American Horror Story

Vanishing Twin Season 12 Episode 4 Editor’s Rating 4 stars ****

American Horror Story

Vanishing Twin Season 12 Episode 4 Editor’s Rating 4 stars ****

Hear ye, hear ye. I declare the 12th season of American Horror Story to have finally ARRIVED. After three weeks of is-she-or-isn’t-she pregnancy drama, things are suddenly and preposterously fucked up. An Oscar darling playing stepmom to some Hamptons roadkill she found? Yes! Super-deranged! I love it. An evil origin story that takes us back to the reign of Bloody Mary? I shall gladly go in time wherever Delicate takes me.

The year is 1555, and the place is Hampton Court Palace. The famously childless Mary Tudor has been laboring all night, but the ladies-in-waiting gathered beyond her chamber door have yet to hear a peep from the baby. The future Elizabeth I barges in to find her half-sister cradling an infant that we nerds of the English Reformation know never existed. No, not an infant, Mary corrects. “A monster.” With claws.

Long story short, Mary agreed to birth a royal baby Satan in exchange for a fruitful reign. Now, Satan’s coven with the feathered horns is on the scene to collect his spawn. When Elizabeth sasses her very pious sister about making a literal deal with the dark lord, Satan’s she-devils cast a spell to leave her barren, which, when combined with the rumors of Lizzy’s many lovers, suggests that perhaps Elizabeth was no Virgin Queen after all! Why not introduce a historical fantasy subplot a third of the way through the season? Rules are there are no rules.

Back in 2023, Anna is exactly where we left her last week: staring transfixed at a decomposing raccoon in Thalia’s garden. Dex invites her to join him for bed, but first she has one more thing to do. With care and deliberation we’ve rarely seen from Anna, she swaddles the dead meat in a blanket and brings it into the basement, where she lays it lovingly in Thalia’s old bassinet as if she can bring it back to life with a convincing performance of mothering. Mary Tudor was rumored to have suffered from a false pregnancy caused by her extreme desire for children. Not entirely dissimilarly, a baby-crazy Anna, whose own mother died when she was just weeks old, has adopted a raccoon carcass.

But almost as quickly as she brings him into her life, Anna abandons the little guy to the demons that lurk in the basement. She has a meeting in the city with a coven of crisis PR execs who have a plan to rehab her career: a viral Instagram reel that will, in yet another winking nod to Kim K’s casting, “break the internet.” I must admit, I was not convinced that the Ashleys (Ashleighs?) hired by Siobahn — who, by the by, is sleeping with Hamish — could get it done. They supposedly repped Louis C.K., but I doubt Anna’s looking for a second shot at fame as an alt-right misanthrope.

You know what? I. Was. Wrong. The black-and-white women’s health PSA they produce starring Anna is one of the most gleefully batshit things I’ve ever seen. I was howling. First, the writing is PERFECT. “It’s my body. I’ll vomit if I need to,” Anna tells cameras, referencing the way she spewed all over the last acting trophy she won. “I’m an everyday woman who vomits, menstrates, orgasms, and defecates.” The runtime is absurdly long, and when it finally does end, Anna stands in the open air surrounded by a supportive gaggle of other “everyday women” a la pharmaceutical ads.

I’ve been longing to see some clips from The Auteur on AHS, but this is so much better. The video gets 6 million views basically overnight. What’s more, it serves as Anna and Dex’s incredibly public pregnancy reveal. That’s right: Anna is still pregnant. Back in the city, she and Dex pay Dr. Hill one more visit to investigate the sensation of movement Anna’s been feeling in her stomach. Lo and behold, Hill finds a heartbeat. His best guess for what’s happened is something called “vanishing twin syndrome,” in which one embryo dies in utero while the other persists. Somehow, it’s all true. Anna did have a miscarriage, and it was terrible. She’s also pregnant now, probably a lil Satan step-sibling for raccoon.

Which brings us to baby daddy. Who is Dex and what does this thin-lipped man know? If he really is in the dark on whatever evil magic is afoot, he’s also hands down the most supportive husband in the world. He’s just endured another miscarriage, and yet he kindly agrees to put himself through the torture of one more ultrasound at Dr Hill’s office? How gallant! How sacrificial! And if Dexter is in on the devilish dealings, well, I did not predict that Satan’s disciple would be so committed to pairing T-shirts with coats.

This week we also meet baby granny — Dex’s mother, Virginia, who comes to visit unannounced. Alarmingly, given the recent break-in, the doorman lets Virginia into the couple’s Brooklyn Heights apartment while they’re out. Virginia, played by Debra Monk, is kind of a dick. She calls her daughter-in-law cold and clandestine. When she finds out about the miscarriage, she questions why women want to have babies at all now that there are so many other options available. But really Virginia has descended upon the city with her own agenda. She’s planning to sue Dex’s father; for what, we can’t be sure, but it has something to do with the abuse she says she suffered at his hands.

Not just any abuse, she confesses to Dex over lunch. It’s satanic-ritual abuse. Virginia was drugged and abused by her husband! Dex refuses to believe it, he says, but how can we possibly believe him? It’s just way too close a coincidence for Dex not to have picked up the diabolical baton, right? Pure evil feels patrilineal to me. We can’t know anything about the vanished twin, but the one that’s left in Anna’s womb must be bad news.

Because, if it’s not a Beelzebaby, why would all of Anna’s hair be falling out (unless she’s been seriously neglecting her prenatal vitamins)? Why would Nurse Ivy still be stalking her in the parking garage at Dr Hill’s office? Why can Anna still hear chanting through the ductwork in Thalia’s basement, and why would whoever has been sending her warning messages still be sending them? “You can’t trust any of them,” reads the note that arrives in a bouquet of blood-red roses. While Anna’s been in the Hamptons, her apartment has been outfitted with a security system. But is it to protect Anna or to surveil her until she gives birth?

Anna is too consumed by her burgeoning motherhood to ask many questions — not about the cameras or even Virginia’s unwelcome appearance. At the end of the episode, she and Dex go back to the Hamptons, where she enjoys simple pregnant-lady rituals, like eating ice cream (which she keeps in the fridge???) directly from the tub, with a side of dill pickles. It’s my body. I’ll snack if I need to. I am an everyday woman who eats the whole pint.

Seemingly sated, she heads back to the basement, enticed by the same whispered chanting she’s heard before. But this time, when she tries to enter the secret door, it’s locked. Anna accidentally knocks herself unconscious trying to wrest it open. When she wakes up, it’s time for the Golden Globe noms to be announced. Her Q-score fully restored by her “personal viral feminist anthem,” Anna’s name is called among the other hopefuls. And since she’s down there anyway, she might as well check on her first son — the fetid raccoon that’s stinking up Thalia’s bassinet.

Anna pets his face and picks him up. And just when it seems she might bestow a kiss upon his brow, Anna starts chomping down on his exposed and maggot-infested intestines. It’s my body. She takes another bite of her adopted son. I am an everyday woman who eats putrefying roadkill.

AHS: Delicate Recap: Anna Victoria Vomcott’s Revenge