AHS: Delicate's Sliced-In Homage To A Viral Kardashians Moment Explained

In the third episode of "American Horror Story: Delicate," titled "When the Bough Breaks," Anna Victoria Alcott (Emma Roberts) loses track of time and has strange hallucinations. Siobhan Corbyn (Kim Kardashian), her friend and publicist, confronts her and insists that she eats a good meal. However, this "good meal" turns out to be a salad topped with "viral" green goddess dressing that Siobhan prepares for her. But fans of "The Kardashians" reality television show likely noticed that the camera zooms in on Kardashian's character slicing a cucumber.

The fact that the camera cuts specifically (and conspicuously) to this cucumber-cutting is a pretty obvious reference to a 2022 episode from the famous family's series. In the episode, Kardashian's half-sister, Kendall Jenner, and their mother, Kris Jenner, are in Kris' kitchen preparing some snacks. But the moment turned uncomfortably funny when Kendall hacks at a cucumber with an enormous chef's knife in the weirdest way possible. Alarmed, Kris suggests that they call in the family's private chef to help. Kendall demurs, despite admitting, "I'm kinda scared." Frankly, there is no other good reason to include a shot of Kardashian's Siobhan chopping a cucumber — of all things — in "AHS: Delicate," if it's not an homage to Kendall's lack of knife skills.

So, why are Kendall Jenner's cucumber-cutting methods so confusing to everyone? Let's roll back the footage, shall we? At the jump, Jenner tells her mother she's perfectly capable of making her own snack, but what she does next suggests otherwise. Instead of holding the cucumber like a normal layperson (which, to be clear, she isn't), Jenner crosses her arms over each other (for some reason) and slices the vegetable so thinly, cautiously, and near her fingertips, that it's hard to not want to call her a medic to be on standby. 

During the moment, she seems aware that she's doing it wrong, telling the cameraperson, "I'm definitely not a good cutter, so don't zoom in on me. I'm not professional whatsoever." Jenner might be a professional supermodel, but she could stand to learn a few things about knife skills — namely, food safety! Video clips of the scene, like the one we include here, garnered millions upon millions of views — turning a slice-of-life scene into a viral spectacle.

Later, Jenner defended her cucumber-cutting skills to WSJ Magazine in their 2023 Summer Digital Issue. Before claiming she cooks dinner for friends all the time, she said, "Let me just say I successfully cut 'The Cucumber.' So if anyone says I cannot cut cucumber, I physically cut the cucumber and I did it tastefully. I didn't hurt anybody. So I can cut cucumbers." Sure, Kendall.

Despite protestations from Ryan Murphy collaborator Patti LuPone about casting Kim, the reality TV star-shapewear-maven-law-student has been turning in an overall solid performance. Kardashian's Siobhan is an integral part of "Delicate's" story, portraying Anna's best friend and closest confidante — helping Anna as she recovers from a devastating IVF journey and a miscarriage. Of course, her role isn't that simple either. As a publicist, Siobhan is always looking for professional wins, so helping Anna definitely helps her career too.

Kardashian has spent decades in front of cameras, but aside from relatively panned projects like "Disaster Movie" and "Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor," she's usually just performing as a version of herself. Lack of experience in movies and fictional television programs aside, she's delivering a scene-stealing turn in AHS: Delicate as a foul-mouthed and fiercely protective figure. Murphy's productions are known for their campy elements and ridiculous plotlines, but this season, Kardashian seems like one of the only cast members who remembers this. Let's zoom in on her more, please!

"American Horror Story: Delicate" airs on Wednesday nights at 9 P.M. on FX.