The latest installment of American Horror Stories was another one I was afraid I wouldn't like. When the highlight of the cast list is a young starlet (in this case Bella Thorne of former Disney Channel fame), I start to worry that we're headed back into the CW teen melodrama standard set by last season. But, while this wasn't my top favorite of this season's three entries so far, I have to say, I was still pleasantly surprised.
Drive introduces us to a young woman who loves the nightlife. As Queenie once stated about the iconic Madison Montgomery, we immediately get the sense that are potential heroine here is a stone cold bitch who loves hard drinking, big dicks, and trouble. In fact, when she whispers her name in the ear of the first conquest we see her engaging with, I truly expect her to say, "Madison Montgomery Lite", but her name turns out to be Marci. (On a side note, I found myself kind of laughing at the name the whole time...? I mean, I don't think Marci is an ugly name or anything, but it doesn't bring to mind a young, sexy club girl. I see either an older woman, a secretary, or a teenage girl in a minor role in an 80s sitcom.) Marci is out here just strictly looking for a good time, or so it seems. We see her pick up a guy, screw him in the back of her car, then immediately kick him out. All the while, her club hopping buddy Piper is expressing concern because there is a killer on the loose, but Marci makes it clear that nothing is going to stand between her and any sexual encounter she desires. She's dedicated, that's for sure.
On her way home that night, Marci finds herself being followed by another car. The driver will not let up, even going so far as to ram into her. She finally manages to lose him and makes it home, where she's visibly distressed, talking to a dude named Chaz. (Again the name doesn't seem fitting for a millennial. I've never met a man under a certain age who wanted to go by "Chaz". The last Chaz I knew was pushing 80.) Chaz reads like a gay best friend/roommate, but it turns out, he is in fact Marci's husband, who has recently agreed to an open marriage and is very clearly having a lot of issues with it. As this part of the storyline plays out, I start to wonder how in the world we're supposed to root for Marci, because, no disrespect for real polyamorous people, or people who like to go to the club and get their freak on on a nightly basis, but she really comes off like a toxic bitch and Chaz is clearly in a lot of pain from the situation. Anyone who's ever felt like they weren't being heard in a relationship will feel for him. It's also revealed that Marci has a huge birthmark on the side of her face, which she covers up when she goes out to pick up sexual conquests.
Anyway, Piper and Marci have a chat about what may have happened the night before, with Piper telling an old urban legend of a man who followed a woman home because a killer was on the loose and he saw the killer in the back of the woman's car. Marci cares very little, and goes out again that night, this time hooking up with a woman after promising Piper "no more doing guys in the car". Gotta hand it to her, that was pretty slick. Piper is still not happy though, and the two of them end up having a massive fight, with Piper storming off, and then Marci arrives back in the club to find Chaz there as well. He seems to be there out of concern for her, which only seems to piss her off more. When she eventually goes back to her car, she sees the car that had been tailing her the night before, and this time takes down the license plate number.
The next morning, she's researching the number, which leads her to a guy named Paul. The whole time she's conducting this research project, Chaz is pouring his heart out to her, talking about he's found an apartment and wants to move out, because he thought he could deal with the situation as long he knew he was still number one, but he no longer feels that way and so he can't stay. It's honestly pretty heartbreaking, but all Marci really has to say to him is that she "has something inside her that's always hungry" and she can't and won't stop. Piper said something during their fight about Marci "trying to make up for high school", so we can only assume she's become a sex addict after having a "glow up" from being an unpopular kid.
Marci almost completely ignores Chaz and goes off to look for Paul. She finds him working at some upscale household boutique, where utensils probably cost more than the average mortgage, and seems to find him a bit creepy, despite his attempts to flirt with her. She later ends up going to his house, trying to learn more about him and why he was following her. She finds one of those classic obsessive crime bulletin boards, full of newspaper clippings about the killer and victims, but when Paul inevitably does catch her, he reveals the truth: He saw someone in the backseat of Marci's car that night and was trying to warn her, as he thought it was the killer. Marci laughs it off, saying she's obviously not dead, and it will make such a funny story about how they met, but when Paul leans in for a kiss and asks for her name, as she tells it to him, she stabs him in the neck with a hypodermic needle.
It turns out, Marci was the killer all along. After relentless bullying in her childhood and teen years over the aforementioned birthmark, she was left with an insatiable hunger to kill off the "beautiful people", that remind her of those who tortured her for her appearance in the past. She butchers Paul both for his attractiveness and also the fact he obviously knows about her now, but realizes in the middle of all of it how Chaz has always supported her and how she wants him to be more a part of her hobby. Apparently he has also known all this time and their arguments were never about an open relationship, but Marci's obsession with murder and violence. Chaz has been simply hiding the bodies this whole time, but now Marci wants him to take the next step.
The episode ends with Piper becoming their first victim as a husband and wife team.
I have to commend this episode for not going in any of the directions I was expecting. I truly believed the killer was going to turn out to either be Chaz or maybe a friend of his, possibly Piper, picking off Marci's hookups one by one because he couldn't deal with the open marriage arrangement. There was maybe a split second where I thought it could be Marci, but I was thinking maybe she was actually something not of this world. An alien, a succubus, that sort of thing. I felt like having her turn out to simply be a bullied girl hellbent on revenge was actually a pretty brilliant twist, and Bella Thorne played the part well, terrifying but also relatable to anyone who's been bullied before. I do think they could have made the birthmark a little more prominent though. Despite it all, Marci is still very pretty, and though maybe she wasn't the most gorgeous child, I kind of find it hard to believe that a birthmark on the side of her face could have completely eclipsed the rest of her, but kids, and honestly many adults too, can be cruel. In the beginning I was wondering how I was ever supposed to root for Marci, but upon the truth being revealed, I was definitely having a major "good for her" moment. The writers of this episode did a fantastic "bait and switch" type job, making us believe we were watching the toxic tale of a wife who wanted an open marriage while her husband couldn't deal, when in reality it was something else entirely.
I also always get a kick out of different takes on stories about phantom drivers, as I grew up a stone's throw away from the infamous Clinton Road. I'll do a separate post about that someday. I do think "Drive" has many different meanings in relation to this episode as well. It can be taken about literal driving, about Marci's sex drive before all is revealed, and also the drive that past trauma can create, to set things right in the ways we see fit.
All in all, this season of Stories has been so much better than I anticipated so far. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's peak AHS or that it's going to win any Emmys, but I'm happy with what we've seen and I hope it, along with the main show when it returns, stay on this path.
Stay spooky, my friends.
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