In the season finale of
American Horror Story: Coven, the remaining witches face off in the tests of the Seven Wonders to find out who is the rising Supreme.
It goes without saying, but this will have spoilers.
At the halfway point, show producers Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy promised us a new Supreme by the end of the season. I had my own predictions after the episode last week and I will say I was about half right. I had predicted that the witches would eventually just kill each other and Cordelia would be the only one remaining. The way the episode started out I was half right, especially after Misty and Zoe bit the dust. However, with the rise of the new Supreme we found out not only was it not a young witch but that it was actually Cordelia Goode. Yes, the new Supreme was the intentionally blinded daughter of Fiona, the former Supreme.
Starting with the beginning of the episode, I don't know what the hell purpose there was to having Stevie Nicks come back. All she did was come out of nowhere, sing throughout the house, and then leave. Her portrayal of a witch version of herself was completely meaningless and didn't even need to be there. That's first off.
As the episode went down, I thought the Seven Wonders felt a little rushed. The witch with the most struggles in the beginning oddly enough was Misty, who Myrtle was positive was the Supreme just 5 or 6 episodes ago. I thought the death of Misty was a bit sad, too. The descent to hell trapped Misty in her personal agony of having to dissect a living frog in elementary school. When the hourglass ran out of time, Misty's body just turned into black dust in Cordelia's arms. A very disappointing end to a great character who by all means and estimation should have been revealed as the true Supreme.
After Misty is dead and gone, Zoe, Madison, and Queenie decide to play transmutation tag on the front lawn. Zoe gets tired of being tagged and tries to fly only to find herself impaled on one of the fence posts at the front gates. The resurgence test begins and after Queenie is unable to bring Zoe back to life, Madison refuses to perform the test on Zoe. After being threatened by Cordelia she kills a fly and brings it back to life to prove her power. She then boasts about being the next Supreme to Cordelia, Queenie, and Myrtle and storms out of the room.
In that moment the finale begins to take a turn for the lame. Myrtle has some eye opening experience in about five seconds and convinces Cordelia that she is the next Supreme because she is of genetic relation to Fiona. Almost immediately after, Cordelia begins the tests of the Seven Wonders and completes all of them with ease. She comes head to head with Madison in the Divination test where Madison fails and is then proven to not be the Supreme after all. She is later killed by Kyle in her bedroom because she refused to bring Zoe back from the dead. In short, Cordelia fully rises as the next Supreme after bringing Zoe back to life. Her sight is restored and she instantly is restored to full health and beauty.
In the coming weeks you see television crews inside the house as Cordelia goes public about the witch coven and invites girls from around the world to contact them. She even states to her new council members, Zoe and Queenie, that they will buy more houses if necessary in order to house all the witches coming to them. You also have Myrtle volunteering to be burned at the stake once more as a way to give Cordelia a true clean slate in starting the new evolution of the coven.
The crazy point was at the very end, none other than Fiona shows back up. At this point she is crippled and severely dying of cancer because Cordelia took any remaining power from her when she completed the Seven Wonders. Fiona begs her daughter to kill her and reveals how she tricked the coven into thinking the Axeman murdered her. She placed a spell on him to give him the vision that he had killed her in anger and her intention was to see who the Supreme was and then kill her. When it was revealed to be Cordelia she abandoned her plan and chose to die. Somewhat redeeming, but I would have much rather left Fiona where she was. I liked how she went down. The funniest part was Fiona's hell, though. She is trapped in the mountain cabin with the Axeman in his version of Heaven complete with Papa Legba laughing it up in the background.
Overall, I have to vote this finale as a disappointment. It was promising and I thought
Coven was excellent as a whole. However, I think making Cordelia the Supreme was really lame and disappointing. It should have been Misty or Nan. Hell, I would have even taken Madison over Cordelia. This marks two seasons in a row where Sarah Paulson has been the final outcome of the show. I think whatever role she has in season 4 should be assumed as important. Seems to be the way Ryan Murphy thinks.
This finale was still better than
Murder House (barely) but it can't hold a candle to
Asylum. Including the finale I would rate
Asylum as the best season yet with
Coven closely following. It's a shame to taint a great season that started out very strong.
