This week, American Horror Stories gave us something we haven't seen yet from the spin-off anthology series (And if I'm honest, something I don't think we see enough of on the main show anymore): A period piece!
Milkmaids begins in the time of smallpox, with a man named Thomas, played by the Patron Saint of Stories himself, Cody Fern. Thomas's wife has just died of the disease, and evidently so have all of his daughters, leaving him only with a son, Edward. It's a very morbid opening, as Edward asks why none of their friends are coming to the funeral services, and Thomas answers that it's because they're dead. Edward has a lot of morbid questions, honestly.
But a creepy kid is far from the most disturbing thing this episode has to offer. We are soon introduced to Celeste, a prostitute who is riddled with boils resembling that associated with smallpox, only she's never been sick. Men don't just come to Celeste for sex, you see. They come to lick the pus from her boils as she believes they have healing properties. Apparently no man who has done so has ever been afflicted with smallpox. In ten seasons plus last year's installment of Stories, I have to say that this is one of the nastiest things I've seen happen in the AHS universe, perhaps second only to Delphine LaLaurie's literal shit stew in Coven. With the exception of moments that trigger my particular phobia, this is one of very few times I've actually gagged watching something happen on AHS.
Also disgusted by Celeste's claims to be a healer is the town priest, Father Walter. He actually attempts to have Celeste hung as a witch during the services for Thomas's wife, but Thomas puts a stop to it. I suppose a hanging on the day of a funeral is bad form, even in 1757. Father Walter is not happy with Thomas, and they end up having a discussion in which Thomas's desperation to keep his son Edward from falling victim to smallpox like the rest of his family now has comes up. Based on some old wives' tales that probably originated in, oh, say, the Roanoke colony, they conclude that the answer to immunity lies within eating the hearts of the deceased. If you guessed that Thomas forces an unknowing Edward to eat the heart of his mother, give yourself a cookie. Or, don't, because you probably don't want to eat while thinking about this episode.
Meanwhile, our pus filled heroine Celeste has run off seeking refuge from the hangman's noose, and finds herself at the home of a local milkmaid named Delilah. Now, please don't take this as me knocking the actress is any way, her acting was fine and there's nothing necessarily wrong with her appearance, but this character completely took me out of the period piece moment. She just looked far too modern for someone who was supposed to be existing in the 1700s...I don't really know how else to explain it. (If you've ever seen The Diary Of Ellen Rimbauer, I have a similar issue with the casting of the title character vs. the actress that played her in the original Rose Red. Something just doesn't fit the vibe.) I know nothing about this actress, and it's none of my business, but to me she looked like she'd had some kind of plastic surgery done on her face and it just made her a little too "supermodel" to sell the role of a lonely milkmaid during a smallpox outbreak in 1757. Hopefully that makes sense and doesn't sound too harsh. Anyway, I'm not even sure if a full night goes by before Celeste and Delilah are professing their love for each other. That definitely escalated quickly, but I suppose given everyone's life expectancy in this climate, better to just go for it while you can get it. Celeste ends up explaining her situation with the smallpox boils to Delilah, who doesn't buy that Celeste could possibly have had magical healing pustules bestowed upon her by Saint Lazarus. After her cow once again falls ill, Delilah starts to piece things together and realizes that, as Celeste was once a milkmaid herself, the books are not actually that of smallpox, but cowpox, and contracting cowpox gives you immunity to smallpox, hence why Celeste's pustules seemed to have healing properties.
Celeste is a little put out that she's not special, and meanwhile the townsfolk under Father Walter's leadership are out digging up the dead to eat their hearts. Thomas suddenly seems to have a problem with this which is funny considering he put up basically no resistance to eating his own wife's heart, but hindsight is 20/20. Suddenly, Delilah bursts onto the scene trying to feed everyone milk from her diseased cow (0/10 do not recommend eating during this episode. But I'm also grossed out by milk to begin with so there's that.) but no one wants to listen to her because she's clearly a time traveler from 2022 Los Angeles obviously any woman with an idea in the 1700s is a witch. So they attack her, but when Father Walter threatens to go after Celeste next, as Delilah had tried to explain to them what her magic pustules really are, Thomas stops him, revealing that Celeste is Edward's real mother.
