American Horror Story: Hotel Recap: One Dark Mystery Solved in Ten Commandments Kille

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read on unless youve season episode eight of American Horror Story: Hotel, titled The Ten Commandments Killer. Well, we now know who the horrible Ten Commandments Killer is. And, in truth, it doesnt come as too much of a shock. John Lowe (Wes Bentley) had been on a downward spiral for

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read on unless you’ve season episode eight of “American Horror Story: Hotel,” titled “The Ten Commandments Killer.”

Well, we now know who the horrible Ten Commandments Killer is. And, in truth, it doesn’t come as too much of a shock. John Lowe (Wes Bentley) had been on a downward spiral for the majority of the season, and his undying obsession with the killer seemed suspicious. The surprising part is really that John found out about it, at least this early — and, by the end of the episode, he seems to be embracing this truly dark side of himself, with the unhelpful aid of James March (Evan Peters).

John unravels the mystery for both himself and the audience through a mix of flashback and present-day. John looked to be headed deeper into sanity at the end of the last episode, as his thin link to the Ten Commandments Killer, a young girl named Wren whom he broke out of a mental hospital, was hit by a car and died. Furious, he heads back to the Hotel Cortez and confronts a very not-in-the-mood Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare), who’s still mourning the loss of Tristan (Finn Wittrock).

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Leave it to Sally (Sarah Paulson) to come to John’s aid. She promises to show him what he’s looking for, and she delivers, leading him to the room where the Ten Commandments Killer keeps the trophies from his crimes: the hand of a thief, the eyes and tongue of a cheater and more gruesome body parts. John notes that the eyes and tongue were taken into the lab as police evidence, so how could they be here? And, with Sally’s help, the truth sinks in.

Though John initially has a hard time believing that he’s been the killer all along, Sally drives the point home. Flashbacks show clues in the story, including March’s cryptic words that indicated that he saw potential in John, which finally make sense. “It’s okay. It’s all okay, baby,” Sally croons, forever accepting of John — for the better or for the very, very worse.

After John accepts (more or less) the truth, in a weakened state, he goes to confess to his partner on the force, Detective Hahn (Richard T. Jones). Hahn refuses to believe him, coming up with more and more excuses of denial, but John, now that the memories have rushed back to him, is adamant. In fact, he even remembers when the whole mess started five years ago.

A rough night on the job — one that John spoke of earlier in the season, where he found an entire family dead, with a grieving father having killed himself — drove him to get drunk and, most importantly, have a few drinks at the Hotel Cortez. There, Matt Bomer’s Donovan (remember Donovan?) appears to see something in him: pain and underlying violence. He interrupts the Countess’ (Lady Gaga) monthly dinner with March to introduce them to John, which initially infuriates March, given how dear he holds the dinner. But he, too, sees something in John.

Already intrigued by John’s depressed state, when John laments, “Death is the only thing in life that has any meaning,” a switch immediately flips within March. Enter a scene of enthralling acting on the part of Bentley and Peters as they drink and talk about life and, of course, death. March claims that he can see other people’s auras, and John’s is jet black. March plays therapist to egg John on: “How does that make you feel?” he asks as John mourns the lack of justice in the world. He admits that he often has to hold himself back from bursting out in violence, and that’s all the ammo March needs.

John ends up spending two days at the hotel with March, and March decides to take him on as his serial killing mentee, like he says he previously tried to do with such notorious murderers as Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. But John, March thinks, is the one who can finish his “project,” but he needs the Countess’ help in pushing John over the edge to the dark side. The Countess openly hates March and usually would go out of her way not to help him, but he’s got the perfect bait for her: John’s beautiful children. The Countess, as we know, goes on to kidnap his son, shoving John over the edge.

But Hahn maintains that he “got through it” when John recounts his pain. On the contrary, John kept returning to the hotel to find peace, but of course, didn’t remember any of his visits. And still, he finds disgust at March’s suggestions of murder. But after a tough case, he gives in. March lures him by telling him the story of a pedophile who was at the hotel, and John decides to become that man’s maker.

The man ends up being the Gold Derby blogger who was bludgeoned with an Oscar — and now we find out why. It’s John’s first kill, and it does affect him. In fact, he even tries to hang himself at the hotel afterward as Sally, who has become his lover, watches, happy to get him to herself as he becomes a ghost. March cuts him down, however, and reassures him that he’s used his pain to make the world a “cleaner place.”

March then shows him his unfinished project: the Ten Commandments Killings. John vows to complete the project, and reveals to Hahn that every killing since the murder of the blogger has been him. In fact, he even wanted to kill his wife, Alex (Chloe Sevigny), and Hahn under suspicion that they were having an affair, but Sally advised him otherwise.

Hahn still refuses to believe all of this, and it ends up being his undoing. John stabs him to death and heads back to the hotel — fully aware of the two different versions of himself for the first time.

While one big mystery has been solved, there are still plenty of questions left to be answered. What does this mean for Alex and the kids? Speaking of kids, what in the world did happen to that classroom of murdering vampire children? And where will John go now? It seems clear, though, that for the Lowe family, it’s all downhill from here.

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