“The Body,” American Horror Story: NYC’s sixth episode, provides a much more promising premise than its previous one, delivering to its viewers moments of shock, excitement, and overall cohesiveness. This episode serves as a major turning point for the season, converging plot lines and unexpected characters.
“The Body” opens with a gay couple on Fire Island in 1981 as they discover part of a dead body that’s been buried on the beach. Hearing from the grapevine that Patrick is “one of them,” the two men call him to report the body in the hopes that he will not disappoint and leave them behind.
Before Patrick goes to investigate the Fire Island situation, Gino and Patrick pay a visit to Dr. Wells, played by Billie Lourd (Scream Queens, American Horror Story: Cult), and ask her if they can have access to the blood samples she took after the explosion a few weeks ago. They think that she may have the Mai Tai killer’s DNA on hand. Of course, due to doctor-patient confidentiality, Dr. Wells claims she cannot give out any of the man’s information. She does, however, point out the lesion on Gino’s, played by Joe Mantello (Hollywood, The Boys in the Band), arm, telling him it’s a part of the virus she’s been seeing in gay men. He deflects.. This interaction between Dr. Wells and the two men holistically demonstrates the convergence of the medical plot, the police plot, and the reporter plot, which is quite satisfying.
My only bone to pick with this scene is the fact that Dr. Wells’ pregnancy from episode five seems absolutely nonexistent. Where did it go? Where is Adam? He wasn’t even in this episode.
Henry Grant, played by Denis O’Hare (American Horror Story: Coven, American Horror Stories), is also back for “The Body,” as he meets with a man who wants Henry to silence Gino and in turn silence the police. There’s too much going on for anyone’s good. This scene essentially tells us that Grant is a glorified hitman for a mafia of sorts, but the details of that are still out for decision.
Finally, Patrick travels to Fire Island (with Sam, of all people) to check out this body. When he arrives, we learn that not only is the body on Sam’s property, but Gino also shows up with Henry, who wants to wreak havoc on the other three men and force some truths to come out. This altercation was rather confusing to witness at first, but as the men recount their stories, it starts to make more sense.
These sorts of scenarios appear a lot in American Horror Story; characters pretend to not know each other when they really have all along (Asylum, Murder House, Hotel, etc.) creating so much tension and drama and details to reveal that as a bystander it can become exhausting.
Anyhow, we learn that in 1979 this beach house of Sam’s, played by Zachary Quinto (American Horror Story: Asylum, Star Trek), was a hubbub for gay men and hook up culture. Patrick, played by Russell Tovey (Sherlock, Doctor Who), used to frequent the island a lot, and one night things took a turn for the worse. Patrick was hooking up with a guy, Sam was in the mix, as were drugs, and all of a sudden the other guy dropped dead. Not wanting to get the police involved, as Patrick felt inclined to, Sam, with the help of Henry, recruits an “associate” who is a “whiz at cutting up bodies.”
This is associate is no other than Mr. Whitely, played by Jeff Hiller (Somebody Somewhere), a.k.a the Mai Tai killer.
Long story short, Patrick, Henry, and Sam have known each other for a few years, and Patrick has inadvertently been aware of the possible identity of the Mai Tai killer. Gino takes all of this in stride and in shock, but it leaves a lot for us to wonder about Patrick as a person. He claims he didn’t know the name of the associate, but he knows what he looks like and quite literally the exact M.O. and techniques of the other murders occurring in NYC. How has he not tried to draw any conclusions already? Why has he not been honest with himself about how much he really knows about the potential murderer? Did he never speak up because he wanted to keep his sexual orientation that private in that selfish of a manner? Until he can defend himself, it doesn’t look good for him.
On a side note, it also seems like Ryan Murphy could be making subtle allusions to his opinion of the police force, but we don’t totally need to broach that subject matter.
The episode concludes with Mr. Whitely drugging and murdering Henry Grant, taking away one of the only knowledgable sources that Patrick and Gino may have. The repercussions of this will not be good.
I’m quite excited to see what happens next week and how all of this is remedied. With all of the action and plot revealed in “The Body,” it almost makes up for the lackluster presentation of “Bad Fortune.”
Rating: 9.0/10.0