‘American Horror Story: Cult’ Premiere: Recap With Spoilers

The episode begins with footage from the 2016 presidential election campaign trail. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are shown on the news, and the footage ends with Trump being announced as the next President of the United States.

Kai (Evan Peters) watches the news and says that a “revolution has begun.” In another living room, Aly (Sarah Paulson) and Ivy (Alison Pill) are distraught while drinking wine and talking with their friends.

The show goes back and forth between the two very different scenes. Ivy and Aly, who are married, talk about the fear they feel for the future, as well as for their son, Oz. Kai jumps up and down, celebrating the victory. As Aly starts having a panic attack, Ivy tries to calm her down. Aly and Ivy’s friend, a councilman, talk about all of the people who didn’t vote or who cast a vote for a third party. Oz is scared that his moms won’t be married anymore, but they assure him that everything is fine.

Kai puts a bag of cheese curls in a blender and covers his face and hands with the orange powder it creates. He starts doing Trump impressions in front of the mirror. He then goes down the hall to his sister Winter’s (Billie Lourd) room. She gets mad and starts shoving him, but he only smiles. Kai holds out his pinky and Winter wraps hers around. Winter says she’s scared, and Kai replies, “Everyone is.”

Opening Credits

A young couple is lying on a picnic blanket by a lake. They’re beginning to have sex when the woman says someone is watching. Twisty the clown starts walking out from the woods as the man tells the woman about the legend of Twisty, thinking he isn’t there. As he did in “Freak Show,” Twisty bows and pulls out flowers. The man shoots Twisty a few times but it does nothing. Twisty knocks him out and proceeds to murder him with a pair of old scissors.

The woman runs away, across a bridge, and Twisty chases her. She hides in the old school bus that Twisty used to hide his victims in. She tries to call 9-1-1 on her phone but Twisty kills her. He picks up the phone, takes his mask off, and mutters, “Wrong number.”

Just as Twisty finishes on the phone, the camera pulls out to reveal that he’s actually part of a comic book. Oz is reading it with a flashlight under the blankets on his bed. Aly comes in and asks to see what he was reading and then freaks out because it’s about a clown. She starts having another panic attack and it’s evident that she’s terrified of clowns. Ivy comes to calm her down and Aly apologizes to Oz.

The councilman that spent election night with Aly and Ivy is holding an open forum about new laws and changes. He brings up the vote from the City Council to approve overtime for the police working near a Jewish community center. Kai speaks to the council saying that the police should be cut back on. He says that fear is the only way people will learn to protect themselves and get stronger. He says that people love fear more than anything else in life, and that we’re choosing fear over freedom. He thinks that people want to be scared and that chaos breeds evolution. The councilman strikes him down and says that the election of “Papa Bear Trump” is just a blimp on the map. The council votes unanimously to extend the overtime, despite what Kai said. They write him off as a little crazy. As he’s walking away he says that “there is nothing more dangerous in this world than a humiliated man.”

Aly is talking to her psychiatrist, Dr. Rudy Vincent (Cheyenne Jackson). She says that the housekeeper has disappeared and that her anxieties have been terrible since election night. The events of the election have triggered phobias she thought she had overcome. Aly is afraid of clowns, confined spaces, blood particles in the air, and small holes in the surface of something, like coral or honeycombs. She says the same thing happened after Sept. 11, 2001. Aly says that Ivy is the one who really got her through it the first time. Rudy writes a prescription for a mild anti-anxiety medication, even though she says that she doesn’t want to take drugs. He says it will all be okay, she takes the medicine and leaves.

Aly walks into a grocery store at night and Trump’s voice can be heard talking on a radio or TV. The store is empty with the exception of the cashier named Gary (Chaz Bono). Gary turns around to reveal that he only has one hand, before saying that “they finally got a real leader in Washington” and slipping on a “Make America Great Again” hat. Aly smiles and walks towards the back of the store with her shopping cart.

As Aly walks through the store, she starts getting more anxious. She briefly sees clowns in a large mirror but turns around to see an empty aisle. She walks through the empty store and eventually sees two people in clown masks having sex in the produce section. She starts to panic and metal music comes on over the speakers. Another clown rides through the store on a scooter and a fourth is standing at the register. Aly throws a bottle of wine at one of the clowns and runs back through the store. The clown chases her with a knife but passes her as she falls down. Aly then runs back outside to her car, turns it on and tries to drive away.

