'American Horror Story' Season 7, Episode 10 'Charles (Manson) In Charge' Recap: Kai's Unraveling Psyche [SPOILERS]

“American Horror Story” is running out of characters but still uses actors to play other roles. Kai’s paranoia is causing the thinning of his original cult members. The twist and turns this show can take are both shocking and bloody. “American Horror Story” Season 7, Episode 10, titled “Charles (Manson) In Charge” results in two more deaths. Kai is succumbing to his own madness and it’s interesting to know who was the muse of his political views.

Unleashing Feminist Rage

The episode opened with another flashback of Kai and Winter during the Presidential debate. Winter and her friends are on the coach supporting Hillary Clinton, extremely confident in her chances of winning. This triggers Kai, and he tells them that people hate Hillary. One of Winter’s friends decided to poke fun at Kai’s alt-right views. She angers Kai, and he slaps her. This lands him in anger management.
During his anger management session, we meet Frances Conroy’s character Bebe Babbitt once again. In an unlikely twist, she’s an old-school feminist who likes Trump. The reason why she likes him is that he unleashes the feminine rage. She enables Kai to use his power as a man to help empower the anger amongst women. Then we cut to a scene putting that plan into motion. It’s a Facebook live stream of two opposing sides. It soon leads to a violent turn when one of the protesters threw a bottle of urine at Kai. While another protester runs up and pepper sprays him. If this was the rage Bebe wanted, then Kai is doing the job right—or at least trying to.
During one his nights of paranoia, Bebe visits him and confronts Kai about his purpose. She tells him off, telling him that he has failed her. She asked for Feminist Chaos but instead, he was going out on a killing spree and knocking women off their pedestals. Bebe tries to shoot Kai but Ally saves him. Maybe he can count on women after all?

The Cult’s Increasing Paranoia

Protesters rise against Kai’s movement and the increasing paranoia. With the huge media coverage it’s getting, he’s afraid the cops would get him. He has Winter and Ally stripping off the ice cream van they used to make sure that there’s nothing against him. But this angers him even more. To relax and motivate his white supremacist followers, he tells them another story. He tells them of the tale of Charles Manson and the infamous murders at actress Sharon Tate’s house in 1969. The reenactment of the Manson Murders plays out in graphic detail and in the end, Kai tells his followers he wants something bigger. He wants a night of a 1,000 Tates. He has his loyal follower, Gary break into a Planned Parenthood facility to get the names of the women having abortions.

But it was a trap for a sacrifice, as Kai had his most loyal followers killed to throw the cops out of his tracks. The next day, Beverly reports Gary’s death and interviews Kai, who puts the blame on the alt-left. Just like Kai, Beverly is also paranoid. She can’t even accept Winter’s kind gestures without thinking she will cut off her hand. Meanwhile, Kai continues to go mad when he hears a high pitch buzzing in his cult attic. He draws up the conclusion there is a mole amongst his followers. Kai’s paranoia escalates when he hallucinates his brother’s corpse telling him of his failures. However, he was cut short by Kai’s hallucination of Charles Manson. Manson tells Kai that it’s always the women who ruin everything for the men.

‘American Horror Story’ Characters Dropping Like Flies

Kai suspects his sister Winter as the mole when Ally hands him over the evidence pointing to her. Ally supposedly found a bug sewn in Kai’s pillow and a recorder inside the van radio. Kai interrogates Winter in front of his followers. Despite her defense, he did not believe her. He knew the conversations she had with Beverly and he knows how Winter loathes working for him. He knew it was her who killed Samuel, so all signs pointed to her as being the mole.
“American Horror Story” loves killing off their characters but this was the most heartbreaking of them all. Enraged that his own sister would betray him, he kills her in the most emotional murders of the season.  He strangled her with his bare hands and kissed her forehead afterward. Even in death, he loved his sister.

It turns out, however, that Winter wasn’t the mole. In the end of the episode, it’s revealed to be one of Kai’s bodyguards named Speedwagon. He runs to his car while pulling off the recorder under his shirt. He breaks down after seeing what Kai would do if he ever found out. Ally finds him and uses this information to wield even more power. In the last few episodes, it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly Ally is planning. But as she gains Kai’s trust, it looks like she is looking for a way to break Kai by the season finale.
“American Horror Story: Cult” continues next Tuesday with “Great Again,” 10/9c on FX.