Series / American Horror Story: Coven

Hogwarts this ain't.^note Left wall foreground to background: Cordelia, Delphine, Madison, Nan. Back wall left to right: Kyle and Zoe. Right wall background to foreground: Queenie, Misty, Kaylee, Marie. Floor background to foreground: Fiona and the Minotaur.

"Wear something... black."

American Horror Story: Coven is the third season of Ryan Murphy's acclaimed anthology series. It follows a group of girls who are witches, and, as such, have unique supernatural powers. They attend a small school for girls like them in New Orleans, and must deal with the trappings of what inevitably happens when unstable teenagers are given immense destructive power. Things only become more complicated when the Supreme, an incredibly powerful witch with all of their powers and much disdain for the human race, decides to move in and teach them how to defend themselves in the wake of a modern-day witch burning.

The story proper begins in the 1830s, with New Orleans socialite Delphine LaLaurie, who is working to marry her daughters off to wealthy men. She tries to make herself younger using blood, and puts her slaves through horrific torture, sewing their mouths shut and using them in Satanic rituals. One of the slaves she tortures is the lover of New Orleans voodoo queen Marie LaVeau, who enacts brutal revenge on LaLaurie. We then fast-forward to the modern day and a teenage girl named Zoe Benson whose boyfriend dies during sex. The authorities chalk it up as a brain aneurysm, but her family explains that she was actually the one who killed him, albeit unintentionally. They are actually from a line of witches. Sometimes the powers skip a generation, but Zoe was not so fortunate, and now must travel to the above-mentioned school in order to learn how to control her abilities.

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American Horror Story: Coven provides the following tropes:

• Aborted Arc:
  • Delphine has a slow redemption arc through her friendship with Queenie which seems to come to a head with her weeping with emotion while being forced to watch movies about black oppression to try and force her to empathize with people of color but right afterwards she goes back to cutting people up.
• Abusive Parents: Three prominent examples:
  • Fiona is regularly verbally and emotionally abusive as well as neglectful towards Cordelia.
  • Joan Ramsey is extremely controlling of her son Luke and at one point forces him to let her give him an enema with bleach.
  • Kyle's mother Alicia molests him after Zoe returns him to her, and it's implied she's been sexually abusing him for a while before his death and resurrection.
• Advertised Extra:
  • The Minotaur. After being featured in almost all of the trailers, posters, and spots, the character had only brief appearances in three episodes before being revived in the present and then killed by Fiona , then disappearing from the show.
  • The same can be said to Kaylee, who was killed almost immediately.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • It's hard not to feel sorry for The Axe-Man after he has his heart broken by Fiona and kills her out of rage. And despite the fact he did exactly what the coven wanted to happen, they end up killing the man anyway while he's defenseless and still suffering from his breakdown. Gets more to a head when you find out it was a memory implanted from her to fake her own death to find out whom the next Supreme was.
  • Fiona finally has a heartwarming conversation with her daughter before dying as they embrace. And then it's revealed that she's going to spend all of eternity locked away inside a cabin at the mercy of the Axe-Man.
• All Abusers Are Male: Averted. At least three non-witch women are caught abusing or torturing men. Delphine gets cursed by Marie for mutilating her lover, Joan is forced to drink bleach for abusing and killing her son, and Alicia gets killed after trying to rape a newly reanimated Kyle. Fiona has a history of verbally abusing and neglecting Cordelia.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The Witch-hunters claim their organization predates the Salem Witch Trials.
• And I Must Scream: Madame LaLaurie was buried alive, unable to die, for 180 years.
  • Later, Myrtle paralyzes Quentin and Cecily and removes their eyes with them unable to move or scream.
• And the Adventure Continues: The series ends with Cordelia revealing the existence of witches to the world, leading the student body of Madame Robichaux's Academy to multiply many times over.
• Anyone Can Die: Zig-Zagged at first. While the show had no problem killing off the characters, quite a few of them came Back from the Dead, thanks to Misty Day. However, from "Head" onwards, it's pretty much played straight, with the final 5 episodes seeing the permanent deaths of many significant characters, 4 of them in the finale alone! By the end of the season, only Cordelia, Queenie, Zoe, and Kyle are alive. Spalding also appears as a ghost.
• As Herself: Stevie Nicks as Stevie Nicks.
• The Artifact: Evan Peters. It's pretty obvious the writers felt obligated to hang onto him, since he'd been a regular cast member since season 1, but they seemed to have pretty much nothing to do with him for this season, since the story revolved entirely around female characters. So, he spent most of the season suffering from severe brain damage, and we see him about once an episode to remember that, yes, he's still on the show.
• Artistic License – Biology: Dead bodies decompose extremely fast in swampy New Orleans soil, making Marie's army of zombies (especially Delphine's daughters) very improbable.
• Artistic License – History: The black mob that killed LaLaurie's family and imprisoned her is implausible to the point of absurdity. If any such mob had formed in 1830s New Orleans and attacked a fabulously wealthy woman and her family (of aristocratic French pedigree, no less) in the heart of New Orleans' most upper-class districts, the consequences would have been very dire indeed, but not for LaLaurie and her family. Still, justified in that Marie Laveau has magic.
  • What's even more ironic about this situation is that, in Real Life, when the people of New Orleans discovered Madame LaLaurie's gross violations of the Code Noir (which governed the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire and continued to have social, if not legal, force in Louisiana after it was acquired by the United States, and which expressly forbade torture and mutilation of slaves) a white mob formed and ransacked her mansion. Of course, then the tortured slaves were taken to jail and made available for public viewing. 4,000 people turned up to "convince themselves of their suffering."
  • The historical Marie Laveau was a devout Catholic and incorporated Catholicism into her rituals. Aside from a cross incorporated into her throne, the Marie of Coven doesn't display any religious convictions.
  • The Axe-Man of New Orleans really did publicly threaten to kill someone in a house that was not playing Jazz on March 19, 1919. However, in the show he was killed by the Coven that morning and that explains his sudden disappearance. In reality, he didn't commit a murder that day, but did commit three more attacks afterwards before disappearing.
• Artistic License – Religion - Papa Legba does not trade immortality for innocent souls...just...no... He isn't even a Death God. That's Baron Samedi. This is particularly bizarre because Samedi is usually the only Loa that shows up in Hollywood Voodoo, and Legba was dressed like Samedi in this depiction. Why they didn't just make him Samedi is anyone's guess.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Delphine LaLaurie.
  • The frat boy who led the gang rape of Madison, and the other rapists.
