American Horror [Season 1, Episode 1]
Pilot
Shown 05/Oct/11
The haunted house is an overused cliche in the horror genre,
but this show puts a new spin on it.
A husband, wife and Teenage daughter move into an old house (like in
Beetlejuice
). Constance the next-door neighbour (
Jessica Lange
) is a southern belle with a Downs Syndrome daughter.
The father of the family (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
) is a psychiatrist. Tate (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) is the psychiatrist's patient,
with a Columbine fantasy complete with facial skull tattoo
and whistling the tune from
Twisted Nerve
. The daughter starts to see the mental patient,
but it turns out that he might know more about
the house’s ghostly inhabitants than he ought to.
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 2]
Home Invasion
Shown 12/Oct/11
The shrink (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
) has a second patient, a young woman obsessed with the house’s history.
She knows about a couple of murders that happened there in 1968,
something that the realtor and neighbours failed to tell the new owners.
The killings actually resemble a real-life murder spree that inspired
Black Christmas
, and is thereby the incident that most modern slasher movies are based on.
Modern lore is that Ed Gein inspired them (though he did inspire
Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs
) but the midnight massacre is the actual original case.
The shrink gets a call from the student he was banging off-screen in the first episode.
She is
Kate Mara
- and she is pregnant.
He must fulfil his responsibilities to her, but without telling his wife.
As a result, the wife and daughter are left alone at night ...
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 3]
Murder House
Shown 19/Oct/11
We start with a flashback to the 1980s, when the housemaid (
Alexandra Breckenridge
) regretted her affair with the man of the house (Eric Close -
Dark Skies
). The lady of the house (a de-aged
Jessica Lange
) intervenes, with predictable results.
Somehow, the housekeeper's ghost must choose to age
while the lady must have sold the house and is still alive,
in the house next door.
The Housekeeper blames the men for only seeing what they want to see,
but if she was not a manipulative bitch
she might have been allowed to Rest in Peace.
Back in the modern day, the Shrink (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
) has a new patient.
She is Tara's mother from
True Blood
, now the world's most boring accountant.
unfortunately the housekeeper is spiking the Shrink's coffee.
Next thing he knows, his tape-recorder is missing
and there is a cop looking for the patient.
Worse,
Kate Mara
is back and she wants to blackmail the Shrink.
Larry Harvey (Denis O'Hare -
The Pyramid
) is tired of only being the wise old cripple stereotype,
and is also interested in starting a career in blackmail.
The Shrink's wife goes on the Murder Tour that the psychos talked about last episode.
The guide (Craig from Malcolm in the Middle) mentions the original owner,
a doctor who became an abortionist to pay the bills in the 1920s.
With this many murders in the house's history,
it will be impossible to sell to anyone except an out-of-town buyer in a hurry.
However, they could just rent the place out to the Murder Tours people.
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 4]
Halloween (1)
Shown 26/Oct/11
The estate agent advises the house's inhabitants to make an extra effort for Halloween.
To help carve the pumpkins they get a couple of fluffers - Zachary Quinto (
Heroes
) and his husband.
Unfortunately, they are yet more ghosts who died in the house and cannot leave it.
Halloween is the one time of year that the ghosts can walk the earth freely.
Predictably, that means a lot more activity in the haunted house.
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 5]
Halloween (2)
Shown 02/Nov/11
Larry Harvey (Denis O'Hare -
The Pyramid
) tries to blackmail the Shrink (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
).
Kate Mara
is back and she wants payback.
Tate (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) is stalked by a group of angry teenage ghosts,
and we are treated to the whistling tune from
Twisted Nerve
. Evidently he acted out his Columbine fantasy complete with facial skull tattoo ...
almost twenty years ago.
Not all the ghosts want violent revenge.
Some of the spirits who haunt the place are actually helpful.
Zachary Quinto (
Heroes
), for example, is still violently house-proud.
The poor housewife is stalked by the supernatural bunny-boiler.
Luckily she has the security guard (Connor from
Vampire Diaries
) to protect her.
What is perhaps the most unbelievable aspect of the show is the fact that
none of the three family members realise their house is haunted.
Each rationalises away their encounters away as being normal criminality.
Which still puts their house at the centre of a crime blackspot.
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 6]
Piggy, Piggy
Shown 09/Nov/11
The daughter googles her boyfriend's High School,
and discovers the truth about the 1994 massacre. The
Twisted Nerve
tune did get whistled, although the impressive skull makeup was not used.
However, now she knows the truth she becomes suicidal.
The mother is concerned about her unborn child.
She discovers that the ultrasound tech who saw the child's image
was so terrified that she has quit her job.
The father (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
) treats a new patient, a man with a phobia of ghosts.
Specifically, the Piggy Man who can be summoned in a mirror, like
Candyman
.
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 7]
Open House
Shown 16/Nov/11
The Mother and the Estate Agent take the murder tour again,
to get the rest of the story.
They have another buyer lined up for the house,
but he falls foul of an unlikely trio of accomplices.
The blackmailer (Denis O’Hare –
The Pyramid
) now wants to buy the house, when he was last seen trying to burn it down.
The maid wants the gazebo dug up, so her bones can be discovered.
And the neighbour needs the house so she can see her family again.
The Daughter is under a lot of stress,
ever since she discovered that her boyfriend Tate (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) was the ghost of a spree-killer.
How long will it take the parents to work it out?
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 8]
Rubber Man
Shown 23/Nov/11
We discover how the gimp suit ended up in the haunted house. Zachary Quinto (
Heroes
) bought it so he could spice up his relationship.
But he and his lover put aside to their plans to adopt a child,
so the other occupants of the House decided to replace them with a more baby-friendly family.
Kate Mara
is still around, having sex with the male ghosts.
She has a plan to drive the housewife insane
so the shrink (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
) will be single again.
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 9]
Spooky Little Girl
Shown 30/Nov/11
A wannabe actress (
Mena Suvari
) took a trip to the dentist in 1947.
