The following contains spoilers for American Horror Stories Season 2, Episode 5, "Bloody Mary," which aired Aug. 18, on Hulu.
The second season of American Horror Stories has found stronger footing than the first. Except for the barf-bag meandering of Season 2, Episode 4, "Milkmaids," it has stuck to strong scripts and solid execution to deliver reliable scares week after week. And it has done so in part by getting back to basics. Beyond a generally unifying theme of pro-feminist stories, each episode concentrates on the task at hand rather than getting bogged down in world-building excess.
Season 2, Episode 5, "Bloody Mary" gets the season back on track after the "Milkmaids" misfire, largely by staying self-contained and sticking with an old standby. The title refers to the traditional campfire story about summoning an evil spirit in the mirror. The episode puts its own spin on the notion, and in the process illustrates the formula by which the second season has thrived.
The origins of the Bloody Mary story are lost to time, and have undergone a number of variations as urban legends often do. The name likely stems from Mary I, Queen of England in the 16th Century who burned hundreds of Protestant dissidents at the stake in an effort to return her nation to Catholicism. According to the story, whoever wishes to invoke the spirit must stare into a mirror in a darkened room and chant the name "Bloody Mary" a specified number of times. The spirit appears and murders them, shows them chilling versions of the future, or similar horrors, depending on the precise version of the story.
"Bloody Mary" focuses on a specific variation of the legend, which paranormal scholar Bob Jenson discussed with the Chicago Tribune in 2017. "Bloody Mary Worth" was supposedly a bad-faith actor in the Underground Railroad, who would either sell slaves in her care back to their owners or -- in the story's more lurid incarnations -- murder them as a part of her devotion to the occult. According to Jenson, the local townsfolk hanged her when they found out what she was doing, though there is no documented proof that Mary ever existed.
The episode has a clear idea of how to present that story, while providing an elegant twist to put its own mark on it. A quartet of teenage girls perform the ritual in front of the mirror. Bloody Mary appears and offers them their hearts' desire if they will do something unspeakable to someone else. Cheerleader Lena will make squad captain if she lets the current model fall and be paralyzed, for example, while Yale-hopeful Bianca will make it there if she accuses the school counselor of rape. Two of the girls refuse their tasks, only to turn up murdered. As it turns out, one of their own does the killing -- she alone has agreed to Bloody Mary's terms -- only to be killed herself by the "final girl" Bianca, who takes Bloody Mary's place in the mirror.
As with most of the rest of the season, "Bloody Mary" serves as an homage to an earlier horror classic. In this case it's the Candyman franchise, which shares both its central gimmick of chanting in the mirror and its focus on racism at the root of its horrors. The episode touches on those in quieter ways, as the four girls deal with the realities of discrimination in seeking a better future for themselves. The Bloody Mary in the mirror isn't Mary Worth, but rather an ex-slave who killed her for her wicked ways, and she exists to test their souls rather than destroy them. As with Candyman, a successor takes up the mantle as a means of keeping their stories alive as much as terrorizing teenagers at slumber parties.
Urban legends have been a common theme this season, as well as the feminist overtones that have set the pace in previous episodes. "Bloody Mary" never deviates from those parameters, but it also stays self-contained, while also revealing a corner of the famous legend that hasn't been expressed before. It's a sign not only of the new season's improved focus, but the way it can adapt seemingly well-known ghost stories into scary pieces of fun. The remaining episodes of American Horror Stories would be well-advised to follow that example.
New episodes of American Horror Stories stream Thursdays on Hulu.