I just want to preface this review by saying, this is my least favorite episode of the season so far. I didn’t necessarily dislike it, but it just didn’t bring anything at all special to the table for me, and I caught myself saying “Really?!” out loud more times than I ever hope to during an episode of anything. This review may actually be fairly short, as I really don’t think there’s much depth to go into here, which is actually kind of ironic considering that it is a story centered upon being shallow.
Facelift introduces us to a woman named Virginia Mellon, which, quite frankly, sounds like something you’d find in the local grocery store’s produce department, but I digress. Virginia does things like dab urine onto her face (which is gross but not Milkmaids-opening level gross) because she’s obsessed with staying young and beautiful, and all in all she reminds me quite a bit of Fiona Goode at the beginning of Coven, if Fiona had nothing else going for her. Virginia also lives with her daughter Fay, who is a thirty-something still trying to muddle her way through college (apparently an unhappy marriage got in the way at some point) and she apparently has a thing for her neighbor Bernie and gets excited when Fay tells her she heard he’s divorcing his wife.
She spends a stalker-level amount of time in a local shop waiting to “bump into” Bernie, but when it finally happens, shortly after a concerned clerk finally tries to help her, it turns out he’s seeing a woman named Cassie, who at first seems much younger than him but turns out to actually be Virginia’s age, from the same college dorm many moons ago. Now, I don’t personally think there’s anything too remarkable about Cassie’s appearance. She looks like any woman of a certain age who’s obviously had work done. But Virginia, of course, demands to know her secret.
After some typical “I got the guy and you didn’t/Stay away from my man” bitchery, Cassie finally gives Virginia the name of a plastic surgeon: Dr. Perle. Now, I don’t know if any of my fellow 90s kids will remember a picture book called Very Busy Barbie, but Dr. Perle looks exactly like Barbie’s nemesis in that book, a model named Laureen. (It’s probably super weird that I remember that so vividly but I was fascinated with Laureen as a child because she wasn’t one of Barbie’s typical cohorts. She had so many “friend” dolls, I guess I found it weird that they wrote a completely new character for this book, especially considering, spoiler alert, they make amends at the end.) After some conversation, Dr. Perle agrees to take on Virginia as a client, but it’s fairly obvious she’s playing the “villain who’s not supposed to come off as a villain” role the entire time.
During Virginia’s surgery, there’s some weird Gaelic chanting, and this is the first time I really groan. Okay, I’ve said before that I love and live for the supernatural aspects of AHS, but I think this is one episode that could have benefitted just from having the doctor be a butcher and not basically recreate a background scene from last season’s Ba’al. For some reason, the supernatural just doesn’t seem to fit here, and seems even more out of place later when she sees Fay, and also reveals that she’s actually her stepdaughter, and interprets her as, basically, the demon from the opening credits of Ba’al. Fay walks out on her after she uses the dreaded “step” prefix to their relationship, which is a little odd to me because when Fay comes back, she talks about a time in high school, when her biological parents were still very clearly together, when she was punished for getting a certain type of haircut and got in even more trouble when she threw the heirloom necklace that is spoken about so pointedly that’s obviously going to come into play during this week’s M. Night Shyamalan Plot Twist. But yeah, I found it a little odd that she got so offended because, as close as they seem, Virginia obviously didn’t raise Fay and probably didn’t meet her until she was an adult, or close to it, if her biological parents were still together when she looks to be about sixteen.
Anyway, Dr. Perle decides that Fay is inadequate company for Virginia and whisks her away to some weekend retreat that doesn’t sound anything at all like a cult meeting, with all of her prior patients, who she considers “family”. Fay sneaks along in the trunk of the car and that’s honestly the most impressive and surprising thing about this episode because, as a woman in my 30s, my bones are aching at just the thought of trying to fold myself into the trunk of a car, let alone stay inside one for god knows how many hours. She is of course caught, leading into the big reveal of Virginia’s new face, and is taken away “to be dealt with by security.” Virginia’s wraps then come off in front of the entire party, and, a la that famous Twilight Zone episode, it’s revealed that Dr. Perle turned her into a humanoid pig. (Or would it technically be a “pigoid human”?)
Turns out—BIG SHOCK—this is a cult and Virginia is a sacrifice, made to look like a pig in honor of some ancient ritual, and now the “beautiful” cultists must hunt her down and slaughter her in order to remain such. Dr. Perle dramatically talks about whatever this is all based on and I can’t help but laugh at how idiotic it sounds. They give Virginia a two minute head start, one minute to represent each wing of some butterfly they all worship, and if I’d been drinking something, I’d have done a spit-take laughing. The whole thing sounds as if it were written by a child who desperately wanted to seem witchy. Like, my childhood best friend and I used to talk a lot like this…when we were twelve. The final straw comes when she somewhat randomly screams out “We sold our souls for this!” , I guess for the benefit of anyone who was not paying attention until this very exact moment.
After Virginia is stabbed to death by everyone, including Bernie which is supposed to be a shocking moment only I could definitely tell he had work done in the beginning too, so…, Fay is brought back onto the scene and it’s revealed (PLOT TWIST TIME) that her biological mother was actually “one of them” (the necklace from the past being the symbol of that), so now it’s her destiny to be too. The episode ends with Fay back at college, looking a lot less Barb from Stranger Things and a little more Rory Gilmore but still pretty frumpy if you want my honest opinion, where she runs into a handsome dude with a butterfly tattoo, proving he’s also part of the cult, and I end the episode not feeling nearly as satisfied as I have with everything else this season.
Now, I’m not going to go so far as to say this was a bad episode. It was perfectly fine for what it was. I didn’t hate it or feel like I wasted my time watching it, but compared to what else this season has had to offer, I have to say it was pretty sub-par. There absolutely nothing here that hasn’t been done before, and I found myself reminded of several other stories, both in and outside of the AHS universe, throughout this whole ordeal. As much as I tend to prefer when AHS has a supernatural element to it, I feel like this is an episode that could have done without it. Having a crazed, butcher plastic surgeon would have been enough. It could have been some kind of beauty cult, without the forced prayers to some demon. Sometimes, people just being awful is enough for a horror show, and I think this was one of those instances where it could have just been about the human condition.
Also, as I mentioned in my previous review, the plot twists are getting to be a bit much. None of them have necessarily felt out of place, but it's getting to the point where it's become so expected that it's downright predictable, even if you can't guess exactly what the twist will ultimately be. This one was definitely the most wonky though, with Fay remembering such an odd, specific detail of a tantrum she had at least half her lifetime ago. Sure, I remember throwing things sometimes when fighting with my parents, but I couldn't tell you any specific details like that. She may as well have looked right at the screen and said, "Remember that, it comes up again later.", because I knew 100% that it would. Sometimes it's okay to just, you know, tell a story.
All in all, this one was okay for a one-time watch but it isn't something I ever see myself coming back to. There are plenty of instances out there of a story like this being done better, and not with forced supernatural elements, either. It's still infinitely better than most of what last season had to offer, but I know, ultimately, it can be better than this.
Stay spooky, my friends.
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