WARNING: The following contains spoilers for American Horror Story: Double Feature Episode 5, "Gaslight," which aired Wednesday on FX.
"Gaslight" kicks off with the birth of Harry(Finn Wittrock) and Doris' (Lily Rabe) son. It's a bittersweet moment for Doris, whose joy for the bundle of joys arrival is offset by being stuck in the Cape Cod town she so desperately wants out of. After Harry does the equivalent of shots with the leftover childbirth blood and viewers try not to gag, things only worsen. Doris wakes up back in P-Town, hooked up to an IV. The whole situation is unnerving, especially when she proclaims she feels dead, and Harry replies, "Not quite." To top things off, Doris discovers Alma (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) aggressively sucking the blood out of her infant brother's foot -- all in the name of mastering the violin. While the scene sends Doris to the floor with shock, it also reinforces the fact that Alma is quite the little sociopathic monster. The next morning, she continues to ask her father why he bothers keeping Doris around.
Speaking of evil, Ursula (Leslie Grossman) is still around and manages to convince Doris the whole baby blood-sucking ordeal was just a dream while also throwing shade at the new mother's "baby weight." However, Ursula's damage control unravels when Doris discovers teeth marks on the baby's foot. In comes Alma, who decides to sneak in a black pill among the other prescriptions her mother takes. Doris notices it immediately and screams for Harry, convinced that Alma is trying to poison her -- which she's not entirely wrong about. As the lies get harder to conceal, Alma spills the truth to her mother. While Harry wants his wife to stay away from the pill, Alma and Ursula try convincing her with a horrific display of peer pressure. However, in a teeth-clenching moment, Doris ultimately refuses and runs off with the baby.
Later, Alma has a one on one with Doris. While she initially starts by turning on the cute, she soon entraps Doris in a game of mental gymnastics that is pretty eery for a child her age. She tells her taking the pill will keep their family together and that she should be less fearful of the blood and more afraid of being mediocre. Doris tasks the pill but soon discovers she's not quite as talented as her husband and daughter. Not long after, she begins to transform into a Pale Person. With her new bloodlust, Doris tries killing her baby; however, Harry manages to stop it and locks her inside the bathroom.
Alma admits to her father that she and Ursula purposefully gave Doris the pill, knowing she didn't have the talent. They argue it was the best way to prevent her from holding the talented members of her family back. While Harry seems heartbroken at first, it's not long before he admits he's happy with how the situation turned out. Although he claimed to be a family man, he now says that his work was always more important. After Harry's brutal confession, Harry, Alma and Ursula release the mindless Doris into P-Town's streets to frolic among the other unlucky Pale People, with Ursula remarking, "There is nothing more tragic, pathetic and sad than a person with no talent trying to make it in the world."
With Doris effectively out of the picture, Ursula sets out with the intention of taking Alma to the Chemist. Her goal is to still become the richest, most successful talent agent in the world by using the black pills to her advantage, although -- as audiences learned from "Thirst" -- Belle Noir (Frances Conroy) and Austin Sommers (Evan Peters) aren't quite as thrilled with her plan. So, whether she succeeds or not will likely be spotlighted in the next episode.
Alma isn't the only one getting in on the baby action during all this Gardner family drama. Belle's previously established appetite for newborns rears its ugly head again. She demands that Karen (Sarah Paulson) brings her Harry and Doris' newborn, threatening Karen with a horde of Pale People. So Karen turns to Mickey (Macaulay Culkin) for help saving the baby. Mickey's preoccupied with his launching Speed Racer reboot, but he just can't shake his love for Karen and agrees.
Upon breaking into the Gardners' house, the duo stumbles upon Doris mid-transformation. The sight enrages Karen, who has maintained her hatred of the black pill and its creatures -- both talented and untalented -- since Double Feature's debut. She flees the house, but a horde of Pale People soon surround her. Thankfully, Mickey shows up. However, his presence isn't quite so comforting. He offers to protect her from the swarm only if she takes the pill. When she refuses, Mickey walks off, but not without leaving her a single pill. It's a ruthless tactic to get Karen on his side and become Hollywood's new "power couple." That said, it works. As the bloodsuckers descend on Karen, she pops the pill to save herself.
She returns to Mickey, where she's consumed by hunger, although she describes it as feeling sick and contaminated. Mickey encourages her to feed and then paint her Starry Night. When arriving at the beach, Karen rips Mickey's throat out after confirming she also loves him. She then paints what fans can only assume is her masterpiece before slicing her wrists and walking into the ocean. While most were probably rooting for Karen to get a happy ending in Los Angeles with her deserved recognition, AHS never fails to deliver the shocks. However, given Karen's strong principles and hatred of the pill, she died with her humanity intact and freed from Belle's clutches. Speaking of Belle, it will be interesting to see how she navigates her evildoings now that she's two lackeys down.
American Horror Story: Double Feature airs each Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on FX.
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