American Horror Story Season 10, Episode 3 recap: Thirst

The plot is moving along surprisingly fast in American Horror Story Season 10. I wonder if that’s partly because this season is divided into two stories, which would indicate that there are fewer episodes to tell Part 1: “Red Tide” before “Death Valley” starts, a benefit for a show that often struggles with bloated plots and subplots that go nowhere.

In American Horror Story Season 10, Episode 3, “Thirst,” Alma enters full evil child mode, and Harry certainly won’t be winning any parenting awards. Plus, Ursula arrives in town to check on her star client and gets involved in the pill trade in ways you might not anticipate.

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for American Horror Story Season 10, Episode 3.

This week’s episode opens in the immediate aftermath of Doris finding her daughter chowing down on a bunny in a graveyard. She tries scrubbing her mouth out, and rants about getting Alma tested for Lyme disease (what is her obsession with Lyme disease?!), not a bad idea given the number of diseases that Alma probably just ingested.

Before Harry and Doris can make a game plan, Chief Burleson arrives to question them. It turns out that seeing a little girl go rabid in a cemetery is even weirder than the Nosferatu-looking pale people running around and residents complained. Given the recent uptick in bodies popping up across P-Town, the chief owes it to the town to investigate.

Amid all the stress of her family acting insane and the chief knowing at the door, Doris succumbs to stress contractions and takes a tumble down the stairs, landing her in the hospital and postponing Chief Burleson’s investigation for now.

With Doris hospitalized, Harry forces Alma to admit that she took the pills. They agree that she can continue taking them so long as she does everything he says. Alma is like, “if I have to stop taking them then so do you,” and rather than be a good parent, Harry and his ego agree.

But Alma is creepier than any of the adults on the show and fully willing to throw Doris under the bus because “they don’t need her,” and”she’s not a good mom or wife.” Dang Alma, tell us how you really feel!

Now tasked with finding blood for both himself and Alma, Harry tries using August and Belle’s Craiglist method to terrible results. The woman he visits is secretly a rapist who lures men into their house so her boyfriend can rape them on camera to make snuff films…yeah.

Honestly, it’s such a weird and unnecessary scene thrown in to cause some extra conflict or to make Harry seem sympathetic since they “deserved” to die. Still, couldn’t they have just robbed him? Why the sexual assault angle (for the zillionth time on this show)?

MORE: American Horror Story Season 10 premiere recap: Cape Fear; Pale

Anyway, Harry gets free and kills them both before returning home with blood for his daughter! Mm, blood soup. Since Alma is so young and still growing, she needs blood more often than the adults. Harry goes on another hunting trip with Belle and Austin to get extra red juice, and they take notice when he stocks a little to-go cup to bring home. They’re not happy.

The second Harry tells the truth about Alma taking the pill, Belle and Austin threaten him to cut her off, or they’ll kill Alma. Harry agrees. But Belle and Austin have already decided that Harry and Alma both have to die.

American Horror Story Season 10, Episode 3 recap: Ursula ignites a turf war in P-Town

When Ursula arrives in town, it doesn’t take her long to realize that something weird is happening in P-Town. She recognizes Austin and Belle at The Muse, and then Mickey coaxes her into reading his recently finished scripts, which are amazing, courtesy of the pill. There is no way that all these talented people suddenly show up in P-Town. She forces Mickey to tell her about the pill and then demands him to steal Belle’s supply so she can create her own boutique agency.

Across town, Belle and Austin are similarly worried about Ursula and her encroaching on their territory. Ursula gets tipped off about The Chemist (Angelica Ross) and visits her, offering a pretty nice deal in exchange for exclusivity to her little black pills. The Chemist turns her down, though, as her loyalties lie with Belle and Austin. She tells them that Ursula, Mickey, Harry, and even Harry’s wife and kid all need to die so things can return to normal.

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That night, Harry leaves town to get more blood, leaving Ursula to babysit Alma. Ursula isn’t exactly the babysitting type, so she bails to take a nap upstairs, leaving Alma unattended when Chief Burelson returns to continue her earlier investigation. By this point, the chief has found another body underneath the aptly named Dick Dock, this time courtesy of Mickey. She knows something weird is going on and that Alma and Harry are caught up in it.

But the chief’s time is up. Alma stabs her with a letter opener and lets her bleed out on the living room table. When Harry arrives home, he finds the chief’s body splayed across the coffee table while Ursula and Alma play gin rummy as if they don’t have a care in the world. Yeah, things are going to get much messier from here!

MORE: American Horror Story: Double Feature: Every Easter Egg and Horror Reference So Far

A turf war brews with Alma, Harry, and Ursula on one side and Austin, Belle, and The Chemist on the other. Then there’s poor Mickey stuck in the middle doing everyone’s dirty work. Where will Sally, who doesn’t appear in this episode, fit into all of this, I wonder?

New episodes of American Horror Story Season 10 air Wednesday nights at 10/9c on FX.