American Horror Story Apocalypse: Ep 2 –The Morning After (Recap)

Episode 2 of the eight season of American Horror Story takes no time to get right into the thick of the chaos that is the “Apocalypse.”

Ms. Venable being tested by Langdon. Image courtesy of Variety and FX.

Warning: Detailed Spoilers ahead! Watch the Episode first!

Well, for those of you who watched “The Morning After” last night, all I have to say is DANG! They really kicked off the season with a bang (that rhyme was totally unintentional btw). So let’s go ahead and talk about what we saw.

First of all, something cool that y’all might not have noticed is that “The Morning After” was directed by Jennifer Lynch, who also directed weirdo horror favorite Boxing Helena and who happens to be David Lynch’s daughter but doesn’t necessarily like to be described that way so moving on. She has a history of creating disturbing yet beautiful imagery in her films and last night’s episode of American Horror Story: Apocalypse was no exception.

Michael Langdon, or the Anti-Christ (but that hasn’t been made known to anyone in the Outpost YET) is now simply going by Langdon and he has moved into Outpost 3 temporarily to see who will join him in “The Sanctuary.” Does anyone else think that this sanctuary might be some sort of otherworldly spiritual dimension or maybe hell? I’m just not too sure about this place.

Anyway, Langdon makes everyone aware that he is there to test them all and the people he chooses will join him in the sanctuary and the rest will be left in Outpost 3 to die. Mr. Gallant volunteers to be the first to go through Langdon’s testing process.

Mr. Gallant, during his first meeting with Langdon, explains that his grandmother has never had any respect for him and was always trying to set him up with “suburban gays”, when that is absolutely not what he is. There’s a particularly hilarious yet disturbing scene where Mr. Gallant is at the dinner table with Evie and the “suburban gays” dressed in a leather daddy get up, and somehow eats soup out of a gas mask.

Mr. Gallant gets a feeling that Langdon is also gay. He asks him and Langdon says “Is that what you’d like me to be?”

THEN, guess who’s back? THE RUBBER MAN. While Gallant is sure that Langdon is occupying the rubber suit, Langdon denies it, hurting Mr. Gallant’s feelings quite a bit in the process. Evie Gallant accidentally sees her grandson and the rubber man mid-coitus and reports her grandson to Ms. Venable and Ms. Mead because she wants her seat in the sanctuary secured. Langdon lets Gallant know that his grandmother reported him and also that he wouldn’t be with him if he were the last man on Earth, though he used different phrasing.

The Rubber Man’s Back! Image Courtesy of ign and FX.

Am I the only person who thinks that the Rubber Man suit might be occupied with a guest from The Murder House? If it is, who is it? The only person..er..ghost that would make sense to participate in this insanity would be Tate, in which case Evan Peters can brag that he had (fake) sex…with himself..on camera. The suit could also just be a hallucination or some kind of demon that Langdon has summoned, or maybe because Langdon is..who he is, he can be at two places at once?

Anyway, Ms. Venable and Ms. Mead take Mr. Gallant to a special room for punishments where he is hung by his arms in chains. They whip him until Ms. Venable tells Miriam to stop because he’s enjoying it. Next thing you know, Gallant is in the library with everyone and confronts his grandmother about ratting him out to the ladies of the house. She doesn’t lie to him and says that she thinks that the spot in the sanctuary needs to go to someone “more worthy” and berates him to the whole room.

More from American Horror Story

• What’s up with season 12 of American Horror Story?
• The other AHS season 12 teaser big reveal (besides Kim Kardashian)
• Where can I watch American Horror Story, and what is it about?
• American Horror Story alumni Evan Peters and Ryan Murphy win Golden Globe awards
• AHS: NYC showcases a very real kind of horror story

Meanwhile, Langdon appears in Ms. Venable’s room and in doing so, we discover Wilhelmina’s “shame” and the reason why she always wears those high Victorian collars. She has a large hump in the middle of her back. Langdon makes her unzip her dress and we see the hump. He runs his hand down her back

“Does it hurt,” Langdon whispers to Wilhelmina

“No,” she replies, almost in tears, gasping

“But does it give you great pain?” he asks

“Yes”

That scene gave me shudders down my spine.

While all of this other stuff is going on, Emily and Timothy sneak into Langdon’s room, which is a kind of weird thing for them to be able to do, considering he demonstrates his ability to know what people are doing and thinking, but maybe he wanted them to see what they saw. When they enter his room, they see his computer. He had written a letter to “The Cooperative” saying that Ms. Venable and Ms. Mead had made up their own rules there, including the no-sex rule. When they realize that isn’t a real rule..what do they do? Have sex, of course.

Mr. Gallant is once again approached by the rubber man. He tries to take his mask off, but Mr. Rubber Lover won’t let him. He then is on top of him and whispers a different version of “You wouldn’t be with me if I were the last man on Earth?” grabs the scissors and starts stabbing the rubber man. When he’s done, he looks down and it’s not the rubber man, it’s his grandmother. Langdon stands in the door way and laughs to himself.

The episode ends with Timothy and Emily being dragged to the punishment room. Timothy ends up knocking out one of the guards and shoots Ms. Mead. They both end up getting detained but Miriam goes out into the hallway and lifts up her shirt to see the place she was shot. Instead of blood, a weird green goo is coming out and it looks like she’s stuffed with cotton and wires. SOOOOOO, I guess we have robots this season which is like AHS meets Westworld? I’m not sure how I feel about that, but we’ll see how that goes moving forward.

I’ll be back next week with my thoughts on the next episode “Forbidden Fruit”. Do you have any theories? Any complaints? Any other Easter eggs in the episode that I didn’t notice? Please leave them in the comments below and see you next week!

Do you have any theories? Any complaints? Any other Easter eggs in the episode that I didn’t notice? Please leave them in the comments below and see you next week!