As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
In General
- KAI. Full stop. In a show filled with antagonists and villains who are boosted by their supernatural status, as a normal human he is terrifyingly real. An expert manipulator who extracts people's darkest secrets from them and uses their secrets against them, he relishes torturing Ally and quickly kills anyone who he believes is in his way, including his own siblings. His hold on his followers only makes him worse, as they will do absolutely anything for him (including killing themselves, which he'll happily have them do). Even his very physical appearance can be unsettling at times. And the worst part? He could really exist. It's enough to make anyone paranoid.
Teaser and Title Sequence
- A shirtless man dons a stern-faced mask of Donald Trump and turns its piercing glare towards the viewer. Regardless of your political preference or whether you praise or pan Trump, if you watch this frame in the dead of midnight with crickets your only company in a dark room of a house in a rural countryside, or anywhere with too much silence, one may feel that the masked man with his pseudo-real face has it in for you. He's got something in mind for you, and even if you do know what he's going to do (i.e. kill, kidnap, or torture) you, you don't want to find out how he will do it!
- The bugs crawling out of the woman. Fear of bugs and trypophobia are extremely common fears.
Election Night
- The opening scene. Not only can it bring back election anxiety, but televisions should not be humped!
- Winter trying to corrupt Oz. While Oz's moms are working at their restaurant, Winter tries to show him a brutal stabbing on the dark web. Oz soon tells her that he doesn't want to see it anymore, but she convinces him to keep watching it.
The Neighbors from Hell
- The Cold Open. Showing a woman with a fear of being buried alive conquering her fear... only for the cult to break in, lock her and her husband in coffins, and leave them to suffocate.
- The new neighbors wearing sombreros taunting Ally for having killed Pedro. They appear more vicious and malicious than Kai when they rattle the bars and throw coupons at their prey.
- The chemical truck is high grade. It summons memories of the Joker's smilex balloon from the 1989 Batman, given the green smoke trailing from its rear. When Ally discovers the dead birds, the horror goes up.
- Oz's pet guinea pig being microwaved.
- The men in the dark hazmat suits spraying the toxic green gas mentioned earlier and their bloodied nose smiley face masks beneath their gas masks.
11/9
- Gary cutting off his hand.
Holes
- The cult members, at Kai's urging, very reluctantly decide to take turns using a nail gun to shoot nails into the head of a still-living R.J., who joined the cult but was hesitant to participate in murders with the others. Other than Kai, Gary has a sadistic and chilling smile and seems to be the only one to enjoy it as he performs the act.
Mid-Western Assassin
- Kai convincing Meadow to open gunfire at his campaign rally in a stomach-twisting scene wherein he first has her tied up and thrown in a closet before seducing and effortlessly manipulating her into doing what he wants, with the implication that he told her to kill herself for him, as she does earlier in the episode. The absolute hold he has over her is chilling.
- This episode was actually censored for the original television broadcast due to the 2017 Las Vegas Shooting in which 58 people were killed and 422 were injured at a country music festival which happened six days prior before the episode aired. The uncut version of the episode then made available for online streaming and eventually was aired on TV.
Winter of Our Discontent
- The whole flashback scene involving the Sinister Minister that Kai and Winter met from the dark web. Not only does he kidnap people he believes to be "sinners", he also straps them in to death traps that wouldn't be out of place in a Saw movie. Even worse when Kai reveals that the "sinners" that were kidnapped were completely innocent, and were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Drink The Kool-Aid
- As the intro reminds the audience, this season's events to date are not far off from reality, directly recalling Heaven's Gate, the Branch Davidians, and Jonestown, dwelling particularly on the suicidal ends of those three cults.
- Kai attempts to recreate one of those stories with his own cult, convincing everyone to drink some kool-aid he made, including Ivy, Ally, and his own sister Winter. Thankfully it was all just to make an example, but still.
- And during all this, one of the cult members freaks out, not wanting to die via poisoned kool-aid, and ends up getting himself shot to death, despite the kool-aid being perfectly safe to drink in the first place.
Charles (Manson) In Charge
- The re-enactment of the Helter Skelter killings, complete with Sharon Tate begging for the life of her child.
- Everything about the Night of a Thousand Tates.
- The betrayal of Gary comes with Kai thanking him for his service and hugging him, then everyone else stabbing him to death.
