Well, maybe more than just a “flicker” of evil at the Hotel Cortez, heh heh heh.

SPOILERS! GET YER RED-HOT SPOILERS HERE!

Episode 7: Flicker

Construction (or destruction, as it turns out) is underway at the Cortez, and a couple of the hard-hatted workers have discovered that the wall they are tearing down has a thick slab of steel behind it. They grab an arc torch and start slicing a hole in the metal barrier. Behind the wall, they find an entire other hallway going off into the darkness, and it’s not listed on any blueprints.

They walk through the new hallway, and are immediately attacked by some very very old and decrepit vampires.

Meanwhile, Lowe has been admitted to a mental health clinic because, well, he’s bonkers. His wife wonders why he wants to stay there, since they can afford better surroundings. He is absolutely calm, and says he’s very happy here, that he’s right where he needs to be.

Back to the hotel: Iris and the Countess are surveying the damage left behind in the hidden hallway. Neither of them had any idea this extra room was here, and neither of them know what just got out. For the first time in forever, the Countess looks scared.

Come to find out, those ancient vampires are Rudolph Valentino and his wife Natacha Rambova, and the Countess was once an extra on the set of one of his movies back in 1925. Gaga really gives a terrific performance here, full of nervous wide-eyed innocence with just a hint of the evil lurking underneath her surface. Valentino invites her back to his home for dinner, and she naturally accepts. That evening, after a tango duo becomes a sexy trio, she goes all in on this new experience, as it were.

Finn Whitrock had double duty this week playing Valentino as well as his usual role of Duffy, and that was a little confusing to me. I didn’t know at first if they were two distinct characters, or if one somehow turned into the other…but it’s all good.

Still in 1925, the Countess and another friend are attending a swinging party at the Hotel, and no matter how much her friend asks her, the Countess won’t spill the beans on her new paramour(s). At the party, she hears the news that Valentino is dead. She is hysterical, devastated, and wanders out into a hallway, heading for the window that overlooks the street. She is saved from suicide by James March and finds comfort in his arms.

She also continues to mourn Valentino’s death in her own way: she becomes the infamous Woman In Black, who delivers one red rose every day to his gravesite. But, lo and behold, Valentino is alive! He faked his death and wants the Countess to run away with him and his wife (and, naturally, he’s a vampire too, since being turned by F. W. Murnau, the director of Nosferatu. Nice touch). She agrees to meet them at the train station and leave March behind. But March overhears it all.

The Countess waits at the train station. And waits. And waits.

With nothing else to live for, the Countess becomes Mrs. March, but in a dazed, blank stare kind of way. She discovers her husband’s habit of killing people and creepily asks to watch next time. March is delighted.

Back at the mental institution, Lowe is looking for the suspect in the Ten Commandments Murders, who he believes is under surveillance there. He finds the room he’s looking for, and inside is Wren.

Wren is a little blonde girl. Lowe is confused. This is the killer? We, the audience, however, recognize her as one of the Countess’s little vampire children. She talks about helping the killer, and says that she’s “tired of existing.”  She explains that her dad was just waiting for her to get a little older, then was going to start molesting her. The Countess saved her from that horror, but introduced her to another. Lowe promises to help her.

Valentino and his wife, pissed that their lives were stolen from them by March, are hiding out in the hotel, and are still not quite back to their usual beautiful selves. They remedy this by attacking a trio of cowboys staying for the night. They drink greedily.

The Countess arrives at March’s room to have their monthly dinner together. She tells him that she loves him (“kind of”), and he sadistically tells her that he was the one that  locked the star couple away for the past few decades. That does not go over well.

Valentino and his wife are looking absolutely gorgeous as they walk down the hotel stairs, through the lobby, and out the front door. Iris stares after them.

Lowe sneaks Wren out, thinking she might lead him to the killer. Instead she runs right into the street and is smashed to a pulp by a speeding bus.

And that’s how it ends. Kind of a middling episode. Not as balls-out nutzo as some have been, but not completely boring. It laid a lot of expositional pipe that will undoubtedly pay off later.

And what’s up with that class full of vampire kids from a few weeks ago? The world wants to know!

See you next time!