Was Fiona's decision to make Delphine Queenie's slave sincerely because she hated racism, because she wanted to humble Delphine, or just because she wanted to endear one of the students to her? Or because Delphine is a normal human—albeit one cursed with immortality—and Fiona's opinion of normal humans is only slightly better than, say, her bigotry towards Voodoo practitioners?
Was Madison's traumatized reaction to being brought back from the dead actually a delayed response to the gang-rape she initially seemed to have gotten over quickly? Emma Roberts, for one, seems to think so, stating that she played those initial scenes as if everything was catching up to Madison at once.
Is Delphine's eldest daughter Borquita a willing (albeit guilt-ridden) accomplice in her mother's torture of the slaves? Or does she only do this due to having been broken by being locked in the torture chamber for a year (a punishment that she could face again if she crosses Delphine)?
Though the fandom didn't take well to Hank, some found his death to be rather tragic.
Madison's death is pretty tragic when you take into account that Kyle had previously been the only frat brother that tried to do something about his fraternity gang raping her and also that she was left traumatized by her death and return. It's hard not to think that Spalding doing what her wants to do with her body was a little too much.
Angst? What Angst?: Shower of Angst and Tranquil Fury aside, Madison gets over her gang-rape pretty quickly. She even lampshades it. Her death and resurrectiondoes seem to have left her shaken though.
The Axe-Man, Fiona, and Marie curb-stomp all of the witch-hunters in only a couple of minutes, despite the show making them seem like they were a dangerous, well-organized, threatening group.
The Axe-Man himself is brutally struck down by his axe and stabbed dozens of times by all the witches without even putting up a fight.
Marie Laveau. She gets knocked out, cut to pieces (completely off screen save for one moment), and then her immortality is removed on a technicality by Papa Legba, thanks to Queenie.
Madison who was shown to be very strong and competent in her powers was killed off very easily by Kyle who most likely wouldn't be stronger than her.
Madison. She's either a fierce, entertainingly evil bitch or an annoying one-note jerk.
Zoe, due to her lack of action at the start, the morally questionable rape in the first episode, aggressiveness later on. However, her kindness with Kyle, cool powers and willingness to fight made her enjoyable.
There are still arguments to this day about who should have been the Supreme. One group thinks Zoe should be the Supreme due to displaying all Seven Wonders. A portion of the fanbase believes Madison was the true Supreme, and Cordelia assumed the supremacy right as Madison died. A third base believes that Cordelia did deserve to be the Supreme, after all she has been through in the season and in life. There are groups within the fandom for each member who believes that specific member should have been the Supreme.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Stevie Nicks showing up in the season finale, singing a song, and meandering out the door afterwards.
Creepy Awesome: Myrtle Snow's utterly fabulous and macabre revenge against the Council.
Spalding keeping Madison's corpse in the attic was disturbing, especially since he dressed her up and later on had sex with the body. But watching him accidentally tear off her left arm was funnier than it should've been.
Marie chopping off Delphine's hand is pretty hilarious considering that Delphine was stupid enough to mock and taunt Marie while locked inside a cage.
Delphine closing her eyes and loudly singing "Dixie" when Queenie tries to force her to watch Roots (1977) as part of a crash course in African-American history. Did we mention that she's a disembodied head in that scene?
Myrtle Snow gleefully slapping a pair of feet together while disposing of Cecily and Quentin's hacked up bodies.
When Cordelia finally has an emotional breakdown and starts smashing everything around her, Myrtle looks like she's about to say something to comfort her. Then she decides to ignore her and nonchalantly continues playing her theremin.
Delphine watching Barack Obama's inauguration and sobbing in response to a black man being elected president.
The Axe-Man kills a witch hunter by picking up a severed hand still clutching a handgun, and then shooting the witch hunter with the gun still pried in the severed hand's fingers.
Marie taking a picture while The Axe-Man slaughters the witch hunters.
Draco in Leather Pants: Madison Montgomery is an Alpha Bitch who only cares about power and herself, but try telling that to her legion of fangirls. She tries to kill Zoe multiple times, takes advantage of Kyle recently coming back from the dead to have sex with him, and tries to leave Misty to die buried in a grave. However, due to being played by Emma Roberts, a lot of fangirls are quick to paint her as a tragic hero while pairing her with Zoe and even reinterpreting Kyle as an abusive Jerk Jock.
Nan seems to have been received well by the audience. Misty is hands-down the most popular character in the show, with many fans wishing that she would be the next Supreme despite her stating that she does NOT want to be it.
Myrtle has gotten quite a bit of love for her dynamic with Fiona, intelligence and her relationship with Misty Day. She's been especially popular post-revival by Misty, with her being more assertive and cunning.