Aly calls Ivy in a panic, saying someone is trying to kill her. A clown pops up from her backseat and pushes her foot on the gas. She screams as the car runs right into a telephone pole.

Commercial Break

Aly sits at home as Ivy says goodbye to a police officer. She says that the police are looking into it and that the cashier didn’t see the clowns or hear the music, he only saw her screaming. Aly pleads with Ivy, saying that she didn’t make anything up and that she was terrorized. Oz wakes up and Ivy walks away to get him back in bed.

The next day, Aly and Ivy are at The Butchery, the restaurant they own. Ivy is the chef and she needs Aly’s help with the books and menu. Aly is supposed to be the face of the restaurant. Ivy tells Aly that she needs her help in their marriage, and that she’s being patient when all of this difficult. She says their marriage is more important than the election and Aly promises that she’s going to get herself under control. Ivy then says that they will need to get a new nanny for Oz.

On the street corner outside, the couple argues a bit about the election. Aly voted for Jill Stein and Ivy argues that things like that helped Trump win. As they talk, a man spills coffee on them. It’s Kai, and he says he tripped. He says, “Enjoy your latte, bitch. Have a nice day.”

Responding to the ad for the new nanny, Winter shows up to Aly and Ivy’s house and interviews for the job. As they speak with her, the camera cuts between their interview and a talk Winter had with Kai as they held pinkies. She tells Kai one story and the women another. While she talks about fear and pain with Kai, she tells Aly and Ivy that she dropped out of school to help run Clinton’s campaign. Aly and Ivy offer Winter the job, and she tells Kai that he is what scares her the most.

Commercial Break

A truck full of Spanish-speaking men pulls up to a building corner at night, across the parking lot and Kai starts singing. He then urinates into a condom and throws it at the men, telling them that they aren’t welcome in the country anymore. The men immediately start beating Kai and someone is seen recording the beating on an iPhone.

Aly and Ivy are drinking wine at the restaurant and talking about the menu. Back at the house, Winter is talking to Oz about his moms. She asks which is his “real mommy” and he says that they never told him. Oz is drawing a picture of Twisty killing someone and Winter asks him if he’s ever seen a real dead body.

Back at the restaurant, Aly is looking at Trump’s twitter account. “Stop tweeting!” she says as she puts the phone down and takes the lid off of the plate in front of her. She starts freaking out when she sees tiny holes in the food. Blood starts oozing out of them. Aly closes the lid.

At home, Winter gets on the computer and takes Oz to the Dark Web. “It’s where you can find all the cool stuff.” She pulls up a video of someone about to cut another person’s head off. When Oz says he’s scared, Winter replies, “Good.”

Aly looks around the restaurant and sees a clown masturbating behind one of the counters. She knocks over a glass and Ivy comes out to see Aly freaking out. Now, there’s no clown and the food looks totally normal. Aly looks around the entire restaurant and she doesn’t find anyone. Aly says she hasn’t been taking her medicine and Ivy says she needs to start doing it.

Back at home, Oz and Winter watch the disturbing video and Oz shuts the computer. He says that he doesn’t want to watch it anymore. She tells him it’s like a vaccination for his brain and watching this will help him be strong. They continue watching the video and Winter says she’s going to go get Oz some cookies. He hears something outside and goes to the window. An ice cream truck appears across the street and a group of clowns gets out. They look like the same clowns from the grocery store. The clowns all look up at the window where Oz is peeking out. As the leader steps forward, Oz gets scared and backs away.

Commercial Break

Ivy and Aly are driving home and Aly says that she took her pill. As they pull into the neighborhood, they see police cars in front of their house and everything is blocked off. As they run for their son they see that he’s just fine. He points to Councilman’s house across the street. Oz says that he saw clowns get out of the ice cream truck and go into the house across the street to kill the couple.

Flashback earlier that night. Winter takes Oz out to the ice cream truck and then to the window of the councilman’s house. The two watch as the clowns murder the couple and paint a smiling symbol on their front door.

Back to the present time, Oz says he tried to tell the police but that Winter wouldn’t let him. Oz goes over with an officer and Winter tells the women that none of that happened. She said they came out to see the police cars and that she found the Twisty comic in his room. The lead detective (Colton Haynes) tells the women that it looks like a murder-suicide.

Later, the camera goes through Aly and Ivy’s house and up to their room. Aly is lying in bed, and she wakes up. As she rolls over, a clown is in bed next to her.

American Horror Story: Cult airs Tuesdays on FX at 10 p.m. ET.