WARNING: The following contains spoilers for American Horror Story: Double Feature Episode 9, “Blue Moon,” which aired Wednesday on FX.
American Horror Story: Double Feature‘s flashbacks pick up where the last episode’s left off. An alien possessed Mamie (Sarah Paulson) blackmails President Eisenhower (Neal McDonough) into signing the treaty. For the price of 5,000 American test subjects a year, the aliens will deliver advanced technology. After returning Mamie to her human form, a cyborg-like alien spokesperson, Valiant Thor (Cody Fern), makes good on the alien promise, delivering technology to the president that he implies will one day become the cellphones that we 21st-century folks hold so dear.
While Mamie’s back to throwing parties, Ike hears strange screams coming from the White House basement. Upon investigating, he discovers Valiant conducting experiments in a secret nuclear hideout. Ike, understandably, is not thrilled with having the experiments going on right under his nose. So, Maime suggests he moves the operation to Nevada, providing an origin story for the ever-mysterious Area 51.
That same night, instead of hearing screams, Ike hears his wife moaning in ecstasy. He follows the sound to discover her having sex with Valiant Thor, who she now pleasantly refers to as just Val, in their bed. The sight causes Ike to grip his chest and pass out. When he awakens later, Mamie assures him what he saw wasn’t a nightmare but a “dream.” While Ike’s upset about the affair, Mamie is quick to brush his concerns off because Val isn’t technically “flesh and blood.”
As if a failing marriage isn’t bad enough, Nixon (Craig Sheffer) shows Ike footage of Marilyn Monroe (Alisha Soper) raving about aliens. Realizing John Kennedy (Mike Vogel) spilled the beans, Nixon suggests taking advantage of Marilyn’s affinity for pills and alcohol. Sure enough, the scene transitions to Marilyn at home as two men break in and forcibly make her overdose. Viewers saw Double Feature‘s take on the JFK assassination in last week’s episode. As such, “Blue Moon” jumps ahead to Valiant meeting, Ike, Nixon and President Lyndon B. Johnson (Karl Makinen) — who took over after JFK’s death — at Area 51. There, Valiant reveals a room filled with alien babies floating in fluid.
The scene provides the perfect segway into the present time, where Troy (Isaac Powell) is in labor with his alien baby under Theta’s (Angelica Ross) care. His questions about how the baby will come out of him are finally answered as they cut into his stomach and remove a newborn alien/human hybrid. Unfortunately, that baby’s physical abnormalities deem it an imperfect specimen, so Theta’s crew kills it.
The timeline jumps to a week later, and Troy reconnects with Kendall (Kaia Gerber), Jamie (Rachel Hilson) and Cal (Nico Greetham). As Troy fills them in on what happened, Calico (Leslie Grossman) reveals that they are being kept in Area 51. She also explains she gives birth to two or three “pups” a year, but like Troy, her babies are killed for their alien deformities. After, she brings them to the room where famed director Stanley Kubrick (Jeff Heapy) faked the moon landing in 1969.
Her story prompts a flashback to 1969 where Calico happened upon Buzz Aldrin (John Sanders) and Neil Armstrong (Bryce Johnson) in a bar. The problem is that they should’ve technically been in space after the moon landing a few days prior. After getting drunk, the two astronauts reveal that the moon landing was faked. So — like Marilyn Monroe — Calico paid for learning their secret by being abducted and brought to Area 51.
In the lunchroom area, Cal tells Troy that he thinks the baby is coming, but he doesn’t want to give the baby up. So, Troy devises a plan to deliver Cal’s baby himself by cutting him open in the moon landing room. While Cal successfully delivers the baby, it displays similar alien characteristics to Troy’s. However, the boys are happy nonetheless. Unfortunately, the lower half of Cal’s baby has octopus-like tentacles that latch onto Cal’s face, much like what happened after Amelia Earhart (Lily Rabe) gave birth a few episodes prior. So, sadly, the happy moment quickly turns to horror right before the credits roll.
American Horror Story: Double Feature rewrites the famous moon landing in Episode 9. To see what’s next, new episodes air each Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on FX.
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