AHS Hotel Episode 11 "Battle Royale" Breakdown

hey guys ryan and greg here and we're back for another breakdown this is episode 11 of ahs hotel it is called battle royale again spoiler warning if you haven't seen this episode yet in the last i think what five years go watch it and then come on back here and let's break down the penultimate episode of ahs hotel now before we get started guys be sure to check out our gamespot store for some cool play for all merchandise including face masks t-shirts hoodies and even an awesome skateboard it's all for a good cause too until the end of august all proceeds are going directly to charity to help us raise money for black lives matter and covet 19 direct relief be sure to check out our play for all merchandise at the gamespot store that is stored.gamespot.com i think finn's favorite is this play for all hoodie all right greg as i mentioned this one's called battle royale so you would expect that there'd be a big showdown a whole bunch of kills and also i like the word play here with ramona royale battle royale we know that she still has to kind of get her revenge on the countess specifically so there's going to be some tying up of that storyline as well here absolutely and of course it just starts right off with uh you're just seeing everyone locking and loading iris and liz there's guns on the bed they're ready to go um and at this point they're they're nervous but they they know this is their one opportunity probably to kill the countess at this point she left she went to go check on uh her old boo who's now dead of course and she's at her i guess her lowest point so this is their opportunity to maybe strike [Music] now greg i was wrong last episode breakdown i said you know i thought this would be a pulp fiction divine intervention type thing iris and liz uh we're gonna miss their targets but uh they they shot every they shot him up they they got the countess and they also unfortunately got donovan who was kneeling before the countess so um it's all kind of interrupted iris stops the the the shootout uh yeah by realizing that her you know her son is getting just killed right there in front of them i guess uh i i guess maybe you're in the moment you can't tell it's it's donovan it could be maybe anybody but at the same time like wait come on guys you can tell it was a slow reaction greg it was a really slow reaction i don't know how you'd fire off that many bullets and then realize that you have to stop shooting yeah ahs uh with that said uh it looks like uh i don't know how the count has survived this because she got hit pretty hard uh but what we saw at least in that cut uh the edit we could see she got like capped at least uh three or four times and then from there donovan takes the brunt of it when he gets in uh gets in front of her and sure enough the countess she's able to crawl out of there uh no one goes after her because they have to stop and check on whenever you see whenever you see a trail of blood uh and the person's body is not there we talk about this all the time if you don't see the body the person's not dead like you know that person got away and then they're they're going to get their revenge they're going to get back at you you have to check for the body you have to find the body before you kind of just you know clean up the whole mess there's no sydney prescott here that's why surprise sydney she would have went after that blood trail and popped two more in the countess and it's over roll credits everyone go home but that's not the case so at this point donovan he's bleeding out and he does not want to be a ghost here i i like that i don't know if he's more of the writers or because i feel like character developments may be there for this where he uh if if you're dying you may want to say like i don't want to die so let's let me help me out here maybe he's thinking of himself and like uh i want to stay alive i know i'll be a ghost if i'm in this hotel but then he quickly realizes wait a minute uh james marsh and whatever else whoever the hell else uh spirits are here and i want no part of that uh so he asked his mom to drag him the hell out of this hotel and get him away and put him on the street so uh he can die in peace this was um eerily's reminiscent of if we think back to murder house when constance langdon obviously the circumstances are much different she's trying to get adelaide into the murder house so that she can uh see her for eternity and be stuck in the murder house and kind of visit her daughter but at that point you know her daughter's actually at peace not being in the murder house and you can imagine these spirits not wanting to just kind of wanting like uh to be at peace and have like a finality to this and not having to um be kind of reminded of this cycle of life this loop so to speak that they're stuck in for eternity and especially for him he's going to be stuck with all of the countesses ex-lovers and current lovers and new lover you know who the the listeners so uh you know he he wants to you know be uh you know just be at peace like i said and brought outside and as his mother um you know follows those wishes i do have some questions though on like who like where the border is in terms of how that works you know because we thought maybe like only when you're inside do you then be stuck inside the walls kind of like the murder house to be stuck inside and then killed and then you're stuck within those walls but well sally died outside right yeah yeah i believe sally you know