  • For some, Madison herself.
  • Two poachers killing gators in the second episode. One is also implied to have being a part of Misty Day's murder.
  • Kyle's mother, Alicia.
  • The flashback lynch mob, who get their comeuppance and then some.
  • The Ax-Man in 1919. And again in Go To Hell.
  • The unnamed homeless man who threatens to rape Queenie at the beginning of The Sacred Taking.
  • Joan Ramsey is forced to drink bleach by Nan.
  • And as of the finale, Fiona.
• Back for the Dead: Fiona, who comes back in the finale after apparently dying in "Go To Hell," but then dies three minutes later.
• Bathos: Cordelia's breakdown in the tenth episode. It's heartbreaking, but at the same time, it's hard not to laugh when Myrtle attempts to drown her out by continuing to play her theremin.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Immediately after the acid attack, Cordelia still has her eyelashes and sculpted eyebrows.
  • Madison takes a pretty brutal beating from Misty Day, and her hair and makeup aren't even so much as mussed. She pops back up as if nothing happened.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Stevie Nicks, "the White Witch", is apparently a famed witch.
  • Myrtle Snow is certain Leonardo da Vinci was a warlock, though it's never been proven.
• Betty and Veronica: Invoked when Nan and Madison greet the cute new boy next door in their own ways.
  Madison: What are you hoping to get with that cake?
  Nan: What are you hoping to get with that dress?
• Big Bad Ensemble: Fiona Goode is the selfish Supreme Witch who wishes to live longer and kill her successor, while Marie Laveau is the Voodoo Queen who wants to destroy the Coven. The two form a Big Bad Duumvirate to destroy the Delphi Trust, but Marie is killed in the penultimate episode.
• The Big Easy: The primary setting. The only supernatural element the city is associated with missing is vampires.
• Bittersweet Ending: Ultimately averted, in contrast to the other AHS seasons. Cordelia is the Supreme and leads the Coven into a golden age; Fiona gets her comeuppance; and Zoe and Queenie become the new Council. What might dip this into bittersweet territory is that Myrtle is executed for her murder of the corrupted witch's council, but she demanded it for the sake of Cordelia, and was happy to oblige. Misty also got stuck in Hell during the Seven Wonders test, killing a frog and reviving it on a loop. Also, for the Madison fans out there, Madison was killed by Kyle.
• Big "NO!": Kyle when he finally snaps from his mom's sexual abuse and kills her. It's the first word he says since his resurrection.
• Black Comedy: While American Horror Story has never been a stranger to dark humor, this season plays it up even more strongly than previous seasons.
• Blatant Lies: Fiona and Marie's explanation for Nan's death after they drowned her is pretty weak, to say the least.
  Fiona: "And so it is with great sadness we must say goodbye to Nan... [Beat] who fell in the tub.
  Marie: "Amen."
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Zoe's main power is a vagina that kills.
  • Nan is clairvoyant, which causes her to get severely affected by the cries of deceased souls, such as those that still haunt Madame LaLaurie's house, as well as the thoughts of other people she hears constantly.
  • The whole concept of the Supreme; you get unlimited power, but also a shortened life, and you have to die in order for the next Supreme to come into her powers.
• Blind Seer: After Cordelia is blinded in an acid attack, she develops clairvoyant powers that let her see things she refused to accept. She calls it a "bad cosmic joke".
• Blood Countess: Madame Lalaurie is a 19th century rich socialite who likes to torture her slaves for fun, and use their blood as skincare in order to look younger. Although cursed, she becomes immortal. Even though she can be intimidated, she still keeps an arrogant (and racist, of course) attitude in her "second" life.
• Book Ends:
  • "Bitchcraft" begins and ends with Zoe killing boys with her vagina - the first time by accident during sex, the second time by rape as revenge for Madison's gang-rape.
  • "The Replacements" begins and ends with Fiona killing a fellow witch for her own Supremacy, at first with Anna Leigh to gain it, and then Madison to keep it.
  • "Fearful Pranks Ensue" begins with Marie Laveau sending zombies after the lynch mob in 1961 and closes with her sending zombies against the Robichaux girls.
  • "The Axeman Cometh" opens with the Axeman entering the Academy in 1919 and ends with him finally leaving in modern times.
  • "The Axeman Cometh" has the Axeman introduced by getting stabbed all to hell by the ladies of the coven. "Go To Hell" sends him off suffering the same fate by the new ladies of the coven."
• Break the Cutie: Cordelia really needs a hug.
• Break the Haughty: Not even twenty minutes after Madison establishes herself as being the Alpha Bitch, she gets gang-raped by multiple Jerk Jock frat boys.
  • And this came after she got into an argument with Queenie that led to Queenie demonstrating her "human voodoo doll" powers (she stabbed herself with a fork but only injured Madison, then threatened to slash her own throat to drive the point home further). Then later, she got telekinetically thrown into a wall after insulting Fiona, not knowing she was sassing the Supreme of witches. Not to mention her No-Holds-Barred Beatdown courtesy of Misty Day, Nan threatening to shove a lit cigarette into her vagina, and Fiona slitting her throat with a knife. Basically every female except Zoe attacks Madison at some point in the story.
• Burn the Witch!:
  • A young girl, Misty Day, who did not understand her powers as a witch, was actually hunted down by religious fundamentalists and burnt alive—in modern day America. This is what motivates Fiona to teach the girls how to defend themselves.
  • Myrtle Snow was burned alive by her own coven. Twice.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: Mme. LaLaurie giving a guided tour of her mansion.
  Tourist: "It says here she was a serial killer"
  Mme. LaLaurie: "That's a misprint"
• Butt-Monkey: Cordelia. And to a lesser degree, Madame LaLaurie.
• Call-Back: In "Bitchcraft", Madison expresses her irritation with Nan's comments by saying "yeah, we get it, you're clairvoyant", however in "Head", the midseason finale, the reanimated Madison defends Nan's powers to Joan by saying "Bitch, she's clairvoyant".
  • An inter-seasonal one. In Asylum, Grace is murdered mid-sentence by an axe to the back. In Coven, Fiona is murdered mid-sentence by an axe to the back.
  • So far, a character has said the lines "This is wrong. It's all wrong," in every season of American Horror Story. Nora Montgomery when she wanders her house and witnesses it change over the ages, Sister Jude after she's taken to her old office and finds it changed after the Church sold Briarcliff to the state and discovers that two years have passed, and Misty Day when she returns from being burned from the stake and encounters the alligator poachers.
