“Sojourn” the eighth episode of “American Horror Story: Apocalypse” focuses mostly on Michael Langdon (Cody Fern) and his rise through the church of Satan. While past seasons have made entire storylines surrounding Halloween, this episode, which aired on the 31st, not only had no reference to the holiday but was genuinely one of the least compelling or scary episodes of “Apocalypse.”
Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) surprises Langdon (Cody Fern) as he stands over Kathy Bates’ burnt body. Photo courtesy of bleedingcool.com
The episode begins with Langdon (Cody Fern) finding Kathy Bates’ burnt body at the stake. He starts freaking out when Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) tries to covert him over to witchery, but he obviously declines the offer and vows to get her back.
He goes to the woods and draws a pentagram in the dirt. He sits in it for 4 days until Satan starts sending hallucinations of Fanta-offering schoolgirls, goats and a ridiculously ripped archangel (in typical Ryan Murphy fashion).
Then Langdon goes to the city and finds comedian Sandra Bernhard leading a Satanic temple. She inspires her congregants by stealing from a nursing home and giving the money to the NRA. I didn’t really love the comedian in the role, but I did love her line “Let’s speak in tongues for a hot sec.”
Comedian Sandra Bernhard makes her “American Horror Story” debut as the leader of a Satanic church. Photo courtesy of Elle.com
Langdon decides to go home with one of the old women at the temple, who basically tells him while feeding him that the Satanists are trying to make the world as bad as possible so Satan will return to bring out the end of the world
He goes back to the temple as the “All Sinners Choir” sing a pro-Satan, abridged version of “O Fortuna.” He makes his entrance by slicing the throats of two sacrifices.
At the Satanist’s weekly potluck, Langdon tells the church-lady who brought him home that he’s not sure how to bring about the end of the world. She has a great idea and takes him on a scenic cliffside drive in her convertible to a robotics lab.
Billy Eichner and Evan Peters are back as two Satanic, robotic engineers with the worst “Dumb and Dumber” wigs I’ve ever seen. The commercials for this week’s episode already let us know that Peters and Eichner would be back, but they didn’t spoil that Sarah Paulson is back too! We see pre-Outpost Venable working at the lab. Her pre-apocalypse hair is red instead of black, and she’s rocking lavender, but it still fit her signature purple look.
This is Evan Peters’ third character this season but by far the worst wig he’s ever worn on the series. Photo courtesy of elitedaily.com
The engineers do literal ladlefuls of cocaine and a woman (I’m not going to assume she was a prostitute, but with their haircuts…) asks the exact thought I was wondering. “How do you guys not OD?” They may or may not make a reference that turning to Satan made them oblivious to a cocaine overdose, but that might be reading too far into it.
Langdon shows up and has them build a robotic version of Kathy Bates and then spend far too long showing the preparation of Ms. Mead 2.0. If this is, in fact, the third to final episode, do we really need to spend this much time with the building of the robot and Billy Eichner trying to play straight by saying “Bro” over and over again? I’m not into it.
The episode ends with the much drawn-out reunion between Langdon and the robotic, Satanic Kathy Bates. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the trailer for next week showed that we’re still in this damn flashback.
I’m loving seeing the witches and everything, but there are only two episodes left and there’s so much to wrap up. It looks like next week is going to be leading up to and hopefully including the end of the world, so we can find out how the witches are really going to save the day.
Langdon screaming over Kathy Bates’ burnt corpse is also going to be my reaction if this season doesn’t have a satisfying conclusion. Photo courtesy of bleedingcool.com
If it weren’t for “Hotel”, where they showed the Hotel Cortez in 2026, still standing in a non-apocalyptic Los Angeles. With “Apocalypse” starting in 2020 and doing so well at intertwining the seasons, I’d be shocked if they completely forgot that element of Season 5 and kept the world destroyed.
There were also an odd amount of references to scheduled sex throughout the episode, with the old Satanic woman alleging to sleep with Brad Pitt every Wednesday night and Ryan Reynolds on Sundays. Later, Billy Eichner’s character says he sleeps with Victoria Secret’s models every Tuesday nights and Ryan Reynolds. Is Ryan Reynolds prostituting himself to Satanists or is this a glimpse into Ryan Murphy’s weekly schedule?
This was definitely one of the least interesting episodes of the season, with the back half of it feeling totally unnecessary. Honestly, the whole Kathy Bates as a robot storyline should’ve been dropped. From its introduction, I thought it was too similar to “Westworld” and would take up valuable screen time from the witches.
On the bright side, the preview for next week promised more of the witches and I think I saw a shot inside Murder House. Make sure to check back next week to read my recap and review of the second to final episode of “American Horror Story: Apocalypse.”
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