fell was pushed out the window and then died outside unless she crawled back in and then died i don't know i don't know because it gets a little fishy too because what we see later with sally and her story with the countess we'll go into that later and maybe she died there um but when it comes to donovan he's just on the sidewalk and even then i'm thinking oh that's risky at least an ahs logic i'm thinking oh no this is rare that's still a little too close so he could come back uh throw him across the street okay let's let's make sure he let's make sure he dies away from the building i would have been like drag me farther not not far enough take me to the mcdonald's now back with the countess she's not dead remember she she dragged herself off she's she's totally alive she's fine and sally is taking care of her uh and this is where we get a little nod again to the hypodermic sally nickname um at this point she's got bandages all over her she needs she needs a lot of help here the count is not in good shape and if this were uh also i'm thinking of every netflix uh show uh or at least every netflix marvel show remember when the character gets beaten down and then it's like two episodes they're in bed uh just to put they put them on ice it's to save money and so i'm glad they it doesn't look like they did that here at all uh thank god um but with that said it looks like sally uh is for whatever reason wants to help the countess out and then we have uh one of the most disturbing flashbacks i think i've ever seen in american horror story yeah no kidding greg this was you know obviously this opportunity allows in the in the story allows for some more backstory you know one of the characters to kind of tell uh the countess you know what happened to her and how she got there and obviously she wants the countess's help she's looking for any other option to kind of get john lowe back into the the hotel of course right so this is an opportunity to kind of tell her uh you know where where she's been every all the abandonment issues that she's been dealing with with her life we find out that she was a drug dealer that she was um you know singer songwriter and kind of in the artist circles um and then we find out that she kind of had this romantic threesome with these two other um uh musicians and um you know obviously they were all users abusers of drugs um and it gets really really dark here greg gets a little out of hand uh one would say as if as if the heroine wasn't enough in the threesome uh you know sally mckenna decides to then so sew them together greg sew them together while in bed i mean this is just just disgusting and of course sure enough uh only a few minutes pass after they're completely sewed together everyone starts to od around sally and there's nothing she can do about it apparently she's screaming for help mrs evers shows up and she just lets her know like uh they're still alive alive uh they're still kicking for a moment so i'll come back when uh they're officially dead and i'll take care of everything after that but for now you're on your own kid and she pieces out and sally's just stuck in hell apparently for five days two days by herself and then the addiction demon shows up this is the first time she meets yeah and then just completely tortures her for the next three days um and as we find out later it sounds like the addiction demon is controlled or manifested through james march he has some sort of control over it or um the hotel itself obviously knows like one of these hell mouths in the uahs universe is um you know has horrible hauntings throughout and we it's kind of unclear but it sounds like later that like james march basically um can kind of uses that the addiction demon to kind of keep sally in check um and with that said she finally breaks free on the fifth day here and i always wonder if did she actually die did she yeah she died is she a ghost there maybe this is when she became a ghost um but i don't know i don't know it seems a little doubtful it's a little bit there the timeline here is a little bit weird from what i understand she didn't die there but she found purpose in the hotel she found uh you know she she's very much a loner and kind of kept herself in looking for people that um she can kind of attach to literally in this sense but also um drug dealers uh users uh the kind of the shady people that we find coming in and out of the hotel cortez and then i believe in 1994 is when she went back with donovan right and then they got high donovan overdose donovan overdoses and that's why iris throws sally out of the window um but then we don't get to see you know sally maybe she came back into the hotel and died inside the premises um anyways you know we don't need to be so nitpicky on it but basically we we see you know the the reason why sally has this um you know attachment to kind of everyone that comes into the hotel itself it's the only place i had ever experienced any real belonging or happiness you have serious abandonment issues now we're back with the world's worst parents um where uh john and alex are talking to scarlett about the whole ordeal they went through and the fact that now her mom and her little brother are vampires so they're gonna need to get them some blood nice nice of the parents to actually uh you know check in on scarlet huh greg i mean yeah that's true scarlet's alive we we uh at least we got a scene just a few it's this scene goes for like maybe like a minute two minutes tops uh just to let us know that scarlett's