Fan-Preferred Couple: The fandom has taken a huge liking to Misty Day and Cordelia Foxx (Foxxay). It is also much more popular than the canon Cordelia/Hank. This is mainly due to the Les Yay between the two, and the chemistry between Paulson and Rabe. It easily outranks all other pairings from the whole series in terms of numbers on Archive of Our Own, and is still quite popular on Tumblr and YouTube to this day. It also resulted in many fans shipping the two actresses as well.
Fridge Brilliance: The finale has Queenie failing to revive Zoe despite using that ability in the past. Cordelia once said that witches gain extra powers in dire situations meaning in that situation she only temporary channeled that ability, explaining both why she was able to do it before and working as a Red Herring before that episode.
Myrtle suggests that the girls are developing so many powers so quickly (aside from the danger), is that Cordelia's magic was manifesting through them. All the powers the girls manifest after they come into the Academy are one of the Seven Wonders, powers the Supreme has. The only exceptions are Zoe's Necromancer powers (developed before she spent more of her time at the academy); and Queenie's ability to survive being shot, which developed after being away from the Coven.
The name-dropping of the Salem Trials-era Supreme, Prudence Mather, has strong implications to those familiar with the trials. Cotton Mather was a Salem clergyman who wrote a famous sermon on the virtue of prudence, and was an active supporter of the witch hunt. This suggests not only the possibility that the Supreme was his daughter, but also that Cotton was a founder or inspiration of the Delphi Trust. Additionally, one of the women accused of witchcraft and executed was a prostitute named Mima Renard, implying the Renard family is descended from a witch.
Joan says to Luke 'I made you and I can unmake you'. In 'Head' she makes good on that promise.
The feature of Stevie Nicks' music and Misty's insistence that she's a witch. The creators actually had to spend a lot of time getting her permission to user her music and, later on, get her to agree to cameo. She was hesitant because she'd gotten a lot of harassing fanmail and hate-mail from people who were convinced that her lyrics were proof of her being an actual witch.
Madison's abuse of Kyle, and him killing her, in light of former couple Emma Roberts and Evan Peters making headlines about domestic abuse several times during their publicly tumultuous relationship.
Fashion victim Myrtle crying out "Balenciaga!" at her second execution by fire has aged poorly due to the brand's 2022 ad controversy.
He's Just Hiding: Delphine's daughters inspire a somewhat double-layered example. Firstly, since Marie denies hurting innocents and doesn't want to torture them in Hell, it's possible she faked their deaths with her magic in 1834. Secondly, many believe that the versions of them being repeatedly tortured to death in Marie and Delphine's hell are mere illusions and not the actual characters.
I Knew It!: Delia being the next Supreme. Zoe would have been way too obvious, a promo spoiled Misty's death, and Madison and Queenie weren't as important. There was also a significant clue in that her credits image in the opening sequence depicted Santa Muerte, AKA the Lady of Seven Powers.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: One of the major complaints about this season seems to be about how it doesn't offer anything new, especially regarding Jessica Lange's character Fiona, seen by many as a retread of her season 1 character, Constance.
Same goes for Denis O'Hare, yet again playing a gutless grotesque hopelessly in love with Jessica Lange's character.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Delphine and Marie having such a bitter hatred this season is kind of funny when you realize Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett's characters are best friends in the next season.
Fiona's quote from the first episode "Wear something... black." is fairly popular with fans. On Tumblr, it's sometimes combined with another memetic quote to create "On Wednesdays, we wear black."
Misty's quote 'He broke Stevie' gained a small bit of popularity as well.
Delphine did some hideous things in the past. But even she admits the evil of killing a baby produced between a slave girl and her husband.
Queenie selling out Delphine, who at that point considered her a dear friend and was on a quest for redemption, to Marie Laveau definitely counts.
Joan Ramsey may have been cruel, but at least she still loved her son. Then she kills him after he finds out what happened to his father.
In the exact reverse of Alas, Poor Scrappy above, some felt that Hank's brutal rampage through Marie Laveau's salon made him an absolutely irredeemable character.
After Zoe stabs Spalding, he proceeds to stick out his tongue in such a silly way that it looked like he was trying to blow a raspberry at her.
When Hank tries to ask for forgiveness from Cordelia in "Head," he does so using the sappiest lines ever, such as saying that "his heart is bleeding."
The phrase "baby gravy" is always narmful, even if it is spoken by Angela Basset as Marie Laveau when she explains a fertility ritual to Cordelia.
"Surprise bitch. Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me." Compared with the general tone of this season, that's a little hard to take seriously.
