Television: AHS: Coven, "The Axeman Cometh"

Meryl Streep's daughter urges others of the Suffragette-age coven not to worry about the Axeman, a serial ax murderer who has said he'll spare anyone who has a jazz band playing on Tuesday night. Apparently jazz is the New Orleans version of lamb's blood on your lentil.

Anyway, they defy him by playing opera records, and when he comes to kill them, they kill him first.

So that was then. And now? Zoe's digging around in old stuff. She notices from photographs how the number of witches has gone down year after year and exhorts Queenie and Nan to band tight . . . And drink absinthe.

They decide to play with a spirit board (most people know it as Ouija). They want to talk to Madison but get the Axeman instead. Queenie and Nan drop out, but Zoe persists and the Axeman sends her to the attic, where she discovers Madison's body. And then is discovered herself by Spaulding.

Less exciting, Fiona undergoing treatment and Cordelia having flashes every time someone touches her.

Teen Witch Squad gangs up on Spaulding, and he lies (telepathically, with Nan translating) that he killed Madison because he's a necrophiliac. Zoe isn't sold.

And while Misty is out watering her Myrtle, prodigal Kyle comes home. When she gives him a bath, he has flashbacks to his sexual abuse and flips out, breaking Misty's Stevie Nicks album. Then Zoe shows up and chains Kyle. Then asks Misty to revive Madison . . . Whose rotting body she evidently dragged out there. Good luck getting that smell out of your car.

Hank goes to Laveau, with whom he's been working. Turns out Hank is a "professional witch hunter." Killing off all the Salem descendants. Laveau accuses Hank of having gone soft and demands he bring her all the witches' heads.

Misty, meanwhile, has come to the house. She says it gives her bad vibes, that there is "something foul" in it.

And blind Cordelia finds herself alone with the Axeman. He won't let Cordelia out of the room—the very room he was murdered in and has been stuck haunting since 1919. Zoe, Queenie, and Nan are forced to release the Axeman's spirit in order to save Cordelia. And he strolls to the local bar and hits on Fiona.

Small world, after all.

For once, the Teen Witch Squad plot line was more interesting than anything the grown-ups were doing. But I continue to have difficulty stomaching Zoe as the would-be Supreme. And where was LaLaurie this week? A decidedly mixed bag of an episode.