“I tried to warn you,†is the message scrawled on a dead Virginia Harding’s bathroom mirror. The red lipstick is the same, or similar, to what we saw on Anna’s mirror after the break-in by her so-called “stalker†in the season premiere. If you don’t remember that far back, don’t beat yourself up. This season of American Horror Story premiered in September — six episodes and 8,000 years ago. By the time the series concludes later this April, it will have run more or less long enough to gestate a human child (not that Anna’s pregnant with one of those). Luckily, what the Delicate: Part Two post-strike re-premiere lacks in narrative pickup, it does generously compensate for by reintroducing every mysterious or sinister thing or character you almost certainly will have forgotten by now.
But first, as we had with Bloody Mary in episode four (LOL) and later with Preech in episode five (sadder), we get the traumatic story of one child’s birth — this time, Anna’s. It’s 1988 in White Plains and li’l Meryl Streep (I can only see Meryl when I look at Grace Gummer) is soothing her newborn with the unofficial Delicate theme song: “Rock-a-Bye Baby†(reprise). Wee Meryl is struggling with the postpartum blues (or maybe worse), so much so that when her husband observes that the song’s lyrics are actually highly deranged, she defends the twisted ditty about parents perching their child on the high bough of a failing yew tree. And I would be tetchy, too, if I had married someone who was reading the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People while I dragged myself into bed, too tired to shower off the stink of sweat and spit-up and complaining of persistent leg pain. In the night, Meryl Jr. suffers a tragic pulmonary embolism while said husband — not yet effective, it seems — tells her to chill out. She later dies in the hospital; so far, so gory. But when a nurse comes to soothe fussy Anna, it’s revealed to be Nicolette — the same woman who manages Talia’s Hamptons estate.
At this point in Delicate, the unexplained recurrence of a vaguely witchy woman barely kicks up surprise. Dex’s latest art-world rock star, Sonia, is the spitting image of his dead wife, Adeline. Ivy is a gallery intern and an obstetrics nurse and always hanging around Anna’s Brooklyn Heights apartment. So of course Nicolette wasn’t just a glorified house sitter but an ageless nurse who’s been tending to Anna since her infancy. What would be surprising at this point would be to receive any indication whatsoever as to what all these connections could portend beyond demonic whispers. At its most frustrating, Delicate is all sizzle, no stakes.
Meanwhile, the present-day story picks up exactly where episode five left off: Anna’s zit remains a massive, angry honker and her Hollywood rival’s head is just as recently decapitated. Anna swallows her suspicions that her agent, Siobhan, had anything to do with the fellatio-induced vehicular death and instead accepts an invitation to “headline†Babette’s memorial in L.A. The funeral of her professional enemy is the perfect place to launch her Oscar campaign for The Auteur, and though Anna delivers the worst possible eulogy anyone has ever given — even managing to shoehorn in that the Screen Actors Guild snubbed Babette’s performance — the Academy voters among the mourners don’t seem to care. Because Hollywood loves a gunner, unless it’s Bradley Cooper. It’s one of the last safe havens for earnest, heart-on-your-sleeve striving.
Anna, for her part, claims to find the quick trip to L.A. liberating, partly because she defied her doctor’s orders not to fly and partly because she’s escaped the watchful eye of her husband. But her world is so tightly managed by others that even when she’s rebelling against one person’s agenda, she’s conforming to another’s. This time it’s Siobhan pulling Anna’s strings, though to what end the show has given us little hint. Does Siobhan’s own deal with the devil somehow depend on Anna winning an Oscar? What does she know of the coven that’s been hounding her “friend†all over the South Fork? And was there really no other way to clear a path for Anna’s victory than to full-on murder Babette Eno? Either way, Kim Kardashian looks sensational in that purple-black lipstick.
Back in the Hamptons, a stray black cat is feasting on another discontinued Anna Alcott–inspired Barbie doll, this one with chewed-up, mangled legs. Anna takes it to Talia’s basement, where she places it in a bassinet with the other dolls that have turned up this season. The lacy bassinet is the same, or similar, to what we saw Grace Gummer place baby Anna in before her death, which means Anna may be unknowingly putting iterations of herself into her own cot. Like much of Delicate, this drips with spooky symbolism and yet, somehow, zero actual meaning.
