Well, here we all are, gathered together for the last time (this season) to celebrate the incredibly creepy goings-on at the Hotel Cortez. Raise a glass and toast this final episode, wherein deals are made, purposes are found, hatchets are buried, and an uneasy peace settles over the hotel.
Episode 12: Be Our Guest
SPOILERS.
The first shot is a close up of Liz getting her throat slit, while her voiceover laments their plans for making the Cortez a bright shining example of hospitality are going awry. So there’s that.
A new couple rings the front desk bell, checking in. Iris and Liz pour them complimentary bottles of champagne whilst whispering about the great review they’re going to get online from these two (one of whom is Alanna Ubach, a favorite of mine, gone too soon but is still fun to watch). They are taken upstairs to their room and, after cooing over the Egyptian cotton sheets and hyperventilating over the new Japanese toilet, are confronted by Sally appearing in their room.
Sally says they’ve cleaned up the hotel, but they couldn’t take away all the pain. She empties a syringe into the guy’s chest, and the gal runs out into the hallway, right into the arms of Drake, who is “new at this murder game.” He stabs her in the neck.
“Aw crap,” Iris says later after witnessing the aftermath. The ghosts keep killing the guests. Liz suggests that it’s time they all had a meeting.
And so they do. All the various guests who have been killed are gathered together in the bar as Liz and Iris asks them to please stop murdering the guests. It’s bad for business. After some hilarious back-and-forth between the various people haunting that place (seriously, it’s a very funny scene as they squabble amongst each other), March appears and agrees with “Cleopatra and her friend on this issue.” No more murders.
March. Of all people.
If they lose customers, the hotel will have to close. March puts his foot down. Sally wants to keep murdering to find her soulmate. She spits at him and walks out.
Later, in her room, Sally is dressed in a beautiful velvet gown. It was a pleasant surprise to see, since we usually watch her do her thing in a tacky leopard print jacket. Iris rolls in a cart of champagne, but her real reason for being there is to help Sally not feel so isolated: Iris gives her an iPhone.
And Sally is interested, intrigued, and then delighted as she discovers the Internet, and all its attendant social media. Her posts of pain and drugs and death and, yes, music, start to become very very popular. She texts with her fans, delights in the “likes” she gets, posts videos of Liz singing her songs. “In the modern age, no one ever has to be alone,” Iris says.
After an appropriate montage, Sally drops her heroin works out the window.
Drake and Liz have a conversation about Drake’s old fashion business: it’s falling apart without Drake at the helm, and is on the verge of bankruptcy. Liz has a plan: “This is California! The land of reinvention! Look what it’s done for me!”
Liz suggests that she take over his business as the figurehead, while Drake continues as the silent creative partner, sketching and designing on.
So, she does. She fires a few board members, stages a fashion show at the hotel, and promotes Drake’s ghostly absence as eccentric exclusivity. It works.
But Liz still isn’t feeling fulfilled herself, still mourning the loss of her one true love, Tristan. Iris brings in a psychic to help Liz connect. And not just any psychic; this is Billie Dean Howard (Sarah Paulson, reprising her role from season 1), star of her own Lifetime show. Billie gives a reading and, even while commenting on the “so many voices” she hears, she admits that Tristan doesn’t want to talk. To Liz.
Liz is heartbroken.
Then Billie mentions pancakes. And Saturday morning cartoons. And she asks “Who’s Donovan?” Iris is wide-eyed and confused: Donovan can’t be here, he died outside the hotel, he’s free. Billie agrees, he’s in a beautiful place, far away. And he has a message: “I love you, mom.”
In a nice, touching scene, Liz gets to be at the birth of her grandchild (snipping the umbilical, nice). In voiceover, she remarks about seeing a bright future in her grandaughter’s eyes. She’s happy. It’s a sweet piece of business that could have been mawkish or insincere, but actually comes off as genuine. Good for Liz.
And, naturally, that lasts for all of about ten seconds. “Well, shit,” Ramona says. “Are you sure?” Yep, Liz has cancer.
She gathers all of her ghost friends together in order to say goodbye. And hello. If she gets murdered here in the hotel, she’ll get to stick around and stay with them forever. Her family. They all hug, and gather up weapons in order to help Liz become reborn.
And then the Countess shows up. And lovingly slits her throat.
Next shot, Ghost Liz looks down at her bloody former body, lights a cigarette, and is surprised by Tristan walking through the door. They embrace.
Devil’s Night, October 30, 2022.
Ding. A new guest wants Room 44, “where Billie Dean says he died.” Iris laments all the freaks and weirdos booking rooms in search of actual ghosts (since Billie Dean’s three network specials about it have aired). John Lowe appears (after all, it is Devil’s Night, and March has a dinner to host) and there’s a flashback showing that he died in a volley of police gunfire right outside the hotel, so his spirit has to roam the earth the other 364 days.
Billie Dean Howard interviews the ghost of John Lowe in room 64 for her TV show, ensuring a ratings bonanza. She’s confused about some Inge, mainly that she only senses his spirit here on October 30th. He tells her that if she’ll follow him, and leave her crew behind, he’ll show her.
John Wayne Gacy welcomes Lowe back to the dinner party, along with all the other killers, as Billie wanders about the room in a bit if a daze, almost star-struck in a perverse way. They good-naturedly taunt her and tease her. Things get worse when they strap her into a chair and grab their weapons, getting closer and closer, threatening her.
They make a deal: stop talking about the hotel, no tweets, no pictures, and they’ll let her live. She counters that they can’t leave the hotel, so how are they going to enforce the rule? Romona pops up and says that she’ll make sure Billie keeps her silence.
Later, Lowe shares a nice moment with his daughter, now grown up, as he gets ready to settle in for bed next to his wife and son, knowing he won’t be around for another year.
And in the bar, the Countess sits alone. But maybe not for long? She sidles up next to a young, good-looking man. “You have a jawline for days,” she smiles.
Cut to black.
Each episode of AHS has always had difficulty with the final episode. So many loose story threads have to converge again, and it’s often felt rushed and truncated in order to just be done rather than to finish the season with an appropriate ending. This finale, though, might have been the best of them all. It felt like a complete circle, with each major character finishing their arc in interesting and satisfying ways.
For me, Hotel was the best season of AHS so far. It (mostly) kept its focus and didn’t ramble (too much) and had some really fun characters (and Gaga’s Golden Globe award, while nice, was undeserved when compared to the amazing work of Denis O’Hare as Liz).
See you next season!