  • A Coven-specific example: Madison only uses her iconic Catchphrase when talking to a fellow witch who is the Supreme (Fiona), or fated to become Supreme (Mallory).
• Came Back Wrong: Kyle and in a fashion, Madison. Suggested in "Head" with Myrtle.
• Can't Have Sex, Ever: Zoe. See Blessed with Suck entry for the reason.
  • She later does manage to have sex with Kyle and Madison, since they are already dead(ish).
• Carpet-Rolled Corpse: Fiona murders Madison in cold blood and the body is promptly rolled up in a carpet by the butler/secret-keeper Spalding and taken away. The carpet is obviously missing afterward, which baffles the others in the house.
• Casting Gag: Several of the recurring actors from season 1 (Murder House) and season 2 (American Horror Story: Asylum) take on new characters for season 3 (Coven), with character arcs that mirror/relate to their previous role.
  • Evan Peters:
    • In Murder House, he tries and fails to save Taissa Farmiga, but the house resurrects her as a ghost. In Coven, Taissa tries and fails to save Evan's character, but her friend resurrects him as a zombie.
    • In Asylum, he eventually ends up in a three-way relationship with two women, with two of the three having been resurrected from the dead. In Coven, he again winds up in a three way relationship with two different women, again with two of the three having been resurrected.
  • In Asylum, Sarah Paulson is raped by Dr. Thredson, and spends the remainder of the season trying unsuccessfully to abort his child, who grows up to be evil. In Coven, she is barren and tries unsuccessfully to cast a fertility spell.
  • In Asylum, Lily Rabe plays Sister Mary Eunice, who was possessed by the Devil, and ultimately killed and then cremated. In Coven, she plays Misty Day, and her first scene is her character being accused of demonic possession and being burned alive.
  • In Murder House, Jessica Lange and Jamie Brewer play Constance (mother) and Adelaide (daughter), respectively, and when Adelaide dies from a hit-and-run, Constance is grief stricken. In Coven, evil Lange again plays a mother figure (Fiona), the leader and Supreme witch, while Brewer plays Nan. Fiona ends up drowning Nan in cold blood to use her soul for a sacrifice.
  • In Murder House, Alexandra Breckenridge (Young Moira) dies from a bullet to the head after a married man tries to rape her and his wife catches them. In Coven, the married man is her lover, she doesn't know he's married, and he's the one who kills her by shooting her in the head.
  • Both of Denis O'Hare's characters are physically deformed (burn scars in Murder House and no tongue in Coven) and in love with Jessica Lange's characters, who take advantage of them, using them as their Igors.
  • In Murder House, Jamie Brewer's character Adelaide (who lives next door to the main characters) is locked in a closet by her mother as punishment. In Coven, Nan finds Luke (who lives next door to the main characters) locked in the closet by his own abusive mother.
  • In Asylum, Evan Peters' character Kit takes in a sick and out-of-her mind Jude out of his good heart and his children restore her her sanity. In Coven Fiona seemingly restores Kyle's mind, but it's suggested her intentions are much less altruistic.
  • In Murder House, they put Taissa Farmiga in a lot of hats. In Coven, they put her in even more.
• Central Theme: Oppression of minorities (women and people of colour); power and how it corrupts people; cycles of hate and revenge.
• Chainsaw Good: Zoe versus Marie's zombies.
• The Chosen One: Anyone who becomes the Supreme is this by definition.
• Color Wash: The frat party in "Bitchcraft" is distinctly washed with blues and reds.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: Delphi, the anti-witch asset management firm run by Harrison Renard Hank's father.
• Deader than Dead: Due to the revolving-door nature of death on this show, it seems the only way to ensure that the newly-departed won't be resurrected is to obliterate the body, such as with acid, cremation, or feeding it to alligators.
  Misty: Even I can't bring back gator shit.
  • Averted by Mallory, who can resurrect someone even when their body has been obliterated (as we saw when she used John Henry's ashes to bring him back to life).
• Death by Irony:
  • Zoe kills one of the above-mentioned Asshole Victims by raping him to death with her succubus vagina.
  • The two poachers who killed an alligator and gloated about it were killed by that very same gator after Misty resurrected it.
  • Madison is choked to death by Kyle after she brainwashed Kyle into trying to choke Zoe to death.
• Death by Origin Story: Zoe's boyfriend Charlie.
• Death by Racism: The three men who lynch a teenage black boy in a flashback are killed later that night by zombies Marie resurrected.
  • Inverted by Delphine LaLaurie, who gets an unpleasant immortality by racism. Then played straight when Queenie kills her for refusing to renounce her ways.
• Death by Woman Scorned: Kaylee set her boyfriend on fire when he was breaking up with her because she frightened his family.
  • Joan Ramsey killed her husband after she discovered he was leaving her for another woman.
  • Gender Flipped in Go To Hell. When The Axe-Man discovers that Fiona never really loved him and was only using him for her own purposes, she gets an axe to the back. And then must spend all eternity married to him as her personal hell.
• A Death in the Limelight: Hank in "Head."
• Death Is Cheap: So long as Misty is around.
  • Expanded now that the other girls can raise the dead.
• Deus ex Machina: In the season finale, there is a borderline case as Cordelia's eyes regrow as part of her new Supreme magical healing powers. She'd already passed the Seven Wonders, resolving the main plot. The new eyes are just visual confirmation for the audience. The "glowing radiant health" rule had already been established when Fiona's health was failing, and Madison was discovered to have a heart murmur.
• Disabled Means Helpless: Justified with Cordelia, given that she had just lost her eyesight and was still getting used to being blind.
  • Averted with Nan, she can hold her own and no one treats as incapable.
• Disappeared Dad: Does anyone on this show have a father?
  • Hank's dad appears in "Head".
  • Zoe's dad appears for about a second in "Bitchcraft".
• The Dog Bites Back: After being tormented by Marie Laveau for most of the season, Madame Lalaurie manages to dismember her and bury her body parts in separate areas.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Take Cordelia's speech on TV in the season finale and replace "witch(es)" with "lesbian(s)".
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male:
  • Averted. When Zoe forces herself upon one of the frat boys in the hospital as revenge for what he did to Madison, causing him to bleed from every orifice and die, the show doesn't treat it as wrong, but that's strictly due to Protagonist-Centered Morality with a touch of Pay Evil unto Evil, not a gender-based double standard. (Particularly given that it was really more "murder" than "rape" anyway.)
  • Also averted with Kyle's mother's sexual abuse of him, which is used to present her as an incestuous creep and an Asshole Victim.
