Do you hear the ceremonial bagpipes playing? That’s the sound of a few ruddy Celtic men blowing into their horns to honor the dearly departed spirit of our darling Siobhan Corbyn. We knew her for less than a year, but what we had together felt like a lifetime.
If that name strikes you funny, perhaps you should brush up on your Irish royal history. Siobhan was Kim Kardashian’s suspiciously named character on American Horror Story: Delicate, an uber-bitchy, high-powered Hollywood publicist with a strange obsession with her pregnant client, actress Anna Victoria Alcott (Emma Roberts), and Anna’s unborn child.
(Warning: spoilers ahead.)
Turns out: Siobhan is not just a maneuvering Tinseltown monster, but a literal she-devil. In tonight’s finale, we learned that Siobhan preyed on the fetal youth of women for centuries as part of a convoluted master plan—clearly thought up about 10 minutes before the actors were due on the AHS set—to create a man-eating matriarchy.
But we had hints about Siobhan’s darker nature as far back as September, when Season 12 of AHS began airing. (Its second half was delayed due to the SAG/AFTRA strike.) Throughout the season, we watched as Siobhan manipulated Anna, isolated her from her loved ones, and recommended strange methods of prenatal care that no good friend would ever offer their pregnant bestie, all under the guise of getting Anna her first Oscar.
What I and presumably AHS: Delicate’s other 39 viewers could never quite pinpoint was why exactly Siobhan was messing with Anna, and why Siobhan was named, well, Siobhan! What business did Ryan Murphy and his cohorts have casting proud Armenian-American Kim Kardashian in her first proper acting role outside of Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva just to give her the most Irish lady name this side of Saoirse? Siobhan’s backstory remained a mystery for most of the season, with only a few glimpses of her centuries-long life sprinkled throughout. (Last week’s reveal that Siobhan was on set comforting Mia Farrow during the filming of Rosemary’s Baby was at best ludicrous and at worst reprehensible.)
Finally, in this week’s long-awaited season finale, we were given the answers we’ve craved. Well, with a caveat: This is a Ryan Murphy production, so the information supplied by the big finish was rushed, sparse, and largely irrelevant. The episode did, however, shed light on what Siobhan and her coven of equally runway-ready witches wanted with Anna’s child. The reveals were just as goofy and outrageous as the rest of the season, but surprisingly, a blast to watch. There were big, ugly wigs, incest subplots, genetic meddling, and poisonous manicures—and that’s just the trailer for The Kardashians Season 5! I kid, but this episode really did have everything, except an answer to our biggest question of all: What is the deal with Siobhan’s goddamn name?
The finale begins where the penultimate episode left off, with Anna going into labor after accepting her hard-won Best Actress Oscar for her surprise hit film, The Auteur. Siobhan ushers her backstage, promising to meet her at the hospital. While lying in the back of the ambulance with her boyfriend Dex (Matt Czuchry) by her side, Anna notices that one of the strange women who has been stalking her, Ivy (Cara Delevingne), is driving the vehicle. Anna screams in terror, before we’re suddenly thrust back in time to the 1980s, in a scene where Kardashian is given her first of many chances in the finale to go full-tilt, madcap camp queen. Siobhan is wheeling and dealing with Dr. Hill (Denis O’Hara), the fertility specialist who did Anna’s IVF in the present day. “I want to make a deal with you,” Siobhan’s disembodied voice says, before the episode cuts to her wearing a giant, foolish feathered wig sitting halfway down her forehead. “I’m gonna give you the life of your dreams. I will send you every high-profile, wealthy patient who will do anything for a baby, spend anything for a baby. And all you have to do is do exactly as I say. How’s that sound?”
Dr. Hill is powerless in the presence of such a confident Gaelic woman. He agrees, but only with Siobhan’s neon orange fingernail digging into his neck. As she trots out of his office, Dr. Hill asks her, “Who are you?” Siobhan picks up her purse, slings it over her shoulder, and replies, “I’m Siobhan Corbyn…and I make my own rules,” her wig bouncing up and down in front of her eyes the whole time. Reader, I hollered. If there was one thing I needed to make curiously documenting Kardashian’s every move in this season worth it, it was this scene. What a powerhouse. I can’t wait to spend this weekend rolling calls, telling everyone I know.
Back in the present day, Anna is in an industrial hospital room that looks more like the stage for Lady Gaga’s Chromatica Ball tour. She’s about to give birth, and the camera pans out to reveal that—big shock—her bed is placed at the center of a pentagram. The delivery of Anna’s baby is successful, but Siobhan’s supermodel minions tell Anna that she can’t hold her newborn son because she’s already gripping the boy she chose: her Oscar. In a rage, Anna charges the model-witches, but she’s stopped and paralyzed by Siobhan’s fingernail in her spine.
