It’s hard to believe it has only been one week since we heard Kim Kardashian scream, “Tell [them] to suck my clit!” on the premiere of American Horror Story: Delicate. It feels like a moment that has been part of my consciousness since birth, as if my mother said something similar when I was in the womb. Fitting, given that the second episode of Season 12 is ultra-focused on Anna Victoria Alcott’s (Emma Roberts) journey toward a fruitful pregnancy.
Unfortunately, Anna’s ruthless publicist Siobhan Corbyn (Kardashian) isn’t given anything quite as fun or semi-salacious as last week’s anatomical musing, but she’s doing her best surviving on scraps. The entire cast is doing the same, as Episode 2, “Rockabye,” is a big step down from the already drab season premiere. But much like last week, Kardashian remains the most exhilarating part of this installment so far, firing off winking, self-referential nods to her real-life celebrity antics and initiating a brief Madonna singalong. That’s got to count for something!
This week in Siobhan’s World: Anna’s indie movie, The Auteur, is quickly picking up traction among the independent cinema scene, and Siobhan is gunning for Anna to be nominated for a Gotham Award. In this universe, a Gotham Award is the first stop on the road to an Oscar, to which I have to say (with all due respect ): is it? “Gothams, Globes, BAFTAs, SAG Awards, Oscars,” Siobhan says as she lays out Anna’s next few months. It’s not that a Gotham Award means nothing or can’t affect an artist’s chance at cinema’s biggest prize, but rather that they’re not often lumped in with those other, more notable ceremonies.
But it doesn’t matter, because Siobhan’s campaign works. Anna gets her Gotham nomination, and her publicist throws her a big surprise party at the Siobhan Corbyn Center For Wayward Starlets to celebrate. “This means your Oscar nom is basically in the bag!” she tells Anna (again…is it?).
Anna expresses some worry over whether or not she’ll be able to make all those press stops happen when she’s trying to not only conceive a child, but have a safe pregnancy. “What happened to you the other night was fucked,” Siobhan tells Anna, woefully understating the trauma her client and friend endured after waking up to a home intruder. “But I need you to get it together. Do you know how hard my staff has worked for you? … How many blowjobs were collectively given for you to even be considered? Derek’s jaw will probably never recover, but he knows how crucial these Gotham Awards are for your entire career’s trajectory.” (Do I even have to say it this time?)
Kardashian is good at selling these lines, once again nailing the right mixture of camp and the haughty self-importance of a PR industry narcissist. But the writing leaves much to be desired; their big guest star has proven that she’s good with spicy material—let her take it all the way! I want to walk away steaming, not burned.
Siobhan even invokes Jamie Lee Curtis, asking whether Anna thinks Curtis “enjoyed getting into all those inane conversations about being a nepo baby” to campaign for her Oscar win back in March. Between this and the line about Academy Award-winning writer-directors The Daniels sucking her clit, I’m starting to think that Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuck, and Halley Feiffer all have a vendetta against Everything Everywhere All at Once.
The Gothams apparently take place one calendar day after the Gotham Film and Media Institute announces their nominations, because we’re suddenly thrust onto a red carpet alongside Anna, who is dressed in the same dress that Madonna wore to the 1991 Oscars. I’ll say it if no one else will: an iconic archival dress at the Gothams? Overkill. A waste! At least wait for the Golden Globes—although who can be sure that those won’t be booted off television at the last minute?
In the scene just prior, Siobhan zips Anna into Madonna’s dress, sternly telling her, “Do not rip it.” Like the line in last week’s premiere about harassing celebrities, this one feels specifically written to allow Kardashian to poke fun at herself. Who among us can forget the never-ending news cycle surrounding the alleged rip in Marilyn Monroe’s vintage dress after Kardashian wore it to the 2022 Met Ball? That little nod to Kardashian’s own inescapable celebrity—and a quick little singalong to Madge’s “Sooner or Later” that comically shatters a mirror (as if Kim’s dulcet tones could ever do such a thing)—is the best part of this episode. Too bad it lasts all of one minute.
There are one or two other interesting moments amid all of this confounding mess, but not even a passing reference to Olivia Wilde’s cool-headed attitude during the Don’t Worry Darling drama (“We’re gonna pull a wild card, as in Olivia Wilde”), Siobhan warning Anna to stop making faces that look like “a cat’s asshole,” or her chiding someone for trivializing a woman’s work by focusing on her looks is enough to make Episode 2 feel like much more than filler. Luckily, filler is something that Kardashian knows all about, meaning that she remains AHS: Delicate’s MVP for one week more.
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