  • However, there doesn't seem to be much of an issue raised with Madison using a severely mentally impaired Kyle for sex; Zoe's relationship with him is also questionable, even if she does love him. And seeing both of them mind-control him into kissing them was... quite uncomfortable.
• Dropped a Bridge on Her:
  • Luke is last seen being smothered in 'Head'. As of 'The Mystical Wonders Of Stevie Nicks', he's already been cremated, despite the fact that his sudden death would've been suspicious to say the least.
  • Nan is abruptly drowned in a tub with no foreshadowing whatsoever.
  • Fiona gets suddenly struck down by the Axe-man's trademark weapon while she's in the middle of talking.
  • The Axe-man is repeatedly stabbed to death in under thirty seconds without putting up a fight.
  • Marie Laveau is knocked out by Spalding, hacked apart, and is then sent to Hell. Offscreen.
  • While not the Supreme, Madison displayed powers of telekinesis, pyrokinesis, teleportation, and mind control. None of which she used to defend herself as Kyle strangled her to death.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Myrtle Snow, but not quite in the way you'd think: "BALENCIAGA!!!!!" Oh, how we wish it was "KNOCK-OFF BRANDS!!!!"
• Dysfunction Junction
  • Cordelia is completely unable to gain her mother's approval for anything, as well as having been "bitchslapped" by her a few times, resulting in a completely unstable relationship with her. At one point, Cordelia even plans to kill her mother to save the Coven.
  • Misty has grown up on the swamp, away from civilization, with strange powers that make it so she has no friends (her parents aren't there, either). Because of that, she is desperate to not be alone and will do absolutely anything to make one friend (she also breaks down when anyone who could even possibly be her friend leaves her.)
  • If Madison can be trusted, her mother was doing a plethora of drugs and blaming it all on her daughter, resulting in, as Queenie put it, a "stone cold bitch."
  • Although we don't get many details, Queenie claims to have come from a broken home. Because of this, she eats a lot, telling Madame LaLaurie that the problem isn't food, it's not getting enough love in her childhood.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Despite never displaying any of the Seven Wonders, Cordelia comes into her powers as Supreme just as the girls are nearing the end of their trial.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Fiona and Cordelia have a very rocky relationship, but it's made clear that Fiona does care for her daughter.
  • Hank grows to love Cordelia in spite of being tasked to kill her, to the point that he instead chooses to attack the voodoo witches in order to eliminate them as a threat.
  • Hank's father cries over pictures of the crime scene at which Hank died.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Delphine LaLaurie admits to murdering a baby for its blood and then telling the mother, but even she would never force a mother to watch as she tortured her daughters.
  • Marie LaVeau would gladly torture LaLaurie, but she objects to torturing LaLaurie's daughters who she claims are innocent. Except she didn't seem to have any trouble hanging them, originally.
  • Fiona forces Delphine to be Queenie's personal slave because, as she puts it, there's nothing she hates more than a racist. Given Fiona's interactions/attitudes with Marie and other African-American characters, how much of this is due to her actually being anti-racist as opposed to her being a member of a society which has been prejudiced against for centuries is in question, though Fiona does mention she voted for Barack Obama in both of his elections.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: Everyone's dead by the end of the season except Cordelia, Kyle, Zoe, and Queenie.
• Everyone Has Standards: In a sign of historical accuracy, the tour guide at the LaLaurie museum tour mentions that even other slave owners, many of whom were marginally kind to their slaves at best, thought Delphine's brutal tortures and cruelties were too much. The "Code Noir," which the guide also brings up, was essentially a "manual" for the proper keeping of slaves, and Delphine's taking it up to eleven didn't sit right with anyone in New Orleans.
• Eye Scream:
  • Cordelia has a jar of acid thrown at her face, blinding her, at the end of "Fearful Pranks Ensue".
  • Myrtle Snow gouges out the eyes of Cecily and Quentin with a melon baller to restore Cordelia's sight during "Head".
  • Cordelia again, stabbing out her new eyes with gardening shears in an attempt to restore her second sight in "Protect the Coven".
  • Delphine has a party before her curse, engaging in traditional Halloween games like the Withered Corpse. A guest expresses disdain for it, saying the "witch's eyes" he's feeling are just peeled grapes. He's wrong.
• Evil Wears Black: The witches of the coven zigzag this trope.
• Face Death with Dignity: Harris Renard. After he sees all his witch hunters get slaughtered right before his eyes, he calmly gets a cup of tea and admits that Fiona and Marie bested him, shortly before Fiona kills him.
  • Also, Myrtle Snow, with regards to her second burning at the stake.
• Fake Guest Star: Angela Bassett (Marie Laveau), Gabourey Sidibe (Queenie) and Jamie Brewer (Nan) are billed as guest stars despite appearing in more episodes than some of the actors who are billed as the stars.
• Fantastic Racism: The Voodoo Queen's kind and Witches are on bad terms at the moment. It also has undertones of normal racism, as voodoo seems to be practiced mostly (or exclusively) by black people, whereas the witches (being descendants of the Salem witches) are mostly white women. It's crossed with Unequal Rites; Marie once referred to herself as a witch, and the Salem descendants have referred to the New Orleans Voodoo community as witches. Marie once helped Fiona with a spell.
• Feminist Fantasy: The plot is a distinctly dark and twisted tale, driven by a diverse cast of women. The shadowy society of magic is almost predominantly female, with the powerful figures of Fiona Goode and Marie Laveau leading the rival groups. Unlike previous installments of the series, the women are the driving force of the story and rarely require assistance or protection from the few male characters. They fight their own battles, with each other as well as the various outside forces that threaten them. It deals with issues of older women as sexual beings, feminism as a force that changed society, sexual assault, and even women as dangerous figures in the form of abusers or killers. It neatly avoids the Double Standards concerning female-on-male violence, portraying either sex as equally capable of being the abuser or the victim. On multiple occasions, students of the school declare that they do not need men to protect them, facing down hordes of zombies or axe-wielding serial killers without needing rescue.
• Fiendish Fraternity: Madison is gang-raped by fraternity brothers while at a Wild Teen Party, and kills them all by flipping their frat bus. The frat's Token Good Teammate is Kyle, who tries to stop the assault, but it's also implied that he has a better understanding of abuse due to being sexually abused by his mother.
• First-Episode Twist: Kyle dies in the bus crash after he interrupts the frat boys gang raping Madison.
