Chutes and Ladders (American Horror Story)

"Chutes and Ladders" is the second episode of the fifth season of the anthology television series American Horror Story. It aired on October 14, 2015 on the cable network FX. The episode was written by Tim Minear and directed by Bradley Buecker

Plot

Sally (Sarah Paulson) sews Gabriel (Max Greenfield) into a mattress but is interrupted by cries for help traveling through the air ducts. She goes to the prison room to complain and there finds Elizabeth's (Lady Gaga) vampire children feeding on the wrists of Agnetha. They complain about the taste of her blood and Iris (Kathy Bates) pronounces her dead. Liz (Denis O'Hare) wheels the corpse of Agnetha to the garbage chute where several other corpses are, and Iris covers it with quicklime to decrease the smell of decomposition. The children's clean blood is taken to Elizabeth. She wants to go to an art opening to hunt, but Donovan (Matt Bomer) wants to stay in.

Max Ellison, a patient of Alex (Chloë Sevigny), has symptoms of the measles. Alex reprimands his mother for not being serious about the boy's illness. John (Wes Bentley) awakes in Room 64 from nightmares. He sees Holden outside and chases him. Sally engages him on the balcony bar, where they talk about each other's lives. In the police department, John receives a strange delivery, which is a package from Hotel Cortez. Initially thought to be a bomb, instead it contains the "Oscar" used in another murder.

Claudia Bankson (Naomi Campbell) visits Will (Cheyenne Jackson) at the Hotel for a party. John thinks the fashion show inappropriate for his daughter until Will introduces her to Lachlan (Lyric Lennon). Tristan Duffy (Finn Wittrock), a drug user male model, disrupts the fashion show in the party; his antics intrigue Elizabeth. Meanwhile, after successfully sneaking away from the fashion show Lachlan leads Scarlett to a hidden passage where the towheads sleep in glass coffins. Tristan breaks his way into the penthouse to track down cocaine. Donovan intervenes, and is stopped from eating Tristan by Elizabeth. Tristan flees and finds himself on the 7th floor. He encounters James March (Evan Peters), who notices Tristan and calls Miss Evers (Mare Winningham) with a bound prostitute in tow. March offers Tristan a gun, but kills the woman himself when Tristan declines. Tristan runs and is shortly after captured by Elizabeth.

Scarlett returns to the hotel where Holden stays and offers to take him home, but he declines. So Scarlett takes a picture with him and returns home to intimate her parents about Holden in the hotel. She shows the picture to them but Holden appears blurred. Back at the hotel, Tristan revels in his new altered state and after having sex with Elizabeth, she explains to him what to do and how to survive and behave. Elizabeth recounts that she was born in 1904, turned by a beautiful man. A jealous Donovan intervenes, but Elizabeth rebuffs him saying that she is abandoning Donovan.

John invades Iris' space behind the desk, angry at letting Scarlett roam. He handcuffs her, wanting answers about the secrets behind the hotel. Iris starts with the story of the nouveau riche James March and his hotel in 1925. The hotel is a trap, she explains, designed to ensnare victims with no escape and muted sounds. Miss Evers was one of his contemporaries, and she loved him loyally. Mutilated bodies found alongside a monogrammed handkerchief led the police to his doorstep, but Evers and March commit suicide. John applauds Iris' story, disbelieving the supernatural elements. She mentions that Room 64 used to be March's office. John pieces together clues, and concludes that the Ten Commandments Killer is following up on March's work. In the lobby, Tristan thumbs through Grindr, drawing a victim to his way. After seducing and inviting the man to his room, Tristan and Elizabeth kill the man and drink his blood.

Reception

"Chutes and Ladders" was watched by 4.06 million viewers during its original broadcast, and gained a 2.2 ratings share among adults aged 18–49.^[1] It also generated 225,000 tweets seen by over 2.97 million people, ranking first for the second consecutive week.^[2]

The episode received positive reviews from critics, earning an 83% approval rating, with an average score of 7.4/10, on Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus reads, ""Chutes and Ladders" adds welcome backstory to Hotel's growing mythology while still packing plenty of shock value."^[3]

References

External links

• "Chutes and Ladders" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Chutes and Ladders" at TV.com