There is, of course, a confrontation between Celeste and Thomas. Thomas is disgusted by the fact that Celeste apparently goes both ways now, but somehow the fact she's got every man in the village consuming pus out of the boils on her skin is of no real concern to him. He tries to blame her for Edward's supposed strange ways, none of which we've really seen at this point (I wouldn't count asking creepy questions about death in light of a smallpox outbreak that killed almost his entire family.) so I'm not sure what he's talking about, but based on what he's saying, even though the family name appears to be Browne, could we possibly be looking at a young Edward Mott?!
Thomas and Delilah both end up dead, prompting Celeste to go and try to grab her son, who's never really met her, and run away. After the obligatory "Who the fuck are you?", Edward has another question: He asks Celeste if she is a milkmaid, to which she responds that she supposes she is once again. And then, since the number one rule of smallpox-ridden towns in 1757 is apparently "Never trust a milkmaid", Edward kills the mother he never knew he had. If she truly was a chosen one of Lazarus, by Grabthar's hammer, may she be avenged. (Please, someone out there, understand that reference!)
It's never said, but I truly believe this could be the humble beginning of Edward Mott. The fact that this isn't gone into is disappointing to me. Edward Mott was known for antisocial behavior and homosexuality, so it would make perfect sense based on the things Thomas says to Celeste during their confrontation. We don't know where Edward Browne goes after he kills Celeste, and his whole family is dead. It's possible either Celeste or the woman he thought was his mother growing up, could have been a Mott. Edward is said to have died in 1792, thirty-five years after the events of Milkmaids, so the timeline works, give or take. This backstory would certainly make sense of his extreme social anxieties and general dislike of people.
Honestly, that's my only real complaint about this episode aside from Delilah's "Thoroughly Modern Milkmaids" look: Connecting this to Roanoke would have been a total gimme. I've already explained how it would have made sense for Edward Browne to be Edward Mott, but with all the talk of eating hearts as a healing ritual, the accusations of witchcraft, etc., everything about it just makes sense. At this point I feel like the producers have to know that Stories is best received when it connects to the main show, and this just seemed so obvious to me. Yet I waited for a connection that never came.
Don't get me wrong, it was a very good stand-alone episode. One of the best of the series as a whole, honestly. At times it seemed almost a little too ambitious...it was a lot going on for an under-an-hour-long episode; the heart-eating subplot and the rushed romance between Celeste and Delilah didn't seem necessary, and then Celeste turning out to be Edward's mother could be perceived as a little too much icing on the cake, but it all came together pretty well. And the aesthetic and cinematography were spot on. I felt like I was watching something in the vein of Tim Burton's adaptation of Sleepy Hollow. And of course there were the gross-out moments. I don't know that I've ever been this uncomfortable watching something from the AHS universe. This episode truly did have it all, it just maybe should have been a tiny bit longer so it didn't seem so busy. And they should have at least given a slight acknowledgement to Roanoke. With that said, this episode made me ache even more for what Roanoke could have been if they'd just kept it a period piece...and also for how much I miss when AHS just does a full-blown period piece without some convoluted modern shit going on at the same time. It's a strength of theirs and they should use it more. If they're gonna rewrite history, I'd rather see it happen in this way.
But regardless, I remain impressed with what Stories has been doing so far this season. It started out strong and has stayed solid so far. I'm excited to see what each installment has to offer, whereas last season was more of a "what ridiculous plot line are they gonna pull out of their asses this time?" type of watching.
I certainly have high hopes for the rest of the season, and season eleven of the main show.
Stay spooky, my friends.
Comments
Post a Comment