Soon, Nicolette will arrive with yet another Summer Day doll, which she says was left outside her house in Rocky Point. Why? What does it mean? Nicolette also appears to have spawned fungal acne to match Anna’s own, so someone please get these beautiful ladies some Zitstickas. Anna gets the idea to drop a pin in Apple Maps everywhere a Barbie showed up, and the resulting shape is a witchy pentagram. Does it matter? At this point, the series is dropping clues faster than I can make sense of its characters’ actions. For example, Anna rightly mistrusts Nicolette and frequently lashes out at her. So why does Anna, who doesn’t like swimming, also take a dip in Talia’s pool just because Nicolette suggests it? It’s hard to keep up with who Anna’s daddy is when she’s ricocheting around the world of Delicate this fast. That said, the pool is very well situated, and her morning float does indeed seem lovely, until Anna’s son’s clawed hand scrapes its way out of her womb before retracting. (Why does he retract it? What does it mean?)–Speaking of daddies, Anna very nearly shows her husband the bloody paw print their son left on her abdomen before reconsidering. (Why? To protect Satan’s spawn? Or Dex’s already faltering opinion of his wife’s sanity?) Dex, meanwhile, is preoccupied with his own daddy issues. He meets up with his father, who is busy spending his son’s inheritance on his newest wife while his former wife attempts to sue him for satanic-ritual abuse. Papa assures Dex that his mother is “batshit crazy,†which, to be fair to Dex, does seem more plausible than the idea his country-club-blazer of a father ever dabbled in anything so interesting as the occult. With more than a hint of menace, Mr. Harding promises Dex that he needn’t worry — Virginia’s suit will go away.
Virginia doesn’t turn up to the episode’s titular opening night — an exhibition of Sonia’s work at Talia and Dex’s gallery. But Anna does. Like a good wife, she hides her mauled stomach under a satin dress to support Dex. Everyone who’s anyone who hates Anna is in attendance. First, the Hollywood starlet approaches Talia, whom she accuses of spying on her with the world’s most conspicuous security cameras. Do I buy Talia’s defense that she finds Anna too boring to torment? Not exactly. But while the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that he did not exist, a close second would likely be purchasing top-of-the-line surveillance equipment.
Anna’s next run-in is with the woman who I nearly forgot she maybe already killed in the bathroom at the Gotham Awards in episode two. Anna’s washing her hands of curiously stubborn stains, like she’s just chopped up a red cabbage, when the woman attacks her again and Anna slams her head into the vanity again. I guess it doesn’t serve to ask, “Why, what does it mean?†Because it turns out she’s not really dead or even in the room. As she runs from the scene of the crime, Anna bumps into Ivy, who once violated her with a transvaginal ultrasound probe but now claims to moonlight at her husband’s gallery. I wish I could resist asking, but I’m too weak: WHY, WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Sonia, though, greets Anna warmly. She kisses all Anna’s boo-boos — her purple hands, her cat-scratched face, even her gnarly pimple — and they appear to fade. Sonia gifts the expectant mother her bloodiest, most demented painting — the one that stirs the sounds of “Rock-a-Bye, Baby†just by looking at it. At least in Anna’s mind’s eye, the women all stand in the same uniform of spiky green stilettos. After Sonia shows her kindness, Talia, Ivy, and even Nicolette form a circle around Anna, showering her with kisses. Is it not that they hate her at all, but worship her?
Siobhan shows up at the party to rescue Anna from the bad art and hazy sapphic overtones, and thank goodness. She’s the one character who consistently makes sense to me, a self-serving killer who feels more complex than confusing. Over supper, Anna suggests that she might quit showbiz, which makes her feel unsafe, which is dubious to me because it’s hardly as unsafe as whatever demon she’s carrying inside her. Siobhan smacks her, but does her best to make the retaliation feel feminist: What kid wants a mom who gives up on her dreams? Anyway, it’s easy enough to get Anna back in line because she wasn’t serious about giving up acting or the baby or Dex. Anna’s just another one of Siobhan’s pinballs.
Like Hamish, who comes to an unsympathetic Siobhan threatening to tell the world the truth: that he didn’t really write the film The Auteur. (In perhaps Delicate’s best visual gag of the season, he douses a highly flammable paper copy of the script with lighter fluid before tossing it in a chic tabletop fireplace.) He needs to unburden himself, he declares, which is low-key hilarious given how incidental to the plot he feels. Go ahead and tell them … what exactly? Who would care and what would it change?
The answer must be more elaborate than I understand, because a few hours after his showdown with Siobhan, news reports indicate that Hamish jumped from a New York rooftop (no doubt helped toward the edge by his former lover). Which brings the episode’s body count from one to two.
The third death, of course, is that of Virginia Harding, who missed her son’s art opening because she was bleeding out in a claw-foot bathtub. “I tried to warn you,†reads the message on the mirror. But what kind of message is it? A suicide note, which might suggest that Virginia broke into her own son’s apartment in episode one? Or was it a threat, delivered by whoever came for Anna? Was she killed or did she kill herself? And what does it all mean for an Oscar hopeful with really bad skin? Besides Mrs. Preecher, who reappears once more to offer Anna help, Virginia was the only person who seemed a possible ally for our Rosemary. If only she knew it.