alive and now she's filled in on all the info of everything that's happened in the episodes prior yeah pretty incredible that they're gonna try that these as you said the world's worst parents are going to try to make this uh these circumstances work with the vampires and serial killers and scarlets just supposed to be like okay are you going to eat me too of course not you'll always be safe back with the countess at the hotel cortez she needs some blood and that's vampire blood she needs so uh she first asked for donovan's help but sally lets her know that donovan no he's dead he's dead dead he's not coming back um so they have to look for other uh opportunities unfortunately it happens to be her children are the only ones nearby that can help her out she refuses at first but then just like this whole episode which is just so weird uh she gives in and because the kids they want to help they want to help her no matter what and uh at this point sally she goes along with it too and they just like they they link them all up and this is where i guess the kids are dead i i'm assuming i think that's it for them um yeah it seemed it seemed like they were like their blood was drained and that they were basically sacrificing themselves for the countess and it kind of mirrored the relationship that um like donovan had with the countess where like everyone that all these kids that she has or the uh the creations that she brought or the people that she turned they have this um this loyalty to her to basically uh be willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good and to keep her alive and she's extremely hesitant like you said to do this but um there's no other option at this point now back with liz and iris they they're they're in some bad shape here after everything that's gone on um and with that said they're still looking for the countess's body they still gotta behind the countess but they're kind of like nonchalant about it i gotta she'll pop up somewhere we can we can find her she's probably hiding somewhere in like the raptors or something dying uh sure um but with that said uh liz hands iris her son's ashes yeah yeah liz took care of um you know cremating donovan after uh he passed away outside um and she had this is a really great little easter egg here for american horror story fans guys uh she hands the ashes to um to iris in a a container and specifically it's campfire gold instant coffee um if you remember back to freak show elsa mars is actually in a commercial for that same coffee company and that's why we drink campfire called instant coffee so a fun little tie-in uh obviously in the connected universe of american horror story i do like the tie-in of using a prop that we a specific brand of a prop that we see in a season um another season of american horror story and now it gets weird again of the this is the i feel like the fifth or sixth weird moment in uh just this episode alone where iris takes out donovan's ashes first she's just like playing with them on the bed a little bit with her hands and then she apparently covered herself in them i have no idea what the hell she was doing in that room i figured they may have shot something uh like this i just see it in slow motion they shot it on phantom cameras or something and she's just like throwing ashes in the air music some music's playing and then the editor or maybe the producer like you know what ah this doesn't play this doesn't work and so they just cut to iris uh going up to the roof covered in her son's ashes looking out into just just the universe at this point and we cut away all right yeah it was weird i agree with you dude it was it was it was a weird sequence um you know i i guess uh since you don't have him uh you know for eternity stuck inside the walls and living forever inside the walls of the hotel cortez she wanted to symbolically show that he was still a part of her world there he was still with her and he was and she was sorry for all everything that she kind of failed as a parent and um you know but she still has this great deal of love for him but it was yeah i agree with you it was a weird way to um to show that i think you could have a little bit of a service um you know pour some ashes somewhere but it how it came across she's covered in ashes and asks uh hazel evers to just clean up every speck of of the cre of the cremated remains vacuum use the vacuum just just clean it up and that's it throw him in the vacuum call it a day okay so we're desperate just out of options we'll just point her in the direction of the countess and get out of the way so from there liz and iris figure that they need some help to kill the countess so it's time to go free ramona royale they head on over there they see all the dead bodies they see everybody uh will drake all the kids and they notice that uh oh she's broken out of her cell um and so they're like we gotta get the hell out of here everybody let's go let's move obviously ramona royale's broken out and she tells them that's not how this is gonna work i need something to feed off of and i need it now so instead of sacrificing obviously themselves uh they they need to figure out something to do so they take was they had a bat and a gun they go right back down to the lobby and this is where we get our first uh i guess another crossover into the ahs universe as queenie uh stumbles upon the hotel cortez yeah this is awesome and i can only imagine um back when this was airing uh live in real time what a fun uh you know revelation to have