When she wakes up, all of Siobhan’s lackeys are seated around her, making fun of Anna.
“You were selfish. Ambitious. Entitled. Conceited. Vain. Exhausting,” they all say, trading a new adjective between each woman. “In other words, you were perfect.” Their prodding encourages Anna to finally inquire about what the hell is going on. “We recruit women who want to have it all: career, marriage, motherhood,” Sonia (Annabelle Dexter-Jones) tells Anna. “We exploit their desire for what we need. In your case, we needed something extra special.” When Ivy drags a kidnapped Dex back out of hiding, she slits his throat in front of Anna, before Siobhan reappears and does the same to Ivy.
“Don’t you see?” Siobhan asks. “This was all a part of the plan.” When Anna asks why Siobhan had to paralyze her, Siobhan just laughs it off. “Yeah, all right, that part’s a bummer, but it’s also kind of on you. You reneged on our agreement. You promised us a baby and then you tried to take him back. Don’t gaslight a gaslighter, babe!” Siobhan then goes on to say that she and her coven are afforded eternal youth and power by consuming the placentas of young mothers. But having lived for so long, her witches have seen nothing but horror wrought upon the earth by men. Then, Siobhan totes out Dex’s father (Reed Birney), for another big reveal.
“I like to sleep with the most depraved men I can find,” Siobhan says, motioning to Dex Sr. “It shouldn’t have been possible, but 45 years ago, I conceived. I assumed the baby would be a creature like his cousins, but he was born human. Together, we created the vessel that would give us the most powerful creature of them all: the baby you birthed.” For those who were having trouble putting these sloppily written bits of exposition together, showrunner and writer Halley Feiffer lays it out plainly for you. “Your dead husband Dex is my son,” Siobhan tells Anna. “And the baby you carried is the product of his sperm and my egg. The baby is three-quarters me. We used to have to use magic to make our creatures, but IVF produces miracles these days.”
Siobhan then pulls a sheet off a glass box, displaying Dex’s testicles inside. (How they were immediately removed from his corpse and placed in this diorama, I simply couldn’t tell you.) “I saved the part of my son I really needed,” she continues. “I will be able to keep making special creates like him, incubated in Anna, and all [of my witches], until we fulfill our mission” Anna finally has the guts to scream what we’re all wondering (“WHAT FUCKING MISSION?”), before Siobhan reveals that she is literally dabbling in eugenics.
“We’re breeding creatures who grow up to have super abilities,” Siobhan says with a grin. “Our creatures will restore humanity to the greatness intended for it. And the ones made with my egg and my son’s sperm will be the most powerful.” The coven then chimes in, telling Anna that these super-strong, vicious hybrid beings will be deployed to kill their human male brethren. “Except for the ones we keep as sex slaves!” cracks Ashley (Billie Lourd). When Anna tries to say that a matriarchal utopia is impossible by killing innocent people, the other Ashleigh (Leslie Grossman) chimes in: “We’ll never recover from the damage toxic masculinity has caused.” Siobhan, the mastermind behind this new world, laughs in Anna’s face, telling her that Siobhan was The Auteur all along.
Anna once again conveniently passes out, before waking up to agree to Siobhan’s terms if it means she can hold her baby. Siobhan gives Anna her child, who uses its sharp teeth to drain blood milk from Anna’s breast. When Siobhan leaves the room, a vision of Sonia’s dead twin Adeline comes to Anna, chanting to her in Latin. “Only light can snuff out the darkness,” Adeline says as Anna repeats the chant, just as Siobhan comes back into the room. Of course, one little chant is enough to undo all of Siobhan’s evil, causing smoke to pour from her black gown and her face to wrinkle before turning to dust. It’s an ending that’s part Death Becomes Her, part Wizard of Oz, and part so-dumb-it-makes-me-never-want-to-watch-this-show-again.
Adeline disappears, Anna can walk again, and her baby boy is a normal human. Cut to black, and Season 12 of AHS concludes after what feels like years of waiting. While this season’s themes about female autonomy and perinatal depression were flushed down the toilet by Episode 2, I can very much appreciate the silliness of it all. I returned to this franchise because the show was bold enough to pull a Kardashian stunt casting, and Kardashian’s performance delivered on every front. She was convincing, hilarious, and a genuinely great time. There’s a bright future ahead if the most famous Kardashian sister wants to pursue this whole acting thing a little more seriously. Maybe her character can even return in a future season for a cameo! Perhaps then we might know why the fucking hell she was named Siobhan.
