John Lowe & Mr. March Have A Dark Past On 'AHS'

Wednesday night's episode of American Horror Story: Hotel jumped directly into the action. Right away, we learned that John Lowe is the infamous 10 Commandments Killer. Raise you hand if you were surprised by that. No one? OK. Given all of the hints throughout the season, I was pretty underwhelmed. Luckily, once they started talking about how it all began, it started getting much more intriguing. Turns out that John Lowe and Mr. March met on AHS: Hotel long before we thought they did. John actually happened upon Mr. March five years before the show takes place.

In a previous episode, Detective Lowe told the story of the family homicide scene (the one with the carbon monoxide poisoning) that drove him to heavily drink. That night he spoke of was actually the first time he visited the Hotel Cortez, which is information we were not previously aware of. Donovan spotted him at the bar and took him (in a pretty inebriated state) up to where Mr. March and The Countess' were having dinner. Once Mr. March excused The Countess from dinner so he could speak to John, I knew something serious was happening. That man is all about Gaga (can we really blame him?).

Once alone with John, Mr. March immediately took a liking to him. Over drinks of absinthe, he explained that he has the unique ability to see auras (obviously) and that John's was "jet black." Mr. March took this to mean he was willing to "bend the world" to his will which was precisely what was needed to commit the deeds he needed to be done. He and John began speaking about whether the detective had ever felt like he wanted to take justice into his own hands and rough up a suspect. When John admitted that he had, Mr. March took this as an opportunity to convince him that this was normal and necessary. He started manipulating him into admitting that he felt that he was able to see who was guilty and innocent before a judge or jury could ever do it. John's grip on reality was clearly being shaken.

Their first meeting was super intense, and it's clear Mr. March has a strong hold on John Lowe. Now we get to watch exactly where these two madmen take their special brand of crazy.

Images: Prashant Gupta/FX