queenie just pop up a couple seasons after she obviously starred in um you know the coven season of american horror story so a really cool call back to another season to have a character pop up and then we get um you know a name drop of the supreme cordelia uh you know enchanting the ticket for the price is right uh you know queen is a huge prices right fan wants to win and uh she'll get called down for sure because she has her her supreme helped her out there so uh really cool and and this whole time you're worried obviously because you know queenie has vast powers um basically a human voodoo doll but you're also worried because hotel cortez we've seen countless um entities uh you know um ghosts and vampires and serial killers and you kind of don't know the pecking order of of what's going to happen and she goes up to the room and uh you know comes face to face with ramona royale [ __ ] when's the last time you saw a dermatologist okay you are obviously tripping what do you want blood uh they go at it for a little bit you think that maybe queenie's got a shot here to get out of this because of her powers um but with that said uh james march shows up and lets her know that well he's a ghost and there's nothing she can do against that when it comes to her witch powers unfortunately she is stuck now in the hotel cortez yeah so after i saw this i was like okay so i guess that like the power rankings means uh you know is kind of like ghost witch vampire yeah and how well and hellscape hellscapes overall as we find out in american and apocalypse yeah yeah yeah antichrist antichrist away at the top yeah yes but apparently james march is unbeatable when he's inside the hotel cortez basically i mean he can pretty much kill a witch's magic doesn't work on him at all uh you know a stab from one of his knives can even kill a a powerful uh witch and as we find out later even the supreme cordelia in ahs apocalypse has trouble um breaking the spell of the hotel cortez as well um unless you're an antichrist then the antichrist has has crazy crazy uh powers let's just say let's just chop this up to satan let's say satan was helping out march here he's giving everyone powers because of these hellscapes this land like roanoke and everything else let's just say it was satan uh he he rolls over all of this and that's why there you go she's on the verge of absconding forever and i will not allow it drink up darling you're going to need your strength now i love seeing queenie back in this episode and specifically i wish that someone sometimes they would kind of do like a nod to like how familiar some of these characters look to her like if she had said oh i you look so much like is that marie like she looks like like angela bass it's the same you know or uh same thing with uh spalding and liz or iris and delphine la llorie uh you know i i wish they would do a little like a funny little nod for uh you know big time fans of ahs because we talked about that yeah it's exactly the same right if you have actors that are playing multiple parts it's a fun and if they all live in this one universe it'd be a fun little nod to to to just say like uh like maybe like a one line in in the script that says you look so familiar and so do you they'll do that at some point we talked about this for apocalypse uh when we knew they were gonna have a crossover season with a lot of characters coming back uh we were thinking like what is it gonna be when everyone's like wait you look like constance langdon you look like the witch the old supreme uh and and the thing is for ahs canon they just don't talk about it at all uh they are a different character and they just leave it at that um to and just move forward from there so i think that's where they're going to go still because it then it opens up like a huge wormhole uh if they start doing that so i i figure if they do it maybe it's like during the final season whenever that is uh but for now it seems like they're just gonna go with uh this is this character and now you're a new completely different character and uh that's it yeah moving on it might look similar it might look similar to us viewers they might look familiar with us viewers since we know but the characters in the show are not in on the joke nope alex [Music] hello all right back with john lowe now and uh we see him commit continuing to commit murders and kind of keep his family well fed with fresh meat um but then he comes back home one day and he finds out that his uh his son and wife have been um kidnapped and brought back to the hotel cortez thanks to a room key that's sitting there and basically this is james march's ploy and sally mckenna's poi to get him back into the hotel cortez he has some unfinished business he has to commit one more murder in order to um finish off the 10 commandment kill kill list and he goes back there obviously sally wants to kill him and keep him keep him in the hotel cortez for good um but james marches don't want that to go on he has bigger plans for him he has one more kill to do thou shalt not commit murder and greg as soon as i heard that uh there are plenty of options here for him to um to kill yep yep he can go with anybody um now with that said he knows he needs to get his family back so he's walking around the hotel and sure enough the countess meanwhile has been uh in the trenches i i believe with ramona royale as ramona royale goes up for her revenge this is her moment but you know the countess has her ways uh and her and she can she can smooth talk anybody