• Five-Man Band: The five young witches. Zoe's the ostensible main character (or, at least, the person who the audience follows early in the season), seems to desire doing the right thing, comes from a humble background, and is rather naive about the whole "witch" thing. Madison's everything Zoe isn't: haughty, wealthy, unafraid to use her powers freely to get what she wants, and promiscuous (contrast that with Zoe, who can't have sex because her powers literally kill her partners). Queenie, in addition to being the physically largest and strongest member of the group, has the power of pain transferal. Misty's ability to revive the dead is the most technically advanced and difficult to perform, and requires a good deal of practice and care, as she can't rush the process. Nan's Psychic Powers are decidedly non-offensive, and she's definitely the one who is always trying her best to mediate conflicts. She also displays a knack for traditionally "feminine" activities like baking.
• Foreboding Architecture: Ms. Rochibaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies is more than a little intimidating in all its massive, gorgeous, immaculate, complete-and-total French Colonial whiteness.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In "Bitchcraft", Queenie threatens to slash Madison's throat. At the end of "The Replacements", Fiona murders Madison by slashing her throat.
  • Myrtle claims that if she could pluck out her eyes and give them to Cordelia she would. In the same episode, she gouges out the eyes of the other Council members to replace Cordelia's damaged eyes.
• Friendless Background: Misty's only friend before she joins the Coven is Stevie Nicks. Really, you can just assume that anything having to do with being lonely or having no friends is a trope that fits Misty.
• Gender-Restricted Ability: Mostly. Two warlocks have been seen (one of them in flashback) compared to dozens of female witches. Neither was seen using powers of their own (Quentin even relies on Fiona's magic to boost his book sales), and the one with actual dialog is very Camp Gay. Also, both held seats on the Witch's council, raising more questions.
  • Marie claims Salem witches appropriated their magic from a voodoo-practicing slave, who, in turn, learned it from a Shaman in Africa. How exactly gender comes into it is rarely explained.
• Happily Ever After: Zoe and Kyle get their happy ending as she becomes a member of the council and he becomes the Academy's butler.
• Hates Being Alone: Misty. Dear GOD does Misty fit this trope! However, when people leave, she expects them not to come back.
• Historical Domain Character: Marie Laveau and Delphine LaLaurie.
• Historical In-Joke: Like Murder House, Coven provides a supernatual explanation for a famous mystery: Who was the Axeman and why did he retire? He was a drifting Jazz musician who was himself murdered by a witch coven
  • Taken to a greater extent with the background of the Salem coven. It's outright stated that Queenie is a descendant of Tituba, and implied that Fiona and Cordelia are descended from Sarah Good. Humorously, it's also said that Prudence Mather was the Supreme of Salem at the time of the trials, suggesting that she was a relative of the anti-witch Puritan Cotton Mather (himself a possible early founder or inspiration of Delphi).
• Hollywood Homely: In-Universe. Delphine refers to her daughters as "plain-faced" and refers to one of them as having the "face of a hippo," but when we actually see them they're all fairly attractive.
  • Possibly a subversion, as Delphine is an exceptionally abusive mother, and may have simply been that harsh.
• Hope Spot: Misty's "hope spot" for a friend is when Kyle finds her in the woods. However, he, in a flashback to traumatic events, destroys the shack she lives on and crushes her "eight-track player" and "Leather and Lace" tape, making her see him as a monster, seeing as Stevie Nicks is, of course, her only friend.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The first serious push at the war between the covens comes on Halloween. Implied to be justified due by the supernatural significance of the date.
• Hot Witch: Majority of the characters. Take your pick.
• A House Divided: As the episodes wear on, the in-fighting and betrayal becomes more and more prominent. Until they start killing one another off.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: Marie Laveau says this to Madame Lalaurie in the second episode. She grants her immortality and buries her alive.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Misty
  • At one point, the person she believes could be her only friend breaks a multitude of items in the place the calls home when he has a flashback to his mother's sexual abuse; among these items was her eight-track player and her "Leather and Lace" recording, thus making it seem to her that her connection with the most important thing to her, Stevie Nicks, was broken. However, by the end of the series, she ends up making a few more friends after joining the Coven.
• I Love the Dead:
  • After Madison gets killed, Spalding takes her corpse to his room, and then dresses her body up so he can have a tea party with her.
  • Does reanimated corpses count? If so, then Kyle's mom with Kyle himself, and Zoe with Madison and Kyle.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Zoe in the finale. She gets better though.
• Indulgent Fantasy Segue: As Laveau explains the fertility ritual to Cordelia, the latter pictures herself successfully performing it. Only for Laveau to yank the rug out at the end of the conversation and say 'Not for you, at any price.'
• Interrupted Suicide:
  • Zoe interrupted Kyle's mother from hanging herself.
  • Spalding's ghost interrupted Fiona's suicide attempt. He even gave her ipecac to make her vomit the pills.
• Ironic Name:
  • Fiona Goode. Especially since she's anything but. Although it may be a reference to Sarah Goode, one of the women accused during the Salem Witch Trials.
  • Zoe. Her name is Greek for life. Her power to bring people to death via her vagina goes against that.
• Ironic Hell:
  • Queenie travels to hell in the penultimate episode and the finale, and finds herself in a former fast food restaurant described by Papa Legba as the worst part of her life.
  • Delphine LaLaurie and Marie LaVeau experience the same Hell. The virulent racist LaLaurie is imprisoned in her own torture chamber, while LaVeau is her torturer, robbing her of her righteousness. Also, perhaps more the point-Most of Marie's victims are people who have done something to deserve it. Torturing Delphine's daughter is distressing to her because the girl hasn't done anything to her.
  • In the finale, one of the Seven Wonders requires going to Hell and back. Quennie's Hell is described above, Madison's is being cast in a terrible network TV adaptation of The Sound of Music, Zoe's is having Kyle break up with her over and over, Misty's is being sent back to middle school to vivisect and revive a frog for all eternity, and Cordelia's is being told by her mother Fiona how worthless she is. Misty never makes it back, she just can't let that frog die.
  • Fiona's Hell is being forced to spend eternity in a loveless marriage to the Axeman, living in a smelly shack.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Defied without hesitation by almost all of the younger witches during Coven, but played straight by Mallory in Apocalypse, as it means that Cordelia must undergo the Sacred Taking so that Mallory can become the next Supreme.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When Delphine visits her own house and hears that there were extravagant parties while she was torturing slaves, she says "Horseshit!" then elaborates that "nobody's gonna waste their time with some uppity negro and miss a fabulous party".
