‘American Horror Story 13’ Episodes 9-10 Recap: Is Ben the Devil’s Prodigal Son?

American Horror Story: 13 returns with The Devil Is in the Details and The Prodigal Son, and this is the week the season stops teasing and starts explaining. Last time out, Fiona Goode brought Sarah Paulson‘s Cordelia back from the dead, and the coven struck a deal with Papa Legba to help them stand against Satan.

Now both sides go digging into their own history. The witches learn what Satan actually wants and how long he has been working at it, while at the Apollyon, Paul Anthony Kelly’s Mr. Nas drops the act with both Jessica Lange‘s Constance Langdon and Joey Pollari’s Ben. How he knows them is far more uncomfortable than anyone guessed. Here is everything that goes down.

The Devil Reveals His Relationship to Constance and Ben

Joey Pollari as Ben DeSoto and Jessica Lange as Constance in American Horror Story: 13 | Credits: FX/Hulu

Episode 9 opens on a two-person gala at the Apollyon, and Constance has conditions. She is tired of looking at the withered old man and asks him to show his real face. Then come the rest of her conditions. She demands no nuclear weapons in whatever he is planning, a woman in the White House, and jobs for her children to keep them occupied and feeling useful.

Nas agrees to all of it. However, he has a long list of everything Constance has ever done, stretching back through her Murder House years and including her theft of baby Michael Langdon. While she has spent a lifetime insisting weaker men made her this way, Nas tells her she was born bad.

To smooth it over, he transforms the penthouse and puts her in a red gown, a callback to her party-girl youth, and asks her to dance. Constance, reading the moment, suggests she would make an excellent queen. However, the Devil turns her down, making a shocking revelation. He tells her he is her father.

Episode 10 delivers the matching blow to Ben, who has spent the week chasing the 616 branding on his back. His AI assistant identifies it as the original Mark of the Beast from the earliest versions of Revelation, and the search shakes loose buried memories of Satanic rituals from his childhood, with Nas present at all of them.

Upon further discovery, he learns that Taylor Dorium Nas is an anagram of “I’m Your Lord Satan.” We also learn another shocking truth about Ashley, the new romantic interest in his life. Elle Chapman’s character is working with Constance, and she comes to her with the news that Ben was onto them.

Ben makes an attempt on the old man’s life, but fails. The younger Nas appears to offer the truth instead. Ben is his son too, which makes him and Constance siblings. Nas then makes his pitch. He wants Ben to embrace what he is and take the power and glory that come with it.

Ben is tempted, provided he can still choose to do good. Nas tells him absolute power will corrupt him regardless, then calls it early. For the Devil, the prodigal son has returned.

The Bet Between God and the Devil Explains the Rituals and Sacrifices

Episode 10 opens in the Vatican in 1939, where a nun delivers a package to the Pope, who prays before he dares touch it. In New Orleans, Papa Legba and Marie Laveau run a ritual that seals the coven inside a barrier where demons cannot listen, and Papa explains what was in that package.

Earlier, Nas told Ben that God and the Devil had made a bet. If the Devil could live as a human for 100 unbroken years, Earth, Heaven, and Hell would all be his. This was the reason behind Mr. Phibes tracking his biomarkers and all his sacrifices in the earlier episodes. Nas is clearly cheating. Sacrificing souls in sets of 13 accelerates his ageing.

Back at Robichaux’s, Legba explains that the Pope assumed the Devil was Hitler and performed an exorcism to stop him from rising. However, he was wrong. Satan was already living quietly in America. The coven, 13 witches strong, is meant to be the final sacrifice, and Satan wants them because one of them killed his son.

Mallory Confesses What She Did in American Horror Story: Apocalypse

Billie Lourd as Mallory in American Horror Story: 13 | Credits: FX/Hulu

That accusation forces the confession the season has been circling. Mallory admits she went back in time and killed Michael Langdon, reversing the events of Apocalypse and keeping it from the coven ever since. It was also teased in the last episode when Ophelia watched Mallory send Richard Ramirez into the past.

The sting is that saving the world only cleared the stage for Satan’s version of it. Cordelia realizes this explains why Mallory’s thoughts were always closed to her. Fiona confirms what Cordelia suspects, telling her that Mallory is the next Supreme.

Papa Legba offers a way out. When the Devil wins his bet, he must return to hell and leave his only living son ruling Earth in his place. If the coven can find that son and stop him from accepting, the whole thing collapses. For that, the witches did not have to look far. As the tenth episode wraps, Ben walks into Robichaux’s, saying, “I believe that you’re looking for me.”

What did you think of American Horror Story: 13 episodes 9 and 10? Let us know in the comments!

American Horror Story: 13 airs on FX, with episodes streaming the next day on Hulu.