Plot twists and drama once again packed this week's American Horror Story: Hotel. The episode, "She Gets Revenge," opened up to Liz Taylor (Denis O'Hare) watching as an old couple enters Hotel Cortez to die together. This brings up all sorts of emotions in the bartender as she thinks about her son (they haven't seen each other in 31 years) and how much she misses her lover, Tristan. She holds a gun up to her head, but Iris (Kathy Bates) convinces her to wait to kill herself. If she does it in the hotel, she'd be there forever. The two decide to take care of a few things and then make a clean exit together.
In the meantime, John Lowe (played by Wes Bentley) has almost finished all the work of James March (Evan Peters) for the Ten Commandment murders. After killing some innocent people at a church, Lowe only has one more murder before he completes his "trophy case." However, March isn't happy with that. He tells Lowe that he has plans beyond the Ten Commandment murders—and since he can't leave the hotel, he wants his "student" to do his dirty work.
Lowe, however, is fixated on locating his wife, Alex (Chloë Sevigny). The two meet up and discuss how Alex made the choice to be with their son, Holden. The negligent parents also finally acknowledge the fact that they have nearly forgotten about their second child, Scarlett, who is still at her grandma's house. Ultimately, it's probably a good decision, as her mother and father have turned into a vampire and a murderer. In any case, the couple need to tame the wild pack of vampire children—otherwise the Countess (Lady Gaga) will kill both Alex and Holden.
Cut to a split scene where Donovan (Matt Bomer) is confronting Rudolph Valentino (Finn Wittrock) in his motel at the same time that the Countess is fighting with Natasha (Alexandra Daddario) back at Cortez. Natasha calls Elizabeth a "little mouse" amongst other exchanged names, while Valentino calls Donovan a "pretty man." This was a mistake on both of their parts: They both get shot and killed. Donovan utters the callback line, which we can't help but agree with: "I have better cheekbones anyway. Cheekbones for days."
In exchange for laundry detergent, Miss Evers (Mare Winningham) gets Liz Taylor's son to meet up with her at the hotel. They talk for a while at the bar while Liz makes her son drinks, and her son ends up being a pretty nice, normal guy. The only trouble is, Liz never announces that she was once his father before he left.
Back in the Lowe saga, Alex and John head back to the house where the vampire children like to hang out. Inside, a little girl is found dying on the ground, and Alex tries to save her while all of the young vampires look on. After they watch their friend die, Alex is finally able to convince them to come back to the hotel with her. When they get to the hotel, the Lowes tell them to wait in the locked up chamber. After shutting the door, however, they realize they are locked in with Will Drake's dead body (Cheyenne Jackson) and Ramona Royale (Angela Bassett).
The couple isn't phased by their actions and the two have a passionate moment, which hypodermic Sally (Sarah Paulson) is not too happy about. When John finally is brought to Holden and they have a tearful greeting after five years apart, the family (minus Scarlett!) walk out of the hotel hand-in-hand, with Sally shouting from the balcony of the lobby.
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Elizabeth is moving on fast from her now-deceased groom and is discussing his death with detectives to quickly move on in the process of stealing all his money. However, Will Drake—or rather, the ghost of him—comes bursting through the door. The Countess threatens Will Drake with his son, and he runs out to find him. James March shows up next to the Countess, as he does, and says that he advised her not to kill him on the premises, to which she ironically replies, "Bite me."
Meanwhile, Liz meets back up with her son and he says that not only did he know she was his dad, but that there is plenty of room in his life for another woman. Liz then rushes up to see Iris, who has a whole collection of items laid out on the bed that they can kill themselves with. She is making a tribute video filled with rainbows and animals as a "beacon of hope for her three Instagram followers." Liz admits that she no longer wants to kill herself, and convinces Iris that the two of them could take over the whole hotel and make it better.
Donovan is upstairs in his suite listening to Drake's "Hotline Bling" and smoking a cigarette when the Countess comes stomping in, utterly devastated that her Rudy has been killed. Donovan claims that dying is the only way that she would let him love her and their argument abruptly ends when Iris and Liz walk in the room shooting at them in slow motion to the tune of Drake.
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The episode tied up a ton of loose ends, but also left a few things open-ended. We found out that pretty much everyone is dead, but also, most of these people aren't really gone, since they died in Cortez. Some questions that do remain: What will Ramona do with the vampire children? Are Donovan and the Countess actually dead? And is the Lowe family ever going to live happily ever after? We'll have to stay tuned!
American Horror Story: Hotel returns Wednesday, Jan. 6, at 10 p.m. ET on FX.