• Jedi Mind Trick: Fiona uses one to take the tour of Madame Lalaurie's mansion for free. Later she erases the memories of the workers who dig up Dephine's coffin.
• Jerk Jock: The group of frat brothers who gang rape Madison. Except for Kyle.
• Karmic Death:
  • The frat brothers who gang raped Madison, save for Kyle, who was also killed despite having tried to save her.
  • Later on it's revealed that Delphine, the woman who inflicted unspeakable tortures upon her slaves in the 1830s, died when she was poisoned by Marie Laveau, a voodoo medicine woman who'd given her a poison in the guise of a love potion as revenge for Delphine's mutilation of her lover. Then it turns out that she was alive the entire time, Buried Alive under her manor and freed by Fiona.
  • The two poachers in the second episode are killed when Misty resurrects the gators they'd killed.
• Kick the Dog: When Marie explains to Cordelia—who's desperate to conceive—how the voodoo spell for fertility works, and how much money she charges for it, only to laugh in her face and refuse to perform the spell for any price due to her bad blood with Fiona.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Fiona (albeit a fake death).
• Killed Off for Real: Rather hard to determine in this show, due to the fact that one of the main characters can bring back the dead and does so on a regular basis. The ones we can confirm have no chance of coming back so far:]]
  • Cecily and Quentin, because Myrtle dismembered their bodies and burned the pieces in acid to ensure that Misty couldn't bring them back.
  • Hank, Nan and Joan as for Word of God.
  • Luke, as he was cremated.
  • Misty, as she gets stuck in Hell during the test of the Seven Wonders and turns to ashes.
  • Fiona, The Axeman, Marie, and LaLaurie.
• Kitsch Collection:
  • Spalding has an unsettling amount of Creepy Dolls in his living quarters.
  • Kaylee and Hank met through an online fan community for Thomas Kinkade.
• Lady of Black Magic: Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies aspires to turn its wards into this. This is also what the position of Supreme embodies.
• Large Ham:
  • Marie. Dear God, Marie.
  • Delphine LaLaurie. ""LIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!"
  • Surprisingly, Spalding. When he regains his tongue in "The Dead", he proceeds to chew on his every line. "OUUUR SUPREEME."
  • Myrtle Snow may love a key lime pie more than an ile flottante but her favourite dessert is clearly the scenery.
• Lighter and Softer: Especially compared to the previous season. Ryan Murphy even said this season would be lighter and more "evil glamour."
• Masquerade: Witches have to hide their powers to avoid another witch-hunt. This might also be why, despite Fiona's scoffing, Marie is content with owning a single hair salon in a rough part of town; it lets her keep a low profile.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: By the end of the season, every single male character has died, one of them twice, and the only one still alive at the end was killed in the first episode.
  • Excluding of course, Papa Legba who's still kicking around by the end of the season, although it could be argued he's not a man, he's a God
• Missing Mom: Many characters' mothers are unseen, but the only one who's definitely gone is Misty's.
• Mugging the Monster: The Ax-Man tried to kill the wrong woman and ended up being killed by the entire coven of witches. His spirit was trapped in there until freed later on.
  • Those frat boys in "Bitchcraft" had no idea who they were literally fucking with.
  • Madison runs afoul of this when she tricks Misty into being buried alive and gets her ass handed to her by the latter for it.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: After Fiona's death, the girls of the coven describe Fiona as a great Supreme. Subverted by Cordelia, who tells them that she was the worst thing to ever happen to the coven.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The "Initiation" trailer" shows dozens of girls walking into the school and Marie, Fiona, and Delphine standing together in black dresses and masquerade masks, implying that they would be teachers, or are at least working together. There are only four students at the school in the present day, and out of the three older women, only one of them—Fiona—is actually connected to the school, and none of them are on particularly friendly terms.
  • However, the Initiation Trailer may have been incredible foreshadowing of the events of "The Seven Wonders", since tons of girls arrive at the school (the girls from all over America), Cordelia opens the door, (She's the Supreme), Kyle inside the house looking out at the new arrivals (he's the new butler), Zoe and Queenie are the only two of the initial four girls to wear the "witch uniforms"(Madison and Nan wear their own clothes) which possibly tells us they would live on to help solidify the coven during its golden age as the new council, and Fiona, Delphine and Marie with masks and black clothing, all "up in the sky" (they're all dead, in hell).
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: One of the show's biggest criticisms. Most witches are born with a single power that they can perform without ritual. It was originally a big deal that Madison could perform several powers at once, making the others think she'd be the next Supreme, but by the end of the season, all the younger witches were suddenly sprouting multiple powers out of nowhere.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Good job resurrecting an axe-wielding serial killer, Zoe.
  • Invoked in "The Sacred Taking" when Fiona forces Misty Day to revive Joan, who wound up suffocating her son.
  • By restoring Cordelia's regular sight, Myrtle took away her Disability Superpower. This led Cordelia to gouge her eyes out later on to get it back.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Hank's father thought that blinding Cordelia with acid would make her more dependent on Hank. Since it gave her the Sight and thus the ability to sense that he was no good, it had the opposite effect.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Kyle is the only fraternity member who stops the other members gang raping Madison and tries to seize the video of it. He ends up getting killed by Madison in the bus crash.
  • Luke takes a bullet for Nan and ends up in the hospital. When he finally wakes up, his own mother kills him because he found out what happened to his father.
• Non-Indicative Name: The term "transmutation" generally refers to the ability to transform one thing into another, such as people into frogs or lesser elements into gold, but here, the Wonder of Transmutation seems to refer exclusively to Teleport Spam.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: While most of the witches aren't necessarily from Louisiana, none of the frat boys in the first episode sound remotely Southern. Even the alligator hunters sound nothing like they would in real life.
  • Truth in Television: Many young people in the US don't have the accent that is associated with their location despite having lived there their whole lives. This is thought to be because people are watching more and more television and therefore ending up with the generic American accent heard on most TV shows.
  • With the Frat Boys, this is more than likely a Justified Trope. New Orleans' universities attract a lot of out of state students.
  • Native New Orleanians are also known for an idiosycratic accent closer to New York than the rest of the South. Kyle's pre- death accent is a pretty fair approximation.
• Nothing After Death: Madison claims this after her death, but given that the Axe-Man was lingering until they freed him it's arguable.
  • This could be Madison's version of hell; after all, an attention whore's greatest fear must be a place where she can attract no attention because she's all alone.
  • as shown in Apocalypse, her actual hell is working at a retail outlet with an infinite line of rude and ungrateful customers.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: Misty.
