Last week’s episode of American Horror Story: Hotel (“Chutes and Ladders”) presented the larger theme of the season, beyond the scares and Ten Commandments-themed mysteries, a story that would focus on addiction as a way of losing oneself. In the previous episode, we saw various vices—everything from heroin to blood-sucking—that helped the users get lost in their drug of choice. “Mommy” however, a surprising example of American Horror Story continuing a theme within two back-to-back episodes in a row—continues that focus on addiction, but this time around it’s about using addictions to find your way home.
As “Mommy” begins, we see Tristan returning to James Patrick March’s room a completely different person. When he first ran, he didn’t understand the atrocities he had witnessed. Since then, he has become a vampire-like creature, taken his first victim and Googled March, of whom he is now a huge fan. After gaining a reputation due to his reliance on substances and his behavior as a result, Tristan has found his home in the drug that finally gives him meaning: the killing of others.
This point gets hit right on the head with Alex, who explicitly states that smelling the lavender-scented head of her son Holden was and always will be her drug of choice. In spite of her daughter and husband, who clearly love her dearly, Holden was her soulmate and nothing can replace that now. We watch as Alex tries to fill this void, first with hope, then with pills, eventually giving up, cutting her wrists in the bathtub before her husband pulls her out. Now as a pediatrician, Alex goes around trying to save other people’s kids from their illnesses. She can help other families, but when it comes to her own, she feels the need to give up, as we see in “Mommy,” when she presents John with divorce papers, even though they both admit that they’re still in love.
Alex’s depression is one of the few aspects of Hotel that feels like a relatable, real issue, but it’s undercut by Alex pointing out just how cliché her situation is to the audience. Sure it is slightly cliché, but drawing attention to it makes the whole thing feel like a cheap, easy and lazy way out. Alex’s story does gain a new level of excitement, however, when she finds Holden in the hotel that will either save her marriage, slowly destroy her even further, or maybe even both.
Much like Alex can’t let go of Holden, at the Hotel Cortez, Iris refuses to let go of her son Donovan. Now that The Countess has dropped him for Tristan, he has nowhere to go. Iris sees this as the opportunity to move forward with her son, offering that they now move to the hotel where Whitey Bulger was captured. But Donovan explains that his mother has been terrible to him, to the point that drug users completely understand why he uses when discussing Iris, and suggests that she kill herself. Since Iris has too much love and is addicted to her son, she does exactly what he wants—goes to Sally’s room and asks her to kill her. When filling Iris with enough drugs to knock out a marching band doesn’t work, a plastic bag over the head does the trick.