The bad news is, the dentist's surgery was in the haunted house.
the good news is she became world-famous as a result.
The hospital discovers that the housewife's unborn twins have two different fathers.
Kate Mara
lays suspicion on the security guard (Connor from
Vampire Diaries
). Will the shrink (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
) realise that his wife was telling the truth
when she said she had been raped by a man in the gimp suit?
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 10]
Smoldering Children
Shown 07/Dec/11
Constance the neighbour (
Jessica Lange
) is questioned by Homicide detective Charles S Dutton (
Alien 3
). Yes, after decades of murderous mayhem
someone has finally realised that it has all centred around the house.
Or at least one of the former occupants.
A truant officer drops by to discover why the daughter has not been at school in three weeks.
He notices blow-flies in the house,
although he does not mention that they are known to feed on fresh human corpses.
The shrink (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
) hires an exterminator - Dan Dorrity from Deadwood.
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 11]
Birth
Shown 14/Dec/11
The babies are finally due.
But everyone in the house wants to take them away from their mother.
Zachary Quinto (
Heroes
) and his husband start decorating the nursery,
all the while planning to keep the kiddies for themselves.
Constance (
Jessica Lange
) wants to protect her grandchild,
even though she knows it may be a demonic entity that heralds the apocalypse.
She gets her friendly psychic (
Sarah Paulson
) to teach the daughter how to exorcise ghosts – the Croatoan curse!
The mother plans to give birth at her sister’s place, in another State.
But merely being in the driveway of the House
is enough to encourage the demon-spawn inside her to attempt an escape.
The good news is,
the House’s permanent occupants include an expert gynaecologist.
The bad news is, the House’s occupants are a bunch of crazy ghosts!
The daughter’s other plan is to get Tate (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) to dissuade the other ghosts from interfering.
However, the others know some of Tate’s secrets.
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 12]
Afterbirth (70 min)
Shown 21/Dec/11
The House settles down after the events of the previous episode.
There are two babies - one a ghost, the other the spawn of evil.
But neither is with their birth-mother.
Is it possible that the Shrink (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
) and his family might actually be able to settle down in the House?
After all, once they are dead and their spirits trapped in the house,
they should have nothing else to worry about.
A Latino family decide to move into the House.
Can the good ghosts chase them off before the bad ghosts murder them?
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 1]
Welcome To Briarcliff
Shown 17/Oct/12
In the modern day,
Jenna Dewan Tatum
and her new husband go exploring in an old abandoned Asylum.
Predictably, they meet more than they bargained for.
The main story takes place in the early 1960s,
when the facility was run by the Catholic Church.
Monsignor Timothy Howard (Joseph Fiennes -
Shakespeare in Love
) is in overall charge, with Sister Jude (
Jessica Lange
) in charge of the patients and Dr. Arthur Arden (James Cromwell -
Star Trek: First Contact
) performing creepy experiments on anyone who falls foul of him.
Lana Winters (
Sarah Paulson
) is a journalist who crusades against the inhuman conditions of the Asylum, like Nelly Bly.
Unfortunately she has much bigger problems.
She lives with her lover, schoolteacher
Clea Duvall
, which leaves them both ripe for blackmail.
Sister Jude may be a domineering matriarch,
but her character is deeply layered.
She believes in strong discipline but is not sadistic,
and is genuinely horrified at her suspicions about what the Doctor is up to.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 2]
Tricks And Treats
Shown 24/Oct/12
A State psychiatrist, Dr Thredson (Zachary Quinto -
Star Trek (reboot)
) arrives to analyse Kit Walker (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
). It turns out that Thredgood is the antithesis of the aging Doctor Arden (James Cromwell -
Star Trek: First Contact
). He criticises the hospital for using Electro-Compulsive Therapy to treat homosexuality -
not for humanitarian reasons of sexual equality,
but because in 1961 the standard treatment was aversion therapy!
Of course, this is an in-joke because Quinto, like
Sarah Paulson
, is an out-and-proud homosexual.
A demonically possessed teenager is brought in for treatment.
Luckily it is a Catholic Church hospital,
so they are able to call in an expert Exorcist.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 3]
Nor'easter
Shown 31/Oct/12
A big storm is about to hit the area.
Sister Jude (
Jessica Lange
) has Frank the Security Guard (Frederick Lehne -
Supernatural
) hold a film-show to appease the inmates.
This is also the perfect opportunity for Lana Winters (
Sarah Paulson
) to lead Kit and his girlfriend on another breakout attempt.
The virginal nun (
Lily Rabe
) is acting in a much more worldly manner.
Nobody ever wondered where the demon went
after it was exorcised in the previously episode.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 4]
I Am Anne Frank (1)
Shown 07/Nov/12
Anne Frank (
Franke Potente
) is the newest patient in the asylum.
Well, she claims to be the infamous victim of the Holocaust
but she is probably a fantasist like Anastasia.
However, she gets Sister Jude's interest when she claims that the mad scientist (James Cromwell -
Star Trek: First Contact
) was a doctor at Auschwitz.
In all fairness, this Holocaust link is laying the metaphor on a bit thick to say the least.
It is one thing to say that the Asylum Doctors were LIKE Mengele,
but it is a bit over the top to say that one actually WAS him!
Lana Winters (
Sarah Paulson
) the journalist wants to do in the 1960s what Nelly Bly did in the 1890s -
publish an expose on inhuman treatment in the lunatic asylum.
Unfortunately she has to get out of the place to do so.
Luckily the Nice Shrink has a plan to cure her lesbianism without using Electro-Convulsive Shock Therapy.
Instead he gives her aversion therapy,
by making her vomit while she looks at photos of near-naked women. Just like in
Clockwork Orange
.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 5]
I Am Anne Frank (2)
Shown 14/Nov/12
It turns out that Anne Frank (
Franke Potente
) has a husband.
