Last week’s episode featured a kidnapping, a miscarriage, a violent beating, the return of the horrifying clown mask and one of the franchise’s most gruesome murders to date. Really, it’s just another Wednesday night in “AHS” world. So, it probably shouldn’t surprise you at all that things get even weirder this week.

Happy birthday, Elsa Mars. It’s Elsa’s birthday week and she’s just basically sold two of her performers into human slavery, so what’s a girl to do? Drag out a giant spinning red wheel and revive her knife throwing act.

Apparently this used to be her thing, before she started singing David Bowie songs. She’s considering whether the Wheel act would work for her new Hollywood TV show, but let’s be real this sequence is probably included solely because Jessica Lange looks *awesome* throwing knives at people.

Anyway, everyone’s forced to take part in a week-long celebration of Elsa’s special day -- including an Iron Throne-esque scene where the freaks bring her gifts like...

Indya Dodson is living a life far different from what she imagined.

Growing up, Dodson had designs to become an actress. But now the 18-year-old sophomore at Capitol Technology University in Laurel is studying software engineering and Web development. When she graduates, she'd like to become a software and app developer.

Dodson credits her changed goals to being a member of the RoboDoves, the competitive robotics team at the all-female Western High School on Falls Road in Baltimore.

"I joined the team because one of my friends was on the team," Dodson said. "I had no interest in technology or engineering whatsoever. And I really fell in love with it. It really stuck with me."

Since the team's founding in 2008, the RoboDoves have conceived, designed and built their own remote-controlled robots that range from a couple of feet tall to more than 5 feet and more than 100 pounds. Smaller robots take a couple of weeks to build, while larger ones are built over several weeks.

The robots are...

After last week’s double elimination, the collective mood is actually pretty light. Sure two people are gone, but the rest of the group knew those two weren’t going all the way anyway.

Katie says it’s all about surviving the next day. And of course, Aaron feels the need to contradict her by coming back with, “I think it’s more about competing and doing your best dish every day.” (This coming from the guy whose team won last week not by cooking, but by coming up with the catchiest menu description.)

Remember Chris Rock's show “Everybody Hates Chris?” If this season’s “Top Chef” had another title, it’d be “Everybody Hates Aaron.” Sure Katsuji is also annoying and is probably still yapping away this very second, but at least he can be funny. Aaron is about as pleasant as Donald Trump on a bad hair day.

QuickFire Challenge

This week’s guest judge is chef Jamie Bissonnette. Normally there’s an aside of a cheftestants’ reaction to who the judge is, but not this week. I’m going to guess that...

For generations of Americans, the fourth Thursday in November has been a day reserved for family, obscene amounts of food and a dose of gratitude.

For more recent generations, the preceding Wednesday has become a night full of old high school friends, awkward encounters and lots and lots of booze.

Somewhere along the line, some evil and/or brilliant entity decided it would be a good idea to preface a day of bingeing on turkey with a night of bingeing on alcohol. And thus, Black Wednesday (also known as Blackout Wednesday or, my personal favorite, Dranksgiving) was born.

The concept behind Black Wednesday makes sense: Thanksgiving is one of the few times a year that friends who have scattered across the country all return to their hometown at once. Plus, there's no work the next day. Combine these factors, and you suddenly have one of the biggest bar nights of the year.

But when put into practice, I have mixed feelings about Black Wednesday. (As does my stomach, because my ensuing...

The episode doesn't start after Tribal Council this week since there was no Council after Julie quit. Everyone is annoyed she quit, because they all had plans to get rid of either Jeremy or Josh.

Jon and Jaclyn are playing both sides. They were (and currently are) planning on voting for Jeremy, but Jeremy thinks that they are still a part of his alliance.

We jump right into a reward challenge with way too many steps. Two teams race to load heavy puzzle pieces on a cart, then push that cart to the base of a giant tower, and they have to use the puzzle pieces to build a temple. They then have to unlock a statue and raise a flag.

Reward is a taco bar with all the fixings, plus beer, iced tea and margaritas. They do a "schoolyard pick," where they take turns picking team members. Missy doesn’t get picked and has to sit out. Ha!

Blue is Jon, Baylor, Alec, Josh and Jaclyn. Yellow is Keith, Jeremy, Wes, Reed and Natalie. Yellow seems to working way better together than blue, and they are the...

The Brewer's Art is known nationally as a top bar destination, scoring a nod from Esquire magazine in 2009 as the No. 1 bar in America.

And while those accolades may stem primarily from their highly successful brewhouse program and wildly delicious garlic and rosemary fries, the ol' Art has its own seasonally adjustable selection of cocktails to boot. What self-respecting top bar in America wouldn't?

The cocktail list consists of eight to 10 selections, all topping out at three to four ingredients each. Their take on the Manhattan, the True Grist, intrigued my palate. Conventional grist is grain that has been separated from the chaff and ready for grinding into flour. If you prefer the saying "All is grist for the mill," it would mean every ingredient in the True Grist is useful in its own way. Which may be the case, but it seems more likely it's just a clever play on words with regard to a film with a guy named Rooster Cogburn in it.

Regardless, the True Grist features a healthy pour...