American Horror Story: Coven Episode 3 "The Replacements" Review

WARNING: I GIVE SPOILERS FOR THE EPISODE!

            I will get immediately into my review of the episode starting with Violet 2.0, whom I recently found out the name of: Zoe. She is now speaking to Tate 3.0’s mother and waiting for Misty Day to get done taking care of him, so she can do the right thing and give him back to his mother. Her character is starting to get annoying to me, which is a bummer because she is the character you are supposed to care about and go for. Anyway, she goes over to Misty Day’s place, does not treat her well, and then just takes Tate 3.0 away from her, when he is obviously not yet ready. I want to see more from Misty Day because that character is interesting to me and I feel sorry for her because Zoe is just using her to fix up Tate 3.0. Later we find out Tate 3.0’s mom has been abusing him in a very uncomfortable way, which is disgusting and really unneeded. I have said that this show goes too far, but this is way too far. Anyway, Tate 3.0 ends up killing his mom, which was incredibly predictable, and the last thing we see from Zoe is that she finds what happened, and then Tate 3.0 is right in front of her. With these aspects of the show, I do not like where it is going.

            Next I will get to Kathy Bates’ character and Queenie. Now Kathy Bates’ character is dealing with the new world around her, and is now Queenie’s slave as we find out that Queenie just thinks that some people like her need love. As all of this is happening, the beast Kathy Bates made of one of her slaves attacks them and Queenie steps up to deal with it while Kathy Bates hides. That scene did have intensity, but it somewhat ruins it by going too far again. I did like that Queenie did connect with the half-man-half-bull, but the show had to express it in a disgusting way. It is good that we are getting more depth with the character of Queenie, but this show needs to hold back.

            Now I will get to Constance 3.0’s daughter. After her spell she tries to get pregnant fails, she seeks help of her mom’s number one enemy, Marie Laveau, to attempt to get pregnant again. I like that we do not need a huge, in-depth explanation for why the spell failed to get her pregnant. All we need is a simple “It just did not work.” That brings more realism to the show. The dialogue with Constance 3.0’s daughter and Marie was good, but it was not great. There is no central reason for that. I just do not feel that it is great. And how Marie just laughs and acts like the possibility of her helping her enemy’s daughter is ridiculous was funny. I like the direction they are going in with this character a bit more now, but I think she needs to do something great for me to like her more.

            It is now time to get to my favorite part of this episode, the story with Constance 3.0 and Emma Roberts’ character. We learn from the prolog that when a new supreme rises, the old one starts getting weaker and weaker, and that Constance 3.0 killed the old supreme when she was young. Then, she starts noticing that Emma Roberts starts getting stronger as she gets weaker and weaker. Then, we see some great chemistry between them as Constance 3.0 shows Emma Roberts new things to do. But at the end of the episode, Constance completely flips out, begs Emma Roberts to kill, then accidently kills Emma Roberts in a very shocking and intense scene. It was not a huge moment for me, but it was definitely a big “WOW!” and I really did not see that coming. With this great mythology they have started to bring to this season, it makes you think about this Coven. It makes you think “Wait… if Emma Roberts is supposed to be the new supreme, then… the Coven will end.” That is what I thought. For a show to make you think like this, props to them. The story with those characters sets up many good story elements in the rest of the season.

            I will now talk about the episode over. First I will mention the good things, then the bad things. First off, it had some silly dialogue and some lines did not fit in with the rest of the lines, but those elements of the script were mostly directed for the first ten or so minutes of the episode. Second off, this episode did have some laughs, but there was not a large amount of humor. This series has claimed itself to be a fun series, so we have to have humor. Third off, mostly towards the beginning, we had some dull scenes and some unrealistic aspects to a scene that made it dull. The good things I liked about are that there are no other dull moments are the moments near the beginning of the episode, and as the episode progressed, the dialogue got better. As the episode progressed, it continuous improved upon itself, up to the climax. I really enjoyed this episode, and this is actually my favorite episode of this season so far.

            I gave the season premiere an 8.1/10. I give this episode an 8.2/10.
            I give this episode, on the grading rating system, a B+. It got really close to an A-, but down to the core of the episode, it needed more humor.