He wants his wife back, so it seems like he will save her from Doctor Arden (James Cromwell -
Star Trek: First Contact
). However, this show has a heavy-handed moral to tell us.
We already know that Arden's skill as an Asylum doctor
is the same kind of skill that Doctor Mengele had.
Now we learn that he gets away with his (literally) Nazi war-criminal tactics
because of the heterosexual men of 1950s America,
who want their women to be the perfect submissive housewife.
Dr Thredson (Zachary Quinto -
Star Trek (reboot)
) offers to help Lana Winters (
Sarah Paulson
) to escape the Asylum.
Yes, he seems too good to be true.
Lana never wonders what his true intentions are.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 6]
The Origins of Monstrosity
Shown 21/Nov/12
This starts in the modern-day Asylum,
where the police discover what happened to the Bloody Face impersonators.
However, the fate of
Jenna Dewan Tatum
is a mystery for a future episode.
The main story continues back in the 1960s.
Sister Jude (
Jessica Lange
) has a new patient at Briarcliff Asylum - a young girl who is a cold-hearted killer.
The place does not have a childrens' ward, but Sister Mary Eunice (
Lilly Rabe
) is possessed by the devil and thus makes the perfect baby-sitter.
When she is not playing mind-games with the other staff and inmates, that is.
Lana Winters (
Sarah Paulson
) finally gets what she wanted - a personal interview with Bloody Face the serial killer.
He gives her his backstory, a tale of abandonment by his mother.
All this is important in the final episode.
Sister Jude's Nazi-hunter is in town, and has done research on Doctor Arden (James Cromwell -
Star Trek: First Contact
). Likewise, the Monsignor (Joseph Fiennes -
Shakespeare in Love
) discovers the fate of
Chloe Sevigny
and confronts Arden.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 7]
Dark Cousin
Shown 28/Nov/12
The devil's cousin, the Angel of Death, pays Blackfriar Asylum a visit.
She drops into each of the storylines, starting with the local fallen angel.
Lilly Rabe
does some amazing work as the victimised Sister Mary Eunice
and the demon that possesses her.
Grace is dying after she was mysteriously hysterectomised at the end of the previous episode.
Doctor Arden (James Cromwell -
Star Trek: First Contact
) denies all responsibility when Sister Mary Eunice confronts him.
Surely if it was done by the aliens who abducted her
then they would have done a better job of stitching her back up again.
However, Arden is at least capable of saving her in order to clear his own name.
Lana Winters (
Sarah Paulson
) gets close and personal with the subject of her investigation.
This Pulitzer-worthy undercover work is not what she had in mind.
Sister Jude (
Jessica Lange
) bottoms out too.
Her allies have gone, and she has a flashback to the last time she hit bottom in 1949.
That was when she retired from her lounge singer career and became a nun.
Kit Walker (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) breaks out of prison.
He tries to get back into the asylum, where his girlfriend is.
Unfortunately Frank the Security Guard (Frederick Lehne -
Supernatural
) is waiting for him.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 8]
Unholy Night
Shown 05/Dec/12
It is Xmas already.
One of the inmates is a murderous Santa impersonator (Ian McShane -
). He has been in solitary since the previous Xmas,
which explains why he has not appeared on-screen so far.
The virginal nun (
Lily Rabe
) decides to let him out if he promises to be on his best behaviour.
Lana the journalist is back inside,
and the psychiatrist Dr Threadson decides to drop in and see her.
Sister Jude decides to confront her replacement.
She enlists Dr Arden to assist her.
After all, he seems to feel the same way about Briarcliff as her.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 9]
The Coat Hanger
Shown 12/Dec/12
The episode starts with a bookend segment, as Dylan McDermott (
Hardware
) returns to the show.
This ties up a few loose ends with regards to the fate of
Jenna Dewan Tatum
.
Sister Jude (
Jessica Lange
) has gotten a taste of her own medicine,
and she is now in the same position that she put the Journalist in.
Not quite, since the Journalist is now pregnant with a serial killer's rape-baby.
Dr Arden recruits Kit Walker (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) to help in an experiment.
Both the alien abductions involved women who had sex with Kit.
The Doctor assumes that the aliens, like he did for his own Nazi employers,
are conducting eugenics experiments on human subjects without their consent.
The Monsignor (Joseph Fiennes -
Shakespeare in Love
) thinks he can miraculously cure the murderous Santa impersonator (Ian McShane -
). The ritual involves a full-immersion baptism,
which seems unusual for a Roman Catholic priest to perform.
That said, this is set in the pre-Vatican Two Church.
The episode ends with TWO serial killers running loose in the asylum.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 10]
The Name Game
Shown 02/Jan/13
Sister Jude (
Jessica Lange
) gets a taste of her own medicine - the ECT she sadistically subjected Lana to.
It flips her mind and returns her to her previous state of mind - a drunken lounge singer.
This leads on to the best scene so far - a musical song-and-dance number
where Jude performs the song this episode is titled after.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 11]
Spilt Milk
Shown 09/Jan/13
The modern-day serial killer hires a prostitute
who caters for his own particular fetish.
It all goes back to his early childhood,
when his mother refused to breast-feed him.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 12]
Continuum
Shown 16/Jan/13
Kit Walker (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) settles down with his two wives.
Unfortunately even in Massachussets there are racist hillbillies,
and even the police are segregationist Dixie-land types.
However, this is not the worst thing he has to deal with.
One of his wives is obsessed with the alien abductors returning,
while the other is paranoid and will not even discuss the matter.
Sister Jude is still an inmate at Briarcliff.
It is not as much fun as in the movie Frances
- her favourite guard Frank is long dead, and the other men are not interested in her.
Worse, when the Catholic Church donates the place to the State of Massachussets
it actually goes downhill!
A group of female convicts are delivered there from the local prison,
and their ringleader looks like the Angel of Death.
Lana has done quite well for herself.
She published a book based on her encounter with Bloody Face.