  • "Dirty hippie." - Queenie whilst cleaning her room of Misty's belongings.
• N-Word Privileges: Delphine outright called Barack Obama with the word upon seeing him on TV.
• Odd Friendship: Seems to be developing between, of all people, Delphine and Queenie.
• Offing the Offspring: Joan Ramsey suffocated her son Luke with a pillow when he revealed to her that he knew of her involvement in his father's death. Later when Nan found out, she ended up killing Joan.
• Only Friend: Misty's only friend is Stevie Nicks, whom she doesn't even know up until episode 10, The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks.
• Ouija Board: The girls in the Coven find one. It connected them to the Axe-Man, who tells Zoe where Madison's corpse is in exchange for release.
• Our Witches Are Different: The Salem Witches are born with certain magical powers; so far, Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis, Clairvoyance, Injury Transference, Mind Control, Sight, Resurgence, Life Drinking, Teleportation, Illusionism, and a Killer Vagina have been used.
• Outside-Genre Foe: The police have no trouble at all figuring out what happened to the frat boys. It's the how that they didn't even see coming.
• Out with a Bang: Exaggerated.
  • Zoe's boyfriend, whom she accidentally kills with her cursed vagina.
  • All but one of the frat boys who gang rape Madison, one of whom is himself raped by Zoe while in a coma.
  • Kaylee, who gets shot in the head shortly after having sex with Hank.
• Parental Abandonment: Misty's parents are both gone. Throughout the series, it remains unknown whether it was due to means of death (perhaps before she knew about her powers) or abandonment.
• Passing the Torch: A two-fold one in the finale. Cordelia takes her place as the Supreme from her mother, while Kyle takes Spalding's place as the Academy's butler and bodyguard.
• Passive Aggressive Combat: When Fiona meets Marie LaVeau for the first time in her hair salon, they spend the whole time sniping at each other and engaging in Cultural Posturing while Marie does Fiona's hair.
• Pet the Dog: Shortly after Cordelia is blinded, Fiona wanders the halls of the hospital and brings a mother's stillborn baby back to life, despite knowing nothing about her.
• Place Worse Than Death: Fiona threatens to exile Myrtle... to Paramus, New Jersey.
• Plenty of Blondes: Over half of the primary cast.
• Plot Armor:
  • After the frat boys rape Madison, they get back in their party bus and boot the driver before taking off. This coincidentally saves the innocent driver from Madison's wrath.
  • So long as Misty's around, the main cast has no need to fear death. Just ask Madison and Myrtle.
    • Unless of course one were to turn the remains to ashes, dissolve them in acid, or otherwise decompose them. In the words of Misty herself, "Even I can't bring back gator shit." Just ask Luke, or the Council Members.
• Police Are Useless: Averted. The NOPD figure out everything that happened in the party and the hospital in a matter of a couple of days and break Zoe with ease. This forces Fiona to intervene.
• Poltergeist: The Axe-Man.
• Present Day: Already confirmed by Ryan Murphy, though the series will also take place in the 1830's.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: Frances Conroy.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Tons of. Fiona, Madison, Marie Laveau, Zoe, Queenie, and Misty are all some combination of murderer, rapist, or torturer, and the morality of their actions is never really brought up, only their recklessness. Aside from a few of Fiona's murders and Kyle's death, none are portrayed in anything like a negative light. Indeed, they tend to congratulate each other on their horrific deeds. Even Nan doesn't call out Queenie for effectively sticking a man's hand into a deep-fat fryer for at least a full minute. And all this is apparently because they're witches.
  • Myrtle actually lampshades this when discussing what to do about the Axeman. When Madison excuses killing him by saying the Axeman is a murderous psychopath Myrtle replies with "Is there anyone here whom that cannot be said about?"
• Rape Portrayed as Redemption: Thankfully, wonderfully subverted with Madison, who remains as mean as she ever was.
• Redemption Equals Death:
  • Hank goes on a rampage and murders all the voodoo witches in order to erase them as a threat to Cordelia, fully knowing he might die, and does.
  • Queenie attempts to invoke this in Delphine, by telling her she won't kill her until she gives up her racist beliefs.
• Redemption Rejection: Twice in the penultimate episode. Queenie tries to get Delphine to renounce her racism, the Axe-Man tries to get Fiona to leave with him. Both reject the offer, and are murdered for it.
• Retreaux: The flashbacks to Salem times are done in an expressionistic, 1920s silent film style, with Georges Méliès-style special effects.
• Ritual Magic: Favored by Marie Laveau and the voodoo practitioners. The Salem Coven also use it to a lesser degree.
• Salem Is Witch Country: The witches are all descended from witches who fled Salem to escape the witch trials.
• Say Your Prayers: Misty, before going to Hell: "I wonder what it'll be like." From that moment on, you know she's going to be the one who dies. Damn! Zoe and her hats get to live.
• Scenery Porn: Completely justified in that the show is shot in New Orleans, not to fill a show shot there with scenery porn would be wasting such a unique city. Hell, it makes you want to move there.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Madison in the finale, after she fails the Divination test. She doesn't get far.
• Sequel Hook: Sort of. Originally the plan was to spin this season off into it's own show, but that was eventually decided against (presumably the producers realized they'd basically have to come up with an entirely new cast for the next season of AHS if all the current cast were doing Coven), and they tried to wrap things up. That said, however, this does remain the only season to date in which a sequel would be even theoretically possible only about half the cast is actually dead, rather than the usual "Everybody Dies" Ending, and the Coven is growing. It can be argued that Apocalypse is a sequel season.
  • Scream Queens seems to be a Spiritual Successor to Coven, especially with the already obvious similarities between Madison and Chanel (also portrayed by Emma Roberts), and the camp/glam horror style of both.
• Sex Magic: The series presents multiple variations of this trope:
  • All witches possess at least one unique ability. Zoe Benson discovers her ability to kill people she has sex with when her boyfriend violently hemorrhages to death during their first. They call it "Black Widow" if you needed a label for it.
  • Cordelia and Hank Foxx attempt a fertility ritual in hopes that they could conceive. It doesn't work.
• Shipper on Deck: Myrtle for Kyle/Zoe, evidenced when she gives them bus tickets to Orlando and looks heartbroken when they come back.
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: One wonders how many hours in the days Miss Robichaux's devotes to actual classes with all the time its pupils have to have mid-day cocktails with the current Supreme (not that Cordelia could stop her mother...) and taxi resurrected love interests to and from swamps, plus all the time Cordelia has to look into baby options (especially since she seems to be the only teacher and headmistress).
