FX’s American Horror Story
12×02 “Rockabye”
Directed by Jennifer Lynch
Written by Halley Feiffer

* For a recap & review of the Season 12 premiere, click here.
* For a recap & review of 12×03, click here.
Dexter and Anna are talking to the police. He went out to get dog food late because the pup was hungry. When he returned he found Anna calling 911 and the apartment in a mess. He didn’t see anybody leaving the apartment or the building. The detectives wonder if somebody pulled a prank on them. One detective mentions that the dog didn’t bark at the intruder, suggesting it was somebody they know. The cops think maybe Anna made the whole thing up, noticing the progesterone, but Dexter assures that his wife isn’t lying; the detectives take the man’s word for it, of course.
Things are generally surreal for Anna. She can’t stop seeing things, like the woman with glasses. Except that lady turns out to be a little girl wearing big glasses. Hmm. At the publicist’s office, Anna hears that awards season is looking good for her. She’s more worried about the “stalker situation,” which one man says only means she’s “hot” right now. Even Siobhan is putting pressure on Anna, not wanting her client’s face looking like “a cat‘s asshole” while they’re pushing for awards. She says Anna has to put on a happy, smiling face and campaign like the best of them. She also offers some supposed B12. Anna asks if it’s safe to take while pregnant, and Siobhan replies: “Would I ever do anything to hurt you?” Never trust a publicist. Never!

When Anna throws up later she doesn’t question the B12, she immediately calls Dr. Hill. He says it could mean good news, but they still have to wait and see. She then goes online and sees someone posted a photo of her from the IVF clinic. The account that posted the photo is linked to strange forums discussing occult activities and other things. Anna tries taking her mind off it all. She cooks. She’s surprised by Dexter coming home and she turns around, stabbing him in the face. No big deal, though. Plus Dexter wants Anna to take a pregnancy test. She says it hasn’t been two weeks yet, but he points to the calendar and suddenly two weeks have passed. Time is losing meaning to Anna. They do the pregnancy test and it comes back positive. Happy days! At the clinic, Dr. Hill confirms there’s a foetus beginning to grow. They’re able to hear the foetal heartbeat. The doc tells Anna to eat well, exercise a little, and try to reduce stress in order to ensure the pregnancy goes as planned.
The pregnancy bodes well for Anna’s awards campaigning says Siobhan. They’re going to go full tilt with the soon-to-be-mom stuff. For the next appearance, Anna gets to wear the same dress “Madonna wore to the 1991 Oscars.” She fits into it well. She and Siobhan go into her room to look at the dress in the mirror, even if the lipstick message is still there, unable to be washed off. They start singing together and doing a little dance, but the mirror cracks and interrupts the fun. Surely just a coincidence. Skip to the latest red carpet at The Gotham Awards where Anna gets lots of sweet words from a fellow younger nominee, Babette Eno (Taylor Richardson). Anna isn’t even old and she’s looked at as some older starlet. Inside at the dinner, Hamish Moss (Dominic Burgess) asks about the stalker thing, which everyone’s surprised to hear is making the gossip rounds. Anna starts to get a bit angry with Hamish, who treats her like it’s the 1960s all over again. She heads off for a moment alone in the bathroom. She runs into a woman who’s a huge fan. They’re suddenly all alone together. Anna’s picking at her face and a little bit of skin peels off. Her fan keeps asking questions and rambling. But Anna starts to throw up. The fan tries to help and grabs Anna’s stomach, which makes the actress flip out. Anna pushes the fan and the woman hits her head on the sink counter. The fan bleeds out from her skull, but Anna has to rush off for her awards category announcement.

The Gotham Award for lead performance is announced and Anna is the winner. Great to see American Horror Story alum Zachary Quinto as the award presenter. Anna takes the stage in front of everybody to accept her award. She hears the fan from the bathroom clapping and it throws her off. She also sees the bloody-mouthed nurse from her hallucination, as well as Dexter kissing Sofia and his dead wife. Then Anna starts to vomit up black liquid, choking, and she takes the time to yell at someone trying to go into the bathroom. After that she faints.
Anna wakes up with paramedics checking her. She starts asking about the fan, but there’s no woman with a bloody skull lying on the bathroom floor. She refuses the drugs paramedics want to give her because she’s pregnant. The paramedic chastises her for not cooperating, and even Dexter says “You‘re safe.” And Anna drifts away due to the drugs pumped into her veins. She wakes up again later in bed with Siobhan next to her, singing “Rock-a-bye Baby.” She asks about the fan in the bathroom, but Siobhan says she was only hallucinating according to the paramedics. She then worries about her awards chances. Siobhan says they’re going to “lowkey gaslight” the public so the media cycle can move past this strange, unfortunate event. That doesn’t stop paparazzi from storming the apartment building where Dexter and Anna live, seeking any kind of photo of Anna looking awful, et cetera.

Due to all the ruckus, Dexter takes Anna to a secluded getaway house belonging to Talia. It’s a perfect place for Anna to stay out of the public and, hopefully, out of her stalker’s crosshairs. The place comes equipped with a security guard named Kamal (Maaz Ali); he’s on the premises 24/7. Dexter thinks it’s overboard but Talia says it’s best to look after Anna’s peace of mind. That evening, Dexter and Talia sit for a nice meal together while they joke about the security measures. Anna feels “so exposed” because the house is full of glass and that it’s ironic given she went out there to stay out of sight. She asks her husband why Talia’s so eager to help. He says it’s because Talia loves them, not to mention she’s been loaded with money from an early age. When Anna goes to get a better knife for dinner she finds a photograph of Dexter and his dead wife with Talia and her partner. Odd, no?
At night, Anna goes looking around the big house. She thinks she hears something in the basement when Kamal finds her. He says there are no cameras down there, so they should have a quick look. The two of them head down with a flashlight. Kamal doesn’t notice anything, but Anna thanks him for checking anyway. The next morning, Anna’s doing light yoga and has a bit of pain, so she’s uses a pillow to rest on while she does her poses. The instructor urges: “If anything is wrong, your body will tell you.” On the way home afterwards, Anna is having a lot of pain and she notices she’s bleeding between her legs, so Kamal rushes to take her to a hospital.

At the hospital, Anna’s examined by a woman named Ivy (Cara Delevingne). She’s sure that she recognises Ivy, but the latter says she just moved there from Toronto. Ivy sets up to perform an ultrasound on Anna. She prepares the phallic rod and then orders Anna to put her feet in the stirrups. Ivy goes about the ultrasound while Anna feels a lot of discomfort. She pulls the ultrasound rod out covered in blood and heads to find a doctor, which leaves Anna deeply unsettled and bleeding profusely. Anna goes to the toilet, bleeding all over herself, and she start to cry. When she gets up she sees blood all over the toilet and in it, only making her cry more. She hears “Rock-a-bye Baby” and imagines herself in a beautiful field holding her baby happily. She soon comes to in her hospital bed and she’s told she lost the foetus. The doctor says most miscarriages are due to “an undetected abnormality.” Anna wants to know the sex of her foetus; it was male. The doctor wants to do an ultrasound to check for any surviving foetal tissue. Anna says she had an ultrasound earlier, but the doc says her last ultrasound was ages ago. She mentions Ivy and the doctor doesn’t know who she’s talking about; another hallucination, or a real, terrifying hospital visit?