Joan Ramsey

Joan Ramsey was a minor villain in American Horror Story: Coven.

She was portrayed by Patti Lupone.

Summary

Joan Ramsey is a fundamentalist Christian woman, who moves in next door to the Academy with her son, Luke. She strives to protect her family from all that is dark and ungodly.

Joan is a stern, abusive domineering woman of faith. She is quick to punish Luke for defending Nan, who she deems a negative influence. It is possible she based of Margaret White from the 1974 novel Carrie, who also was a fundamentalist Christian and, abused her child when she thought they sinned.

Joan and her son Luke move into the neighboring house to the Academy, where while moving in, a shirtless Luke is spied upon by Madison, Nan and Queenie. Joan soon comes over, and spotting the girls, convinces Luke to go inside and put on a new shirt.

Later on, Nan and Madison come to the house, competing for Luke's attention; while Nan's present of a butter cake is fairly warmly accepted, Joan finds Madison's choice of attire scandalous and corrupting, and when she tries to shoo them out of the house, Madison inadvertently displays her abilities of telekinesis and newly-found pyrokinesis.

Joan visits the Coven Academy to assert her faith and warning the girls to leave her family alone and encounters Fiona, who brashly criticizes religious people of being hypocritical. Madison strolls in and mocks Joan's upbringing of her son and religious beliefs.

Convinced the witches have the power of the Devil residing inside them, Joan refuses to let Luke out of the house after his injury. When he expresses his desire to see Nan again she forces him to take a bleach enema, then locks him in a closet, where Nan finds him. Being fed up with her dominating ways, he attempts to leave with Nan, but Joan begins a confrontation, calling the police on Nan. At this point, Hank Foxx stages his assassination attempt on Nan, but kills only Joan and wounds Luke.

Fiona and Misty come over from the Coven house and as a test of power, Fiona gets Misty to revive Joan, and she does.

At the hospital, Nan tells Zoe and Madison that Joan refuses to let her see Luke. After entering the room anyways, the comatose Luke manages to talk to Nan and she is able to verify to Joan that she is able to read Luke's mind. Things take a dark turn, however, when Luke begins to communicate his knowledge of Joan murdering his wealthy Lawyer father by putting bees in his car and triggering a fatal allergic reaction after catching him receiving fellatio from a mistress. Joan yells for Nan to leave. Luke soon wakes up from his coma and confronts his mom, who smothers him to death with a pillow. 

Nan and Zoe learn at the hospital that Luke has been killed. Nan heads to Joan's house, where she confronts Joan on the murder of her son via her clairvoyance. When Joan reveals she had Luke cremated, Nan becomes enraged and uses her mind control technique to force Joan to pull out a bottle of bleach from the cabinet. Zoe is pushed back out of the room when she tries to intervene. Nan forces Joan to drink the bleach, killing her and effectively using her method of "cleansing" against her.