  • Likely Justified in that the "school" is more of an alias for a protective coven for young witches.
• Shout-Out:
  • Similarly to another pair of star-crossed lovers, Zoe and Kyle first see each other through water (but in the form of an ice sculpture as opposed to an aquarium.)
  • Upon learning that she is being sent to a school for witches, Zoe immediately compares it to Hogwarts. Like Hogwarts, paintings of all the previous headmistresses and Supremes line the walls.
    • Another HP shoutout comes from none other than Fiona, telling Cordelia that, "her little Hogwarts session is over," when said Supreme decided to take over.
  • A story about young people with strange abilities taken to live a school where one adult wants them to be passive and another adult wants them to be aggressive? Where have we heard this before?
  • A more meta example appears in "Fearful Pranks Ensue", where Zoe makes eye-contact with a boy in skeleton make up. Sound familiar?
  • In episode 5, Queenie references the mob of zombies by saying "Tell it to the Army of Darkness." And then Zoe goes to town on them with a chainsaw.
  • In episode 6 Queenie mockingly calls Spalding Riff-Raff.
  • A possibly unintentional one appears in episode 7. Zoe asks Cordelia what they're going to do about Fiona killing off any possible future Supremes. Cordelia responds, It's simple. We're going to kill my mother."
  • In episode 8, Delphine's head is sent to Madame. Robichaux's in a box.
• Shown Their Work: The variant of French that Delphine and Marie speak in "Bitchcraft" is Louisiana French and Louisiana Creole French rather than modern French.
• Silver Bullet: Witch-hunters use blessed silver bullets to kill witches.
  • Averted by Queenie, who uses one to kill Hank with her Voodoo power by shooting herself in the head. She spits the bullet back out and tells the others that she's something beyond Witchcraft and Voodoo, something that not even silver bullets can stop.
    • It might also be a Subverted Trope. Fiona only notes that she can tell one of the silver bullets has been blessed, it doesn't sear her skin or anything. It's possible she's only used a form of psychometry or divination to tell where a mundane object has been. There's definitive evidence that these witches are weak to silver, only that the witch hunters think they are.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • As Myrtle is being sent to be burned at the stake and is getting drenched in gasoline, R&B song "Right Place Wrong Time" by Dr. John is playing in the background.
  • In "Head", when Hank turns on Marie and shoots up the entire hair salon and when Joan smothers Luke,, a Negro spiritual is playing.
  • In the season finale, when Myrtle is being sent to be burned at the stake again, "Silver Springs" is playing.
• Southern Gothic
• Spoiler Opening: The opening foreshadows who the next Supreme is. The credit image for Sarah Paulson's name has Santa Muerta, the Lady of the Seven Powers.
• Stealth Pun:
  Myrtle: Oh yes, call the council! I hear they're not seeing anyone right now!
  • Fiona slips one by when she tells Delphine to "Just zip it." She isn't just referring to her dress...
• Stock Unsolved Mysteries: The Axeman was a real serial killer active in New Orleans in 1918 and 1919, who famously threatened to kill anyone who wouldn't be playing jazz music on the night of March 19, 1919 and who was never apprehended. In the show that night he attacked the witch coven, which didn't end well for him.
• Stylistic Suck: The Seven Wonders are portrayed in Episode 12, "Go to Hell", as a silent movie, complete with primitive camera tricks to depict the magic.
• Take That!: Madison's vision of Hell during the Seven Wonders is being cast in a terrible network TV adaptation of The Sound of Music, an obvious joke at the expense of NBC's 2013 adaptation starring Carrie Underwood.
  • Team Mom: Cordelia.
• Team Killer: Fiona initially, but things eventually gets worse and complicated.
• Teleporter Accident: Zoe accidentally kills herself during the Transmutation (teleportation) test, by re-materializing in the wrong, and very unfortunate, place.
• Team Title: Coven means gathering of witches. That being said, they spend most of their time snarking at each other.
• There Can Be Only One: As one Supreme gains power, the other begins to lose their own. There can only be one for the position. Fiona killed the last Supreme, and then killed Madison out of fear that she'd take her place.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • In a flashback, the Axe-Man is stabbed no less than fifty times by a group of witches.
  • He is killed this way AGAIN in "Go To Hell".
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: While Madison easily uses it the most, the entire cast gets in on it. So much, it inspired this video.
• Three-Way Sex: Between Zoe, Madison and Kyle.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Cordelia finally catches a break in the finale, where it's revealed that she's the Supreme. She even gets her eyesight back.
• Trauma Conga Line: Cordelia. First, she finds out she's infertile, then it's revealed that her husband's cheating on her. In the same episode, someone throws acid in her face and blinds her. Two episodes later, she finds out about her husband's affair, and in that same episode, she's nearly killed by a resurrected serial killer.
• Truth in Television: If you think that people wouldn't be stupid enough to rape a girl and videotape it, then you haven't heard of Steubenville.
• Unexpected Character: Oh hi, Stevie Nicks. Fancy seeing you here.
• Uniqueness Decay: Misty's power to bring back the dead. Fiona displays this power, Zoe gains this power, and it's one of the Seven Wonders.
  • That could be up for debate. Misty's power is inherent to herself, as she's been raising animals since at least middle school, if her personal Hell is anything to go off of; The Seven Wonders ability Vitalum Vitalis is more like liquid assets; the resurrection spell is something specifically designed to emulate people like Misty who were born with the ability.
• Urban Fantasy
• The Unmasqued World: After her ascension as Supreme, Cordelia reveals the existence of witches to the world on national television, in order to bring an entire generation of young witches into the fold.
• V-Formation Team Shot: The Coven gets one in "Go To Hell", they're even standing in an inverted V.
• Voodoo Doll: Played straight both by Queenie's inherent gift as a witch and by Marie, who uses one to torture Hank.
• Vorpal Pillow: Joan smothers Luke in hospital with a pillow at the end of Head.
• Witch with a Capital "B": The first episode's title, "Bitchcraft".
• World of Ham: This season has the hammiest characters to date.
• Your Worst Memory: Those damned to Hell are forced into either their worst nightmare or their worst memory, as the witches discover when they visit during their final exams: in the case of the latter, Queenie ends up working her old self-esteem-destroying job at the fried chicken restaurant, while animal-loving Misty Day is condemned to relive the dissection of a frog in biology class. Of the two, Queenie is able to leave before it's too late; Misty doesn't.

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