It is not a factual piece, but a ghoulish and exploitative piece
that leaves out her own lesbianism and invents new crimes to accuse the dead man of.
American Horror [Season 2, Episode 13]
Madness Ends
Shown 23/Jan/13
In the modern day, the new Bloody Face is on the loose.
The show comes full circle as we see the intro scene from the first episode again ...
from the killer's perspective.
A few days later, Lana Winters (
Sarah Paulson
) is interviewed for a TV special.
She gives an extended flashback of the years after her book was published.
She became a television journalist, with Rodney Rowland (
Space: Above and Beyond
) as her cameraman.
Together they go back to Briarcliff to even some scores and expose wrongdoing.
The loose ends are all tied up, and every major character's fate is revealed.
Lana has her climactic confrontation with the new Bloody Face.
However, the final twist is ever so slightly unsatisfying.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 1]
Bitchcraft (75 min)
Shown 09/Oct/13
A teenage girl discovers that she has a magical hereditary curse.
But instead of sending her to
Haven
her mother sends her to a boarding school in New Orleans.
It is run by
Sarah Paulson
and her vicious mother Fiona (
Jessica Lange
). There are only three other pupils there - Madison (
Emma Roberts
), Precious and a Downs Syndrome girl.
The modern-day story is tied to a historical one
- involving sadistic slave-owner Madame LaLaurie (
Kathy Bates
) and Creole Voodoo witch-doctoress Marie Levaux (
Angela Bassett
).
We see the newest version of the double standard.
Apparently raping someone to death is a good thing
- but only if the raper is female and the victim is male!
Hopefully the vampires from
The Originals
(also set in New Orleans) will punish the witches for using magic within the city limits.
Or, if we are extremely lucky, Sam and Dean Winchester from
Supernatural
will drop by to sort them all out.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 2]
Boy Parts
Shown 16/Oct/13
A couple of Gator hunters
fall foul of the nature-loving hippy witch.
She will probably play a major role later on.
The two main girls go to the morgue. Madison (
Emma Roberts
) talks her friend with the death-vag into using the best parts
from different bodies to make a patchwork BF (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
).
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 3]
The Replacements (75 min)
Shown 23/Oct/13
The evil headmistress realises that Madison (
Emma Roberts
) is a potential protege.
She temporarily puts aside her obsession with aging,
and takes her new friend out for a drink.
The evil headmistress orders that Madame LaLaurie (
Kathy Bates
) be the personal slave of Precious,
as punishment for her racism.
Yes, evil has standards!
Unfortunately, they are attacked by the Minotaur,
sent by Marie Leveaux (
Angela Basset
).
Sarah Paulson
goes to Marie Leveaux (
Angela Basset
) for help getting pregnant.
Unfortunately, Basset has declared war on the poor girl's mother.
The girl with the death-vag takes her zombie BF (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) back to his mother.
Unfortunately the momma is deranged and abusive,
not the best person to look after a confused zombie.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 4]
Fearful Pranks Ensue
Shown 30/Oct/13
The Witches' Council come to town.
They have been summoned because of recent events.
Sarah Paulson
is naturally confused - there have been so many notable events in the previous couple of weeks.
The girl with the killer vag discovers what her zombie BF (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) has done.
However, she lets him out of sight for a moment -
It is Halloween, and a zombie can blend into the crowds quite easily.
On a similar note, the cold war with Marie Levaux (
Angela Basset
) starts to warm up.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 5]
Burn, Witch. Burn!
Shown 06/Nov/13
The girls have to take on a small army of Voodoo zombies.
Someone attacks
Sarah Paulson
in order to get at her mother.
The Witches' Council find someone to blame.
Will the evil Headmistress get her come-uppance,
or has she managed to shift the blame to a rival?
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 6]
The Axeman Cometh
Shown 13/Nov/13
Once the city was plagued by a serial killer named the Axeman.
He was a white man who played Jazz music in the 1920s.
Then he fell into an ambush by the Coven of the day.
The girl with the death-vag tries to find out what happened to Madison (
Emma Roberts
). She pulls out an old ouiji board,
and the girls hold a seance.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 7]
The Dead
Shown 20/Nov/13
Fiona (
Jessica Lange
) tries to have one last love affair.
Her daughter and the others conspire to replace her as the Supreme.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 8]
The Sacred Taking
Shown 04/Dec/13
Witch-hunters are on the rampage.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 9]
Head
Shown 11/Dec/13
Marie Levaux (
Angela Bassett
) realises that her only chance for survival is to team up with Fiona (
Jessica Lange
). In return for sanctuary,
she puts the Witch in touch with the source of her power
- Baron Samedi (Lance Reddick -
Fringe
). Unfortunately, he needs a human sacrifice - an innocent soul.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 10]
The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks
Shown 08/Jan/14
Fiona (
Jessica Lange
) tries to ingratiate herself with the new Supreme
by introducing her to an old friend - the singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks!
Then, Madison (
Emma Roberts
) takes the Supreme for a walk.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 11]
Protect the Coven
Shown 15/Jan/14
Madame LaLaurie (
Kathy Bates
) is back as the house-maid again, and up to her old tricks.
She lives in the Butler's old room in the attic, which has a new ghost.
And they make an alliance against Marie Levaux (
Angela Bassett
) ...
Fiona (
Jessica Lange
) and Marie arrange a sit-down with the witch-hunters.
Naturally there is a double-cross,
but it is both surprising and impressive.
Madison (
Emma Roberts
) decides that she does not want to share her Frankenstein BF with Zoe.
If Zoe and the BF do not get out of town ASAP,
she is liable to turn her wrath on them.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 12]
Go to Hell
Shown 22/Jan/14
Fiona (
Jessica Lange
) gives Queenie a recap on the seven tests to determine the selection of the next Supreme.
Queenie cares more about finding Marie Levaux (
Angela Bassett
), who has disappeared with Madame LaLaurie (
Kathy Bates
). Yet another subplot is put to rest.