here as you've seen throughout the entire season sure enough she manages to get ramona royale to come around to her side at least um and hook up with her greg yeah they just hook up they just hook up they hook up and ramona real says you know what never mind the power of lady gaga uh at that point ramona's like she arms are down the weapons are down she's like you know it's okay you can survive you can live and ramona royale is out of the picture for the moment at least we'll see her again in the next episode uh she has bigger plans here uh but with that said uh it's the end for the countess as she heads over to the elevator and we get our departed scene at this point if at least i feel like a little bit departed yeah um the door is open and john lowe's there waiting for her and that's it it's the end of the countess and that's that and that's the end of his uh kill list i guess at the moment yeah she's not going to survive another shootout with um bullets uh all over her uh sprayed all over her body uh john john lowe brings the head back to the trophy room and that uh finalizes the uh the uh the kill as the ten commandments and james march gets what he wants right not only does that get completed john lowe is completely subservient serial killer to him but also the countess is now stuck inside the hotel cortez for eternity she does not know that she's a ghost yet but um james march uh gets to live with her forever something that he always wanted right uh she cannot she cannot leave like she was about to leave um wanted uh to get away from this place and um stop being reminded of the history that it brought with her of the people the heartbreak that she had she was completely okay with just letting go of it and letting uh say ramona royale move in and kind of take up the take over the penthouse now she's stuck in the hotel forever uh with uh james march uh and she uh quickly uh realizes uh in the next following scene when she has dinner with him that um there's no more passion that she feels different but she doesn't really know it kind of takes some time to realize that she's a ghost but a very bittersweet obviously moment when she realizes that uh she's dead and she's no longer able to kind of come and go as she pleases and a little thing we find out there as well during their conversation is that well the countess did not call the police on um on james march it happens to be miss evers i wanted us to die together and this is where uh sadly for her uh james march just decides to he banishes her yeah he uh he banishes her from the hotel or at least from his site uh he once are gone so he can just be with the countess at this point going forward and even the countess agrees uh that she should move on uh it's just two of them at this point um at least we're left with the two of them and the countess and she's just it looks like she is just very not in a good place right now she's taking sips of that wine and tears are coming down her face at the same time it is not looking good yeah totally um could we just give a shout out to mayor winningham who plays um hazel evers a very good job in this role i thought she was awesome uh she really really does a great job just showing um the anger resentment the pain uh the loyalty the loyalty that she had for james march and just being uh completely obsessed with him and then just being overlooked and um not being able to deal with that but also um she says a a a nice line at the end here there are more stains in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy a kind of a play on lines from hamlet um there are more things in heaven and earth horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy the countess is now stuck with james march for eternity and not too happy about it and evers is basically that there's that you're you're not the end-all be-all james march that like there's that that you're there's more there's a lot more out there that you're you know limiting limiting myself to to just you and um the the the good and bad that comes with it is is is not uh the most ideal way of living so she kind of comes to comes to terms with the decision and kind of owns up to what you know what she what she did and what she was responsible for um and i just have to say that that she's such a great actress i mean throughout the american horror story um series that we've seen mayor winningham um she plays all these um kind of like characters on the periphery of the story right but like does a really good job of um really um encapsulating that character and making you feel for them okay everyone that's it for us over here we'll be back next week with the season finale for hotel uh let us know what you thought of this episode in the comment section down below the next episode the finale is called be our guest and all i can think of greg is beauty and the beast of course uh bye everyone see you later

Channel: GameSpot Universe

Views: 15,409

Rating: 4.9441538 out of 5

Keywords: game, games, video game, gaming, juego, ahs battle royale, battle royale, queenie, coven, the price is right, ten commandments, she wants revenge, ahs hotel, ahs, american horror story, american horror story hotel, ahs s5e11, ahs breakdown, john lowe, the countess, lady gaga, james march, will drake, donovan, iris, liz taylor, ramona royale, campfire gold, campfire gold coffee, hotel cortez, american horror story break, ahs hotel recap, vampire

Id: oRFP9OqsJPE

Length: 28min 45sec (1725 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 13 2020