FX’s American Horror Story
10×04: “Blood Buffet”
Directed by Axelle Carolyn
Written by Brad Falchuk

* For a recap & review of 10×03, click here.
* For a recap & review of 10×05, click here.
We begin in October, five years ago.
The Chemist was looking for property. She met with Holden Vaughn, who told tall tales about Normal Mailer and the “perverted Norman Rockwell” aesthetic of earlier Provincetown. He quickly figured out the Chemist definitely wasn’t there for the weather, though she was coy about it. But she had the money, and then she moved in, to begin cooking up those delicious, devilish little black pills.

And new product requires new chains of distribution, meaning the Chemist had to start figuring out the local economy. She picked Mickey up at The Muse, after seeing him with Holden.  He tried to sell his “Halloween special” for the season. The Chemist was more interested in paying to have a chat. She was curious about his aspirations a.k.a looking for test subjects! Mickey told her about his writing. The Chemist told him about working with the US military to try and “unlock the creative mind” deep within the brain, hence her drug dealing chemistry. She explained more about testing the drugs on apes; some went very well, some went very violent. After that she presented Mickey with the pills. He smartly refused. We know he gave in eventually, and at that time he was enticed by an offer of $50 for every person he brought to the Chemist to buy pills.
Mickey naturally went to Tuberculosis Karen, trying to sell the poor woman some of them black beauties, but she didn’t feel she had any worthwhile talents. So, on to the next one, as Mickey found a singer at The Muse to send to the Chemist. Meanwhile, Provincetown was somewhat normal. Belle Noir was in the area to promote a new naughty book, doing a short reading for the three women who came out to see her. Prime territory for the Chemist to go fishing for new customers. Belle a.k.a Sarah didn’t have a great relationship with her husband Ray (Jim Ortlieb), whose disgust with her writing was beyond overt. He dumped all over her dreams and her general self esteem, in spite of acting supportive. He was also full of homophobia; an all around piece of shit. So Belle went to The Muse for a drink by herself, where she met Mickey.
The rest was history.

We also see the singer whom Mickey sent to the Chemist for pills, gradually decaying into one of those balding, pale creeps. Right before Mickey took Belle to see the Chemist, where the writer got herself pills, as well as a warning about the violent side effects. None of the side effects were of worry to Belle; she was only concerned with getting famous from her writing. Then down the hatch went her first pill. She was writing as soon as she got back to her hotel room, unable to stop until she’d typed out an entire new novel. And she was sold.
But Ray was soon back to ruin everything for Belle, telling her he’d been out all night and cheated on her. This led to him being her first kill, and her first taste of sweet, sweet blood. After that she went to see the Chemist, telling her about the whole experience, like a living science experiment. Belle told her about the thirst she felt, as well as how she sat down to write more after the murder. She wasn’t going to give all that up, not because of a little bit of silly blood.

Then there was the singer, getting worse all of the time. He was jonesing for more pills, but he had to wait a couple more days. We see him go to Lark’s shop, looking for a good coat for the fall. He found a good one, not creepy at all. Then he went to the graveyard, of course. He saw a woman at a grave and she asked him to pray with her. Instead he cut open her throat so he could feast on her blood. Good thing it was Halloween, so he could wander the streets spattered in blood. He went to the Chemist’s place, explaining what he did to the woman. The Chemist explained it all scientifically, but that wasn’t much comfort, and he was left to be one of those bald creeps aimlessly walking the streets of Provincetown.
Jump to Halloween, two years later.
Belle was looking for a new aesthetic, so she, too, went to shop at Lark’s place. They both discovered they were taking the Chemist’s pills. The writer had seen much success in the past couple years, including getting one of her novels, The Heart is the Bitterest Root, turned into a full fledged film franchise. She saw what Lark was up to, in regards to providing new dental fixtures for all of Provincetown’s fresh vampire folk.

We get a look at Belle going to a drag show, where none other than Austin a.k.a Patty O. Furniture was having fun but getting READ TO FILTH by Crystal Decanter (David Huggard a.k.a Eureka O’Hara of Drag Race fame) and a couple of other queens. Patty hit the stage to perform a lip sync of “Magic Man” by Heart. She rocked out hard, impressing Belle and others. Later, Austin, still in drag, met Belle after the show. They had a drink together. Turns out Belle actually murdered a guy Austin was supposed to work with, unintentionally pulling the rug out from under the young playwright. So, she offered up one of those black pills: “It‘s the highway to your true self.” Thus began the saga of Belle and Austin in P-Town.