The evil of the Hotel Cortez leaks out of its brick-and-mortar barriers and spreads out across the city.  Let’s call the front desk and order something very rare and bloody.

Episode 5: “Room Service”

ONE PLATE OF SPOILERS, COMNG RIGHT UP!

Newly-turned Dr. Alex doesn’t look so good as she makes her rounds at the hospital: sweaty, dull, with slow speech and half-lidded eyes. She checks in on her previous patient, Measles Boy, and he’s doing even worse. Can barely breathe. Skin full of sores.

Dr. Alex calms his mother, goes off to the hospital’s blood bank and greedily gorges herself, then injects her own blood into the sick boy.  It does not go well, and then it goes very very well.

99 I.V.s of blood on the wall…

And by that I mean it gets even worse.

Donovan takes Iris to see Ramona Royale, offering her up as the “inside man” Ramona needs to exact her revenge on The  Countess. I kind of like this idea of an alliance between Donovan and Ramona, but I fear the Countess won’t be easily fooled. Iris doesn’t look too good, either, but Donovan blames it on her alcoholism.

Back at the hotel, Liz takes one look at Iris and immediately knows what she needs: a drink.

The hair of the dog…

Of blood.

Iris is also a vampire. And she is not happy with her lot in life: “doomed to eternity” in her current old, wrinkled body.

At this point I had a Joan-Cusack-in-In-&-Out moment: “Is everybody a vampire?!”

Measles Boy makes a miraculous recovery, heh heh heh, and just before heading off to a Halloween party at school, he kills and drinks from his parents’ jugular veins. The school bus honks and the boy happily goes off to school.

And this is when I got a little giddy. Events at school go off the rails so quickly and so completely that I nearly got whiplash. In short order: boy infects his girlfriend. He kills their teacher. They drink. He infects his whole class. They all start feeding on the principal. The school goes into lockdown. Police are called. All the adults are slaughtered.  The only ones who end up walking out of the school are the blood-spattered kids, and they all tell the same story: a large man wearing a black mask killed all the teachers. The kids smile at each other.

This could be a total game-changer for the rest of the season, and I am really excited about where this will lead.

Meanwhile down at the precinct, Lowe is relieved of his badge and gun by his captain, who does not take kindly to Lowe’s story about a roomful of deceased serial killers come back from the grave to celebrate Devil’s Night.  Lowe thinks some kinda copycat killer is responsible for the current series of murders.

A total douche hipster couple shows up at the hotel looking for a room on Halloween, and they would really like a discount. And special treatment. And room service. And better sheets. And better towels. Condescending asshats. First people in this season I really wanted to see die in horrible ways.

Iris is upset by the way she’s been treated by the annoying couple, and breaks down when the couple demands room service with artisanal cheeses, grilled romaine, and pâté. Liz gives her a sympathetic ear, opens a tin of cat food, and dumps it on a serving dish with some crackers.

“Bitches want pâté. Pâté they shall have,” Liz declares.

We get Liz’s back story now, showing how he went from mild-mannered married man to the fabulously-dressed-and-made-up Liz Taylor, courtesy of The Countess.

“You see everything when the world doesn’t see you,” Liz declares.

Flashback: in his man drag, Liz checks into the hotel with two other coworkers for a conference, but spends the evening getting dressed up in a fur and camisole, but being afraid to go out in public.

I feel pretty…

The Countess appears in Liz’s hotel room, and comforts him. Says his blood smells like a woman’s. They have a slumber party, she does his makeup, shaves his head. He is thrilled with the transformation. She sends him out for ice, as a small baby step towards self-acceptance and showing off to the world. He struts out into the nearly empty hallway, just as his coworkers are coming back to their rooms. After they berate him, Countess appears and slices them open.

Liz encourages Iris to stop taking crap from other people, and to stand up for herself. She takes the cat food up to the hipster couple’s room and they, naturally, can’t keep their mouths shut, even as they eat the food. Iris finally can’t take anymore, and stabs the girl with a corkscrew, then leaps on the guy’s back, viciously stabbing him over and over, screaming, “I matter!!”

And then she feeds.

Lowe wakes up with scratches all over his body and Sally in his bed. She claims he enthusiastically dragged her up to his room, but he doesn’t remember. She warns him that this will happen again and again. “You can’t fight destiny.” Lowe’s mind appears to be slipping.

Laundry day.

Liz and Iris calmly walk down the hallway with a laundry cart, filled with two bloody, broken bodies. It’s clear that both Liz and Iris have turned an emotional corner of some sort, and are never looking back. They dispose of the hipster bodies down the laundry chute. “I think I went too far,” Iris worries. “Not at all,” Liz replies.

Come sleep with me.

Gaga explains Alex’s new role as governess to her. Alex takes Holden down to the pool and climbs into his coffin with him. “Mommy, you’re just like me now.” Alex joins him for a long nap.

This episode was fun, and took that wild left turn at Measle Boy’s school that threw me for a loop. Let’s see if the rest of the season can keep me on my toes. See you next week!