American Horror Story season 12 episode 7 finally explored the backstory of one pivotal player whose role was left unexplained until this outing.

Warning: Spoilers for American Horror Story season 12, episode 7.

Although American Horror Story season 12, episode 7, didn’t explain everything about the show’s twisty mystery, its extended flashbacks did offer some insights into the cult at the core of the season’s grisly story. Every season of American Horror Story starts simply and soon gets convoluted, but season 12 is different. American Horror Story: Delicate is the first outing of the horror anthology series to be adapted from an existing text. Author Danielle Valentine’s Delicate Condition provided the source material for the season, although the show’s version of events changed a few details of the book’s plot.

The long-awaited American Horror Story season 12 part 2 continued the story of Emma Roberts’ Anna Alcott, an acclaimed young actor trying to balance an awards campaign with her pregnancy. In the first six episodes, Anna becomes convinced that someone or something is trying to meddle with her pregnancy. Her publicist Siobhan Corbyn and her husband Dex seem like obvious candidates, but the strange stalker Ms. Preecher informs Anna that she is the target of a bigger cult that has existed for hundreds of years. In season 12, episode 7, “Ave Hestia,” American Horror Story offered more insight into these villains.

7. Cara Delevingne’s Ivy Was A Cult Victim

Season 12 Episode 7’s Cold Open Flashed Back To 42 A.D.

The opening scene of “Ave Hestia” flashed back to 42 A.D. for a scene set somewhere in “Western Europe.” This vague location was home to a character played by Cara Delevingne who gave birth to a pair of twins via a gruesome self-imposed C-section. While season 12 episode 6’s deaths were hard to watch, this violent scene took the show’s penchant for upsetting gore even further. After Delevingne’s character somehow survived the delivery process, she cradled her newborn babies as a shadowy figure entered her barn.

This black-clad witch offered Delevingne’s nameless character a gloved hand, prompting the exhausted new mother to ask who she was. American Horror Story: Delicate finally gave Cara Delevingne’s villainous Ivy a backstory with this opening scene, as the rest of the episode made it clear that her character was the same woman seen in 42 A.D. Although this was never explicitly stated, viewers can reasonably surmise that Ivy is effectively immortal since she was next seen in Galway, Ireland around a thousand years later. She is also an outright monstrous villain, despite the sympathetic circumstances of her introduction.

6. American Horror Story Season 12 Revealed Adeline’s Story

Dex’s First Wife Was Connected To The Cult

Succession’s Annabelle Dexter-Jones appeared as both Dex’s late first wife Adeline and the shady artist Sonia in earlier episodes of Delicate. American Horror Story: Delicate’s return saw Sonia torment Anna at a gallery opening, but it was unclear whether this scene was taking place in the troubled heroine’s mind. “Ave Hestia” centered entirely on Adeline’s story and the episode proved that Anna wasn’t imagining the cult of women who terrorized her at Dex’s exhibition in the preceding episode. The cult is confirmed to be real, and Adeline was once a part of it.

In a flashback to the Middle Ages, Adeline questions her mother, Ivy, about their commitment to a vaguely defined, unclear mission. Her mother savagely attacked her, prompting Adeline’s more compliant sister to not question her. Back in the show’s main timeline, Adeline is a successful restauranteur who is happily married to Dex, but reticent about the prospect of having children. When Dex suggested that the couple should consider parenthood, Adeline retreated into work, but she couldn’t hide for long. Once everyone else left the restaurant, her evil twin arrived.

5. Adeline’s Doppelgänger Sonia Is An Evil Twin

Adeline’s Twin Sonia Refused To Give Up On Their “Mission”

“Ave Hestia” finally explains Adeline’s doppelgänger, Sonia, by revealing that they are twins, and both women have been around for centuries because of a deal their mother, Ivy, made with a cult member. Although both Adeline and Sonia have lived for hundreds of years, their life paths diverged significantly. While Sonia is one of American Horror Story: Delicate‘s villains, Adeline seemingly wants to have a normal life with Dex. When Sonia confronted her about this at her restaurant, Adeline demanded that she leave her alone and said she wanted nothing to do with their mother’s cult.

Sonia criticized Adeline for forgetting their mission, but Adeline refused to be swayed. She stood her ground and Sonia eventually left, but not before warning Adeline that she would regret her choice. Before leaving, Sonia challenged Adeline to a game of five-finger filet. Although Adeline lasted a lot longer, she gave herself a nasty hand wound that she refused to explain to Dex the next morning. Hurt, Dex turned to their mutual friend Talia for reassurance about his wife’s strange behavior. Talia tells Dex that Adeline’s family is truly nightmarish, foreshadowing the episode’s twist ending.