Misty's idea of hell is her middle school biology class where she's in an infinite loop and raising and killing her frog. Becomes heartbreaking, though, when she can't escape the loop and dies trapped there.
Narm Charm: Myrtle's last words before being burned at stake being "BALENCIAGAAA!!!". Incredibly ridiculous and yet oddly fitting for a fashion-loving Cloudcuckoolander like her.
Nausea Fuel: Joan Ramsey being forced to drink bleach.
Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: According to show creator Ryan Murphy and Cordelia's actress Sarah Paulson, Cordelia and Misty Day have a mother-daughter relationship. However, they are a popular ship within the fandom. Misty's quick hero-worship of Cordelia comes across more like a student who has a crush on her teacher. While Cordelia teaches Misty magic, she even tells her husband to get out so she can do so, making Misty stay when she tries to leave and acts like someone mad that their ex is interrupting their date. Cordelia also quickly grows attached to Misty and is crushed by her death, which haunts her for years, and which she takes harder than the death of her husband. When Misty is eventually revived in Apocalypse, Cordelia is overjoyed at seeing her again and says that despite knowing her for such a short time, she's missed her forever. The last we see of either is after Mallory brings Misty back, with the two embracing each other. Paulson and Lily Rabe (who plays Misty) also have a natural chemistry which makes the two come off a lot closer than they should be in the story.
Opinions on Zoe weren't that good, until 'Burn Witch Burn' where she killed several zombies with a chainsaw. Her actions in The Axe Man Cometh put her back in to some.
She ended up going right back to The Scrappy Heap after a few episodes though, this time for being a shallow, bland character who's entire storyline revolved around Kyle.
Joan singing Let It Be to Luke is genuinely heartwarming. She heads right back in when she goes back to being a jerk to Nan and goes further still upon smothering Luke.
Some feel that Hank was rescued from the heap because of the shootout at Marie Laveau's, which can be perceived as a suicide mission in order to remove the voodoo clan from being a threat to Cordelia.
"The Replacements". Between Kyle's mother having sex with him, a mason jar of semen, and Queenie rubbing one out in front of LaLaurie's bullheaded houseboy, it's going to produce a very strong urge to shower.
"The Axeman Cometh" confirms that Spalding did have sex with Madison's corpse, as if dressing her up and playing tea party with her wasn't creepy enough.
Zoe impales herself on the M.me Robichaux's gate after a transmutation gone wrong.
FrankenKyle finally puts an end to Madison after she pointedly refuses to resurrect Zoe.
Fiona dies and gets her own hell.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Many long-time fans, critics and even some who started watching this season share this opinion. But of course, there are just as many who consider this season better than Asylum.
A lot of fans felt that the show's large cast and world-building would have done well if the season was longer, giving everyone time to shine.
A lot of time was devoted to Delphine trying to atone for her past and becoming friends with Queenie. Then the plot is unceremoniously warped when Queenie learns about Delphine's past Moral Event Horizon. Queenie immediately disregards Delphine's friendship and wishes to change, sells her out to Marie after Marie tells her a bunch of (mostly wrong) assumptions about the white witches, and any attempts at educating Delphine are through aggression and rudeness. Delphine's character development is completely undone. It was a great subplot until that point.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: An odd version. Even though this is the third highest-rated season of American Horror Story so far, yet some find none of the characters particularly sympathetic.
Nan, who dies not only after discovering her powers are growing stronger, but also after she kills Joan.
Misty dies after failing to escape from her own personal hell.
Myrtle demands that Cordelia burn her at the stake in order to get ensure that the newly-revived Coven has a sense of accountability.
Madison being killed off in the finale slightly feels like this considering she was one of the strongest witches in both her powers and her will.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: The witch hunters are ostensibly the most obvious antagonists in a season full of moral grey area, but it's not hard to see why they might see the need for the extermination of witches. Almost every witch we've seen has no qualms with murder, torture and other violence.
Delphine's daughters. Delphine scares away their suitors while saying that they're ugly and it's their fault. They're disgusted and traumatized by what she does to her slaves. When they half-seriously talk about killing Delphine, she has them locked in her torture chamber (breaking Borquita's leg in the process), relishing their sheer, sobbing terror. She leaves them there for a whole year and forces Borquita to eat feces on Christmas. Then they're slowly hanged during Marie's revenge against Delphine, get resurrected as mindless zombies, and are stuck being brutally tortured for eternity just because watching and participating in their torture is someone else's hell (although that may have just been illusions of them).
Cordelia is emotionally abused and manipulated by her mother, her husband is cheating on her and is a witch-hunter, and she's traumatized by the deaths of some of her friends.
Delphine's slaves, who she subjects to endless torture just because she can.
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