Sarah Paulson
gets her second sight back.
She discovers Fiona's plan, then sets a plan of her own in motion.
American Horror [Season 3, Episode 13]
The Seven Wonders
Shown 29/Jan/14
With the side-plots taken care of in the previous ep,
this week the girls compete to see who the next Supreme is.
Since this is the final ep of the Season,
any or all of the surviving characters might not make it.
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 1]
Monsters Among Us (63 min)
Shown 08/Oct/14
This is set in the early 1950s, in the town of Jupiter in Florida.
Presumably the north-west tip of Florida,
because the show is still shot in Louisiana.
A young woman - or rather, a pair of conjoined twins (
Sarah Paulson
) is discovered at the scene of a gruesome murder.
She is recruited from hospital by Elsa (
Jessica Lange
), boss lady of the local Freakshow.
There is a murderer in town - a creepy clown (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
) with a mask reminiscent of
The Man Who Laughed
. This seems to be entirely coincidental,
as nobody in the Freak Show seems aware of his existence!
Also, there is a rich woman and her spoilt son,
a pair of 1950s caricatures of white-bread America who seem ordinary on the surface,
but may be more freakish and corrupt at their core than the so-called Freaks themselves.
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 2]
Massacres and Matinees
Shown 15/Oct/14
The Police come looking for the missing Detective.
They have no grounds to arrest or detain the conjoined twins (
Sarah Paulson
), so the cop’s death was in fact utterly pointless and even counter-productive.
Now the cops will keep an even closer eye on the Freak Show.
A couple of new carnies turn up.
Angela Bassett
is spectacular as a triple-breasted hermaphrodite,
while her strongman husband (Michael Chiklis -
Fantastic Four
) has history with the bearded lady and her son, flipper-boy.
The Strongman gets hired to help run things,
but Elsa’s ego takes a few blows as a result.
Jimmy the flipper-boy (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) also falls foul of the Strongman.
It is hardly surprising - the boy is well-intentioned,
but the strongman’s cynicism is more practical.
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 3]
Edward Mordrake (1)
Shown 22/Oct/14
A pair of Grifters (
Emma Roberts
and Denis O'Hare -
The Pyramid
) discover how lucrative it is to sell body parts from medical oddities.
The liver of a conjoined twin is worth five thousand dollars (in 1950s money)!
They decide to join the Freakshow in Florida ...
The conjoined twins (
Sarah Paulson
) are getting ahead of themselves, so to speak.
They want to perform on Halloween, so the regulars explain how
to do so would summon the murderous ghost of Edward Mordrake.
The bearded lady (
Kathy Bates
) is given a year to live, if she stays off the booze.
She decides to drink herself to death,
but at least she gets some closure from her relationship with the Strongman (Michael Chiklis -
Fantastic Four
).
On the advice of the new fortune-teller (
Emma Roberts
), Elsa (
Jessica Lange
) sings one of her anachronistic songs.
This has an unexpected effect.
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 4]
Edward Mordrake (2)
Shown 29/Oct/14
Edward Mordrake continues his interrogation of the Freakshow cast. Elsa (
Jessica Lange
) seems his most promising candidate,
with her mutilated limbs and story of vice in the Weimar Republic and what followed after.
Jimmy the flipper-boy (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) gives the fortune-teller (
Emma Roberts
) a ride on his motorbike.
But there is a curfew in place, and the killer clown (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
) is on the loose.
Somehow all the plot threads begin to tie together ...
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 5]
Pink Cupcakes
Shown 05/Nov/14
The killer clown (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
) may be out of the story for the moment,
but there are plenty of other killers in town.
His protégé, the pretty-boy townie,
turns out to have a genetic disposition in that direction.
His father, it turns out, used to abduct and murder drifters.
That explains a lot.
But Mama now has to explain to the maid’s daughter (Precious) why her mother cannot answer the phone.
The bearded lady takes the hermaphrodite to see the local doctor.
He has good news - but this is not what the strongman (Michael Chiklis -
Fantastic Four
) will want to hear.
The grifters want to poison the freaks and preserve their bodies in formaldehyde.
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 6]
Bullseye
Shown 12/Nov/14
The twins (
Sarah Paulson
) are living at the rich guy’s house.
He has stopped killing people for this episode, so it is a good start.
Back in the carnival, Elsa (
Jessica Lange
) practises her knife-throwing for her TV show.
Her birthday is coming up, and everyone gets her a gift.
The English carnie gets a lot more screen time this episode.
He is evidently just as much of a lothario as flipper-boy,
since he is romancing both Elsa and the nurse from the first episode.
The girl’s father (Lee Tergesen -
Weird Science
) is less than happy at the idea.
The fortune-teller (
Emma Roberts
) is under pressure to deliver a dead carnie, or at least some bits of one.
Will she do the smart thing and dig up the dead geek,
or will she just murder the dwarf girl?
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 7]
Test of Strength
Shown 19/Nov/14
Jimmy the flipper-boy (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) persuades the twins (
Sarah Paulson
) to return to the carnival.
He also realises that there is something to the second clown, who was never caught.
The Grifter (Denis O’Hare -
The Pyramid
) finally has enough blackmail material to work on the Strongman (Michael Chiklis -
Fantastic Four
). The next step is to select a victim.
Unfortunately, the Strongman picks the only woman who can actually fight back against him.
The others decide that they no longer need the Strongman,
and are prepared to kill him for being himself.
Jimmy decides to take him out ... for a beer.
The nurse decides to run away from home and join the Carnival.
Her father (Lee Tergesen -
Weird Science
) decides to help her ... sort of
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 8]
Blood Bath
Shown 03/Dec/14
Since one of the carnies is now gone, the others form a search party and look for her.
The bearded lady jumps to conclusions, and assumes Elsa (
Jessica Lange
) is responsible.
Precious turns up looking for her mother,
the housemaid who worked for the creepy rich family.
