American Horror Story Recap: Ding Dong, Some Witches Are Finally Dead

Well, we made it. Some of us might have been dismembered and reanimated along the way, but we've reached the season finale of American Horror Story: Coven. As much as it hurts to do it, it's time to say goodnight to this selfish, murderous, and lovable pack of jerks.

But, not before we open with Stevie Nicks shuffling through Miss Robichaux's in a top hat, lip-synching "Seven Wonders" (in case you didn't get the connection by now). Everyone's prepping for the big day when they reveal the new Supreme: Misty's in the herbarium, twirling. Zoe, the brain, is studying and also levitating. Madison's naked and setting things on fire. Queenie's throwing bones at a picture of Nan.

The witches have a last supper, framed to resemble a certain well-known painting, of caviar and blini. Myrtle presides over the whole ritual, beginning with telekinesis — apparently, Madison's bailiwick. Then they move on to "concilium," which means "mind control" in the AHS world. (In our world, it's a venerated Catholic journal of theology.) Queenie and Misty make each other hurt themselves, while Madison and Zoe get into a thought-control tug-of-war with Kyle as their puppet. Myrtle smokes her red Nat Shermans with increasing impatience.

Then they all go to hell with a Latin recitation that would make the editors of Concilium none too happy. Queenie returns to her endless line of fried chicken customers, while Madison is forced to play Liesl von Trapp in a live network remake of The Sound of Music (har har). Zoe's version of emo hell is breaking up with Kyle over and over. All of them return to the waking world with a gasp.

Misty, however, is stuck in her personal netherworld of biology class, in which she's repeatedly forced to gut a frog with a scalpel while horrible little children laugh at her. By sunrise, Myrtle and Madison are drinking Vespers, but Misty's still not back. The last grain of the hourglass falls, and her body disintegrates into dust. Bye, Misty.

The mourning period doesn't last long, though. The girls start a game of tag with their powers of "transmutation" — AKA teleportation, not the alchemical practice of turning lead into gold, in case you were wondering. But, whoops! Zoe transmutates herself (or whatever) onto an iron spike by accident. And, somehow, this seems fitting, since just about everyone in this house has died at least one death already except for her. When Queenie can't reanimate Zoe, it's up to Madison to prove the last display of the Seven Wonders. Instead, she kills and then revives a fly, preferring to keep Zoe dead and Kyle all to herself.

With everyone else out of the competition, Myrtle suddenly reveals she thinks that Cordelia could be the next Supreme. Cordelia sparks a candle's wick with her mind, and for her "concilium," she makes Queenie do some kind of Dancercise version of the "Macarena," which seems more cruel than making her hit herself.

When they get to divination, Cordelia wins handily, scouring the location of a broach within a pile of pebbles. Madison's up next, but she throws a hissy fit and declares, "I'm going back to Hollywood, where people are normal." She goes upstairs to pack, but Kyle's still pissed that she let Zoe die. (Meanwhile, Cordelia's busy reviving Zoe downstairs.) Considering that we're 25 minutes into this episode without a single murder, Kyle correctly judges that it's about time to kill her. After she's been throttled, Spalding then appears and caresses Madison's dead face with a doll's hand, natch. He offers to help Kyle dispose of her body.

Suddenly, Cordelia gets her sight back — and even a shiny new pair of eyeballs! — as Myrtle declares her the new Supreme. Cut to months later: Cordelia has publicly revealed the existence of the coven and tells a cut-rate TMZ reporter that she encourages closeted young witches to seek out Miss Robichaux's Academy, because they were born this way, baby.

Later, as Cordelia sorts through the dossiers of prospective new students, Myrtle enters and confesses, somewhat obliquely, to the murder of the Council. To the tune of "Silver Spring" (of course), she walks slowly and in fish-eye perspective to her stake in the middle of the witch-burning quarry — again. Tearfully, Cordelia sets her alight.

Back at Robichaux's, hundreds of goth girls have gathered outside the gates. Cordelia asks Zoe and Queenie to be her new Council, but suddenly, like Darth Vader, she senses something, a presence she's not felt since...last episode.

Who could it be but the smoking, cancer-riddled skeleton of her mother? Fiona, it turns out, ruined a perfectly good pair of Jimmy Choos in order to convince the Axe Man that he axed her, just so that Cordelia could root out the next Supreme. Fiona tells her daughter that looking at her face was a constant reminder of her own death. "I loved you plenty, though," she says. Aww.

Sitting on the table is the same knife that Fiona used on the previous Supreme, as well as Madison. It's a red herring, though. Cordelia tells her to let go of all of her angry baggage, and Fiona dies, finally, in her arms.

It's not over for her, though. Fiona wakes up in her own version of hell, living with the Axe Man on his uncle's farm, surrounded by catfish and mediocrity and knotty pine, doomed to wake up here every morning for eternity. Papa Legba cackles in the background, because knotty pine's a pain in the ass to clean if it isn't varnished.

Back in the real world, Kyle's dressed up as the new Spalding and opens the door of Miss Robichaux's to dozens of young witches. Cordelia welcomes them into the house and explains the sacred history of the coven, inculcating a new generation of doe-eyed young women with the moral virtues of treachery, murder, and Southern hospitality.

And, as a pig in a tuxedo once said, that's all, folks.