4. Nicolette Threatened Adeline And Dex

Delicate Episode 7 Proved Anna’s Assistant Was Always A Villain

The opening of American Horror Storyseason 12 episode 6 revealed Nicolette, Anna’s assistant, was secretly part of the ageless cult at the center of the season’s story. “Ave Hestia” took this twist furrier when Nicolette arrived at Adeline’s restaurant to play mind games with her. Nicolette warned Adeline that she should play along with the cult’s plans, telling her that this was her destiny and claiming that she didn’t want to learn the alternative. Although Adeline once again sent this cult member packing, her resolve was clearly faltering.

It seemed as though Nicolette, Sonia, and even Ivy (during the Middle Ages sequence) were all cryptically telling Adeline that she needed to become a mother. All of them alluded to a higher purpose that would provide her with more power, which is how this season has depicted child-bearing. American Horror Story: Delicate episode 4 revealed that Mary Tudor traded her demonic baby for more political power. Meanwhile, in the next episode, Ms. Preecher informed Anna that she had made the same Faustian bargain for artistic fame.

3. Adeline Hid Her Pregnancy From Dex

Dex’s Discovery Led Him To A Darker Revelation

Eventually, American Horror Story: Delicate episode 7 revealed that Adeline was pregnant, which may explain why the cult chose to target her again at this specific time. Adeline hid this discovery from Dex, telling her that she had gotten her period after a positive test. Dex eventually discovered the test in their bathroom trashcan and attempted to call Adeline, but he didn’t know that his wife was dealing with something much darker. The cult tracked her down to the restaurant and confronted her about her pregnancy, with Cara Delevingne’s Ivy leading them.

Ivy, Sonia, Nicolette, and a masked cult member toyed with Adeline after placing her in stirrups, asking her why she abandoned their cause and warning her that it was too late to change her mind now. Adeline remained steadfast till the bitter end, but this didn’t save her. The cult performed a violent C-section on Adeline, seemingly killing her in the process. This intense scene was the most upsetting moment of the season so far. However, the nightmare wasn’t over for Adeline or Dex.

2. Dex’s Mother Wasn’t Lying About Satanic Abuse

Dex’s Father Really Was In League With American Horror Story: Delicate’s Cult

Earlier in American Horror Story season 12, Dex’s mother informed him that she was suing his father over decades of Satanic ritual abuse. Dex was blindsided by this development and took his father’s side, assuming that his mother’s claims were baseless nonsense. However, the ending of episode 6, “Opening Night,” brought this into question when Dex’s mother took her own life and left a grave warning behind. The closing scenes of “Ave Hestia,” meanwhile, explained the source of her seemingly outlandish accusations.

When Dex couldn’t get through to Adeline, he called his parents. Getting no answer, he decided to surprise them by delivering the good news in person. This was a mistake, as Dex walked in on his mother being drugged by cultists as his father had sex with a masked woman. Dex’s father gleefully noted that this was how his son was conceived before telling the cultists to wipe Dex’s memory. While American Horror Story: Delicate episode 6’s opening scene proved Anna was marked since birth by the cult, this scene proved that Dex’s life had also been secretly controlled by the group.

1. Talia Was Adeline’s Killer

Dex’s Friend Joined Delicate’s Cult In Exchange For Riches

“Ave Hestia” then cuts back to Adeline’s ordeal, with Dex’s wife demanding to know the identity of the masked cult member who joined her sister, her mother, and Nicolette in tormenting her at the empty restaurant. Since a masked cultist met with Delevingne’s Ivy in the episode’s opening, it initially seemed as though this character would be revealed to be the same person. This ageless cultist could have been the season’s main villain. If this were the case, the most obvious assumption would be that American Horror Story: Delicate’s villain, Kim Kardashian’s Siobhan, was the faceless leader of the cult.

Instead, the episode’s final revelation turned out to be a much more intimate form of betrayal. The masked cultist was Talia, a close friend of Dex and Adeline who celebrated opening a gallery with the couple earlier in the episode. Even before this episode outlined her relationship with Adeline, Talia had been by Dex’s side throughout Delicate. She joined Ivy and Sonia in threatening Anna during “Opening Night,” but had not been revealed as a central member of the cult until now. In retrospect, this makes American Horror Story’s Anna and Dex living in her lavish second home more worrying.