They claim she has only nipped out to get some groceries.
She does not believe them,
although she can hardly expect them to do their own shopping.
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 9]
Tupperware Party Massacre
Shown 10/Dec/14
Elsa (
Jessica Lange
) and the grifter (Denis O’Hare -
The Pyramid
) hunt down the twins (
Sarah Paulson
) and lure them back to camp.
The promise is that the grifter’s doctor will be able to separate the twins,
without killing either.
Everyone involved seems to acknowledge the transparent lie, but play along with it.
Jimmy the flipper-boy (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) is distraught at the loss of his mother.
He manages to alienate the fortune-teller (
Emma Roberts
) by cheating on her, and then turning up to the town ladies’ Tupperware party drunk.
Unfortunately the local serial killer blames Jimmy for the twins leaving him.
The strongman (Michael Chiklis -
Fantastic Four
) has developed a conscience, and tries to kill himself.
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 10]
Orphans
Shown 17/Dec/14
Elsa (
Jessica Lange
) recounts her early days on the US Carnival circuit,
and how she recruited Pepper the Pin-head as her first act on the Freakshow.
Now Pepper needs a new home, so Elsa tries to find someone to look after her.
The fortune-teller (
Emma Roberts
) decides to confess everything to the triple-breasted hermaphrodite (
Angela Bassett
).
Jimmy the flipper-boy (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) is in jail for the murders.
The Grifter (Denis O’Hare -
The Pyramid
) makes him an offer to get money for a lawyer.
The final section is set eight years in the future.
We discover clues to the eventual fate of at least two of the Freakshow’s inmates.
The sequence involves characters from
Season 2: The Asylum
, implying all Seasons take place in the same world
(but in different cities and time periods).
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 11]
Magical Thinking
Shown 07/Jan/15
Jimmy the flipper-boy (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) is in hospital, after his deal with the Grifter (Denis O’Hare -
The Pyramid
). His father (Michael Chiklis -
Fantastic Four
) plans to bust him out.
There is a new player in town - a salesman (Neil Patrick Harris -
Starship Troopers
). He wants to join the show, doing his magic tricks and ventriloquism.
The twins (
Sarah Paulson
) take a liking to him, which makes the local serial killer jealous.
It also leads to an uncomfortable sex scene portrayed by a homosexual male and a lesbian.
However, NPH has a secret.
His marriage (to a bisexual woman) did not end well,
thanks to his ventriloquist’s dummy.
In the tradition of Anthony Hopkins’ turn in
Magic
, the dummy exerts influence on the mind of its owner.
And when we see her from NPH’s perspective,
she is the Downs Syndrome girl from the previous season.
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 12]
Show Stoppers
Shown 14/Jan/15
Elsa (
Jessica Lange
) holds a dinner to celebrate the freakshow being bought by NPH.
She also has a special surprise for the grifter (Denis O’Hare -
The Pyramid
). It is a showing of
Todd Browning’s Freaks
- and predictably, it becomes more of a re-enactment.
Elsa calls in an old friend of hers,
the doctor who crafted her false legs.
He can make replacement hands for Jimmy the flipper-boy (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
). The characters echo their roles in the previous season
- the Doctor was the Axeman, and Jimmy was similarly dismembered.
The local rich psycho is still in town, and he tells the twins (
Sarah Paulson
) about NPH.
They choose not to believe him, but allow the fortune-teller (
Emma Roberts
) to replace them in the sawing-a-woman-in-half act.
American Horror [Season 4, Episode 13]
Curtain Call
Shown 21/Jan/15
The serial killer is now the owner, and the headlining act.
However, his lack of people skills makes him a poor manager.
It will not end well.
Everyone in the Freakshow is a mass-murderer by now, after all.
Elsa (
Jessica Lange
) goes to Hollywood, and pushes for success.
However, her past will hunt her down.
The Studio wants her to perform on a Halloween Special.
Will Edward Mordrake claim her after all?
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 1]
Checking In (90 min)
Shown 07 Oct 15
There is a hotel run by witches.
It is full of carnival sideshow freaks, and visitors get killed by the ghosts.
So far, this is just a mish-mash of previous Seasons of the show.
The boss-lady of the place, a role usually played by
Jessica Lange
is now filled by
Lady Gaga
! In a scene eerily reminiscent of
The Hunger
she and her lover seduce and devour a pair of bisexuals.
In a later scene, Bela Lugosi’s Dead is added to the show’s soundtrack.
So it is not a complete rip-off, just an extended homage!
Police Detective John Lowe (Wes Bentley -
Hunger Games
) is obsessively hunting for a serial killer.
Ironically the killer is obsessively stalking him too, and lures him to the hotel.
The cop is separated from his wife (
Chloe Sevigny
) but they share custody of their daughter.
They used to have a son, but he mysteriously disappeared at a carnival.
And now, the detective has visions of the boy at the hotel ...
The lady realtor from Season One shows a new buyer around the property.
Does she have a monopoly on all the haunted buildings in town?
Or does she just get lumped with all the bad cases?
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 2]
Chutes and Ladders (105 min)
Shown 14 Oct 15
The hotel’s new owner holds a fashion show in the main hall.
Naomi Campbell
is a fashion journalist who attends.
One of the male models is a coke fiend who acts in an aggressive and unpredictable manner.
Lady Gaga
is smitten with him, much to the chagrin of her ex-junkie lover.
Police Detective Wes Bentley (
Hunger Games
) and his pre-teen daughter attend the Fashion Show,
but she sneaks off to go exploring with the new owner’s son.
They discover the fate of her brother.
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 3]
Mommy
Shown 21 Oct 15
The boss-lady of the place, the Countess (
Lady Gaga
), has dumped her former lover and shacked up with the male model of the previous episode.
Her previous lover goes back to his old junkie ways, looking to get high.
