Find out how American Horror Story: Hotel says goodbye to its characters, and who will still be alive by the end of this season.
Read on for our recap of “Be Our Guest”.
The Hotel Cortez is “under construction”, a new life. As we learn from Liz Taylor, the hotel is to become a “four stars” on the internet. New rooms, new furniture, impeccable service. But there is something Liz and Iris couldn’t get rid off: the pain, as Sally says to a couple who has just checked in. All the Cortez’s ghosts are still there. Sally and Drake kill the poor guests.
So, Liz and Iris decide to organize an assembly with all the hotel’s ghosts, to ask them to stop killing the guests. But Drake and Sally have no intention to stop, they’re having too much fun.
March steps in and says to his companions that Liz is right. No more killings. He says the Cortez is their home, the only one they’ve got, and what would happen to all of them without the protection of the hotel’s walls? March knows that if the hotel manages to get to 2026, it will mark its 100th year of foundation, and thus no one will be able to tear it down because it will become a historical landmark. But the killings must stop.
Sally doesn’t want to obey to any rule, and the same can be said for Drake.
Iris tries to talk to Sally because she knows the real reason why she hasn’t been the same lately. It is since John has left the hotel. Iris’ solution to Sally’s pain is… social media. To interact with the world without the need to go out from the hotel. And it works. Sally finally finds the attention she craved, she even stops with the drugs.
Meanwhile, Liz has the solution for Drake. To sketch, to try to reinvent himself. Liz could be his face, his model. But Liz becomes even more. She becomes the leader of Drake’s company.
The Cortez becomes the place where his fashion shows happen, the ghosts act as his models (among them we see Ramona as well). The public is intrigued by the mystery of Will Drake.
But something, or better someone, is still missing for Liz. Tristan. So Iris calls in a psychic in the hope she can connect Liz and Tristan. The psychic’s name is Billie Dean Howard (from American Horror Story Murder House, played by Sarah Paulson). Billie manages to get in contact with Tristan, and when she asks him if there is anything he wants to say to Liz, his answer is no. But Billie is also in contact with Donovan. She says he is someplace beautiful.
Liz is sad about Tristan’s no, but he has found his son again. She becomes part of his life, and she becomes a grandmother. But just when it seems Liz has found a new life and happiness, she finds out she has cancer. Untreatable.
Liz wants to stay with her friends at the Cortez forever. In order for that to happen, she has to be murdered inside the hotel. But no one of her ghost friends wants to kill her. They are all too fond of her. Sally understands, though. It’s not murder because Liz will be reborn. Just when they are about to kill her, The Countess appears. To help Liz too. And so The Countess kills Liz.
Once dead, the first fellow ghost Liz sees is Tristan. And so they are together again.
Time jump to the Devil’s Night, October 30th, 2022.
Billie Dean Howard has made the hotel very popular among the weirdos who love being scared by a ghost.
John comes back to the hotel, and Iris tells him that Billie has been trying every year to talk to him on this very date. And this year she has the chance to talk to him. She wants him to talk about his killings.
We learn that John, Alex and Holden found living outside the Cortez more and more difficult every day. So they decided to go back home. Scarlett was the only one who could still have a chance at a normal life. So they sent her living away from Los Angeles. One night, when he was out trying to find blood to feed his wife and son, the police found him and killed him before he could get inside the Hotel Cortez.
So the Devil’s Night is the only night during which he can come back to the hotel and see them.
John invites Billie to attend the Devil’s Night with him. All the ghosts of murderers who meet for the Devil’s Night threaten her that if she doesn’t leave the Cortez alone, they will kill her. She will be trapped inside the hotel forever. Ramona will make sure Billie will keep her word once outside the hotel, because she is still alive. So Billie runs aways and leaves the Cortez forever.
After that, John goes back to the room 64 to see Alex, Holden, and Scarlett too.
The last scene of American Horror Story’s fifth season has The Countess approaching a young man who came to the Cortez to see the ghosts and spend time with his friends. But The Countess has other plans and leaves us with the line: “You have a jawline for days”.
I feel this season of American Horror Story had one positive aspect: the focus on Liz Taylor who, in my opinion, was the best character of the whole season.
And the best performances were indeed delivered by Denis O’Hare, along with Kathy Bates and Sarah Paulson, the last having unfortunately not as much screen time as I would have hoped.
I missed Jessica Lange a lot, and I’m still asking myself how they could give a Golden Globe to Lady Gaga who, aside from being at her first experience as an actress and despite not being that bad, failed to deliver an impressive performance. Her character failed to attract. She lacked magnetism.
Evan Peters, on the contrary, delivered a fun convincing performance of James March, but unfortunately, we didn’t see as much of him as I would have loved. The other characters failed to impress, and Angela Bassett’s Ramona hadn’t enough screen time to even try.
As a whole, “Hotel” seemed a bit rushed not only in its end, while some aspects of the story were left in the dark (what about, for example, The Countess’ son? What happened to him?).
What do you think of this season of American Horror Story? Will you watch the next one?
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