

  The reason I asked was because I've seen no real spoilers to that effect, so it didn't belong in spoiler tags, the way I see it.

[Captanne]

No sweat.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Captanne

[Bruinsfan]

I can see why the Countess felt Holden was neglected.  While Scarlett looks fairly normal and healthy, he looks pale and sickly, and his family couldn't even take the time to put a comb through his hair much less get him a decent cut.  

If she thought of those as signs of neglect, wouldn't she have made some effort to correct them in the following 5 years?

[GIGIBEE]

I think this season is really terrible, ah, I really can not continue to see it though I have seen the third episode.  I think I'd better take some day with a friend and then see it all at once.

[Bec]

I like going on carousels despite being a grown-ass woman (roller-coasters are too intense for me, hee), and there’s usually a rule that little kids have to be accompanied by an adult standing next to their kid’s horse (come on, John could have checked his phone while doing that). So I suppose the only reason John didn’t go on the carousel with Holden is because the plot required him to lose his kid. That’s also the only reason there aren’t any gates around the carousel. There’s a very dream-like quality to that whole kidnapping. It wasn’t even crowded or anything, the countess just yoinked the kid and slowly walked off into the desert wearing a very attention-grabbing dress as if they’re magically invisible. Like something out of a fairy-tale.

 

But oh well, I don’t expect realism of any kind from this show. It was a pretty cool looking scene.

 

Since we already know the show, er, borrows heavily from The Shining (hello dripping blood wall), I was already expecting the hotel to drive John “redrum” crazy just like the Overlook Hotel did to Jack Torrence. I expect some of the speculation here might be onto something.

 

I kind of hope not, though. I like Scarlet so it would be nice if she gets to keep her dad.

 

You know what would be a nice twist on The Shining? If instead of going on a crazy murder rampage, John actually doesn’t want to hurt his (ex)wife and son, but he ends up being forced to end them because they’re bloodsucking monsters about to go after innocent people like his daughter.

 

Though I can’t see any way he wouldn’t go down for murder anyway if that’s how the story goes. Nobody would believe they were vampires.

Edited January 20, 2016 by Bec