He bumps into his predecessor - Ramona Royale (
Angela Bassett
), who has a revenge plan! Meanwhile, The Countess is looking to marry the hotel's new owner.
He self-identifies as gay, but that will not stop her.
Police Detective Wes Bentley (
Hunger Games
) is still obsessively hunting for the serial killer.
It turns out that the killer's modus operandi is biblical,
which is a major clue.
Meanwhile, the cop's wife (
Chloe Sevigny
) wants a divorce. The stress of being told that her missing son is a ghost in a creepy vampire hotel ...
The hotel's new owner wants to remodel the building's interior.
However the ghost of the original builder, James March (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) is an HH Holmes type,
a serial killer who built the place as his very own murder hotel.
He certainly does not want his masterpiece to be disturbed,
so he has his minions target people close to the new owner.
Naomi Campbell
is still the token Ethnic female - what are her survival chances?
The episode title could apply to several characters in this matriarchal show.
The Countess is the show's uber-matriarch, but
Kathy Bates
is the mother of the junkie vamp ...
and the cop's wife (
Chloe Sevigny
) is mother of the child vamp.
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 4]
Devil's Night
Shown 28 Oct 15
In Los Angeles it is Halloween, but in the Hotel Cortez it is Devil’s Night!
The Detective (Wes Bentley –
Hunger Games
) is invited to a special party held by the Hotel’s founder,
the cut-price HH Holmes clone James March (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
). The other attendees are some of the most famous serial killers in American history
– Aileen Wournos (
), Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
). A pretty predictable bunch, to be sure.
The only obscure serial killer who even gets a mention is
the 1920s child abduction case that the film
Changeling
was based on.
The cop begins to suspect that something supernatural is happening at the hotel.
However, his first assumption is that they just have really good Halloween costumes!
On an aside note, how is this linked in to the mysterious serial killer
who is currently leaving bodies across Los Angeles?
Since it is unlikely to be a ghost or a vampire,
there is one suspect that stands out ...
Speaking of the Undead, the cop’s wife (
Chloe Sevigny
) has found her son.
His skin is ice-cold and as pale as death,
and he has not aged a day since the last time she saw him three years ago.
Naturally she takes him home with her and leaves him alone with her pet dog.
How long will it take for her to realise he is a vamp?
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 5]
Room Service
Shown 04 Nov 15
The Detective (Wes Bentley –
Underworld 3
) reports the events of Devil’s Night party to his boss (T-Bag from
Prison Break).
Naturally his mental health is put into question.
But at least he will have a lot more time to hang around the Hotel Cortez.
Unbeknownst to him, his soon-to-be ex-wife (
Chloe Sevigny
) will be there too. The Countess (
Lady Gaga
) has hired her as Governess for the vampire children.
Iris the old maid (
Kathy Bates
) has been revived and is now the undercover operator of Ramona Royale (
Angela Bassett
). Nice to see that, three years running, such high-class talent is still on the show.
It could be pointed out that women generally do not get cast in films if they are over 35 years of age,
but US TV shows are usually aimed at a female audience
so they have a higher proportion of older (than 35 years old) female cast members.
Iris and Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare –
The Pyramid
) finally get to talking. This gives us Taylor’s backstory – after all,
this show is a collection of character studies rather than a single plot-intensive storyline.
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 6]
Room 33
Shown 11 Nov 15
We start with a flashback to 1926. The Countess (
Lady Gaga
) somehow got pregnant, so she visited the abortionist in the Murder House from Season One.
The cop (Wes Bentley –
Hunger Games
) discovers the coffins in the basement.
He did not bother looking there when his daughter told him,
but he follows his son (a mini vampire) down there.
And his wife (
Chloe Sevigny
) is so keen to keep him out of the secret world she has discovered
that she enlists the ghosts of the two Swedish blondes who now roam the halls.
Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare –
The Pyramid
) falls in love with the new boy-toy of the Countess.
Ramona Royale (
Angela Bassett
) drops by while the Countess is away,
and tries to take the next step in her revenge plan.
It seems like the vamp’s list of enemies is ever-expanding.
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 7]
Flicker
Shown 18 Nov 15
We get a flashback to 1925. The Countess (
Lady Gaga
) was a movie extra in Hollywood.
She got involved with Rudolph Valentino and his wife (
Alexandra Daddario
). Valentino had an encounter with
FW Murnau
, who had done too much research for
Nosferatu
in the Carpathians. Unfortunately the Countess also got involved with
the Hotel owner James March (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
). The mystery of Valentino's disappearance was never solved ...
until a construction crew started to renovate the third floor of the Hotel Cortez!
The cop (Wes Bentley –
Hunger Games
) gets himself signed into a mental asylum.
He does not doubt his own mental faculties,
although under the circumstances he has every reason to.
No, instead he wants to illegally access a secret witness
who is being held in the secure ward.
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 8]
The Ten Commandments Killer
Shown 25 Nov 15
The cop (Wes Bentley –
Hunger Games
) finally discovers the truth about the serial killer he has been hunting.
It explains why the Hotel owner James March (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) has taken such an interest in him, and why the Countess (
Lady Gaga
) chose his son above all others.
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 9]
She Wants Revenge
Shown 09 Dec 15
The previous episode centred around the cop (Wes Bentley –
Hunger Games
). This week he is nowhere to be seen.
Instead, we focus on the Countess (
Lady Gaga
) and the current state of her loves and hates.
It is like a soap opera filled with vampires, ghosts and serial killers.
The Countess is about to marry the Hotel's new owner
so she can kill him and get the hotel back.
She has murdered her most recent lover for cheating with Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare –
The Pyramid
). The lover before that is now back in the Countess' bed,
despite having made a secret alliance with his predecessor, Ramona Royale (
Angela Bassett
). And the Countess has also taken umbrage at her first husband,
the Hotel's original owner James March (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
). He imprisoned her first lovers, Rudolph Valentino and his wife (
Alexandra Daddario
), in an impregnable vault. Of course, now they are back ...
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 10]
She Gets Revenge (73 mins)
Shown 16 Dec 15
The Countess (
Lady Gaga
) has discovered there is a band of feral vampire children on the loose.
She tells the responsible party, her nanny (
Chloe Sevigny
), who pulls in her soon-to-be ex-husband - the cop (Wes Bentley –
Hunger Games
). Can they sort things out, and rekindle their marriage?
Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare –
The Pyramid
) tries to rekindle her relationship with her son.
They have not seen each other in thirty years.
Will the boy recognise his father - and accept him?
The Countess wants Rudolph Valentino all to herself.
First she will have to deal with his wife (
Alexandra Daddario
). However, her more recent creation wants to get back with her,
and she has trained him to think the same way she does.
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 11]
Battle Royale (70 mins)
Shown 06 Jan 16
The Countess (
Lady Gaga
) is beset by enemies on all sides.
Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare –
The Pyramid
) and
Kathy Bates
want revenge, so they unleash Ramona Royale (
Angela Bassett
). Even James March (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) wants her dead, albeit so that she can be his ghost-wife rather than his estranged vamp.
Sally (
Sarah Paulson
) helps the Countess.
Her price is the return of the cop (Wes Bentley –
Hunger Games
), who has gone back to his wife (
Chloe Sevigny
) and children.
Precious from
Season 3: Coven
pays a visit to the hotel.
She is practically unkillable - after all, she is a living voodoo doll.
Also, if she goes missing the Coven will turn up looking for her.
And since the hotel is a supernatural hotspot,
she would come back as a ghost and tell her friends who killed her.
Also, since several corpses were raised in that Season,
the witches could resurrect her before seeking vengeance.
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 12]
Be Our Guest (70 mins)
Shown 13 Jan 16
Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare –
The Pyramid
) and
Kathy Bates
actually do a good job running the hotel.
The ghosts are mostly happy, except for Sally (
Sarah Paulson
) who needs a special solution to her problems.
The hotel then has problems with another
Sarah Paulson
character - the psychic from
Season 1: Haunted House
. She does a series of documentaries about the place,
eager to speak to the cop (Wes Bentley –
Hunger Games
) so she can find out what happened to his wife (
Chloe Sevigny
). Instead, he invites her to the Devil's Night party so she can meet James March (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) and his friends.
The ending is a perfect tie-up to the Season,
and gives a wonderful send-off to one of the characters.
Everyone's story arc is tied up nicely, as always with this show.
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 1]
Chapter One
Shown 14 Sep 16
This Season's theme was a well-kept secret until the Season premiere was aired.
Basically, this is the idea of the original Season
but adapted for a Reality TV format.
In other words, the creators have run out of ideas.
How this will fit into the other shows is yet to be explained,
but we should remember the mythical Croatoan curse from
Season One: Murder House
.
Shelby (
Lilly Rabe
) and her husband Matt narrate a true-life story.
Actors portraying them -
Sarah Paulson
and Cuba Gooding Junior (
Forever
) - buy a
Cabin in the Woods
but soon fall victim to creepy goings-on.
Gooding assumes they are being harrassed by creepy local rednecks,
so he invites his sister Lee (
Angela Bassett
), an ex-cop who was fired for abusing prescription painkillers.
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 2]
Chapter Two
Shown 21 Sep 16
Shelby (
Sarah Paulson
) encounters
Kathy Bates
and the Roanoake ghosts in the woods.
Of course, she rationalises it and believes it is a hoax by the hillbillies.
Lee (
Angela Bassett
) gets her three days of custody of her pre-teen daughter.
Of course, that means letting the child live in the haunted house for three days.
Soon the child has an invisible friend who wears old-fashioned clothes.
Will Lee, the down-to-earth ex-cop,
come to terms with the fact that everyone else is seeing ghosts?
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 3]
Chapter Three
Shown 28 Sep 16
The little girl is missing, so the family call in the police.
They scour the woods, and discover that the neighbouring farm
(run by the inbred hillbillies, the Polk family),
is site of some unpleasant goings-on.
A psychic named Cricket Marlowe arrives from New Orleans.
He makes contact with the ghosts, who are led by The Butcher (
Kathy Bates
). We get a lot of exposition - it turns out she was the wife of the Governor of Roanoake.
She was left in charge when her husband returned to England,
but the peasants revolted and insisted on government by the consent of the governed.
Even her weak-willed son Ambrose (Wes Bentley -
Hunger Games
) is coerced into betraying her. Bad mistake!
The Butcher just wants her land to be free of interlopers - AKA the living.
This sounds perfect, because nobody in their right mind would want to live in a murder house
filled with centuries worth of murderous ghosts.
This might be the quickest resolution to any Season of the show yet.
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 4]
Chapter Four
Shown 05 Oct 16
Professor Elias (Denis O’Hare -
The Pyramid
) drops by to deliver some exposition.
The ghosts can actually touch their victims for a period of six days in October.
That is when all the murders occur ... and the first day of that period is today!
Cricket was mysteriously absent while the Professor was around,
but makes a reappearance to deliver his own exposition.
The colony moved to the farmland when the Butcher (
Kathy Bates
) made an alliance with the witch of the woods (
Lady Gaga
), a pagan priestess who gave them good harvests in exchange for human sacrifices.
. Unfortunately the butcher's weak-willed son Ambrose (Wes Bentley -
Hunger Games
) decided the colony should return to England, land of episcopalianism.
Gaga's pagan goddess seems to be a fertility one,
and the priestess is thus very sexually frustrated.
Matt is the only heterosexual man around,
which is the only explanation for her obsessing about him.
It is one thing for her to want Cuba Gooding Jnr (
Chill Factor
), but he is only the reenactment actor portraying the Urkle-looking dude in the cutaway scenes.
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 5]
Chapter Five
Shown 12 Oct 16
The documentary has a dramatic reconstruction of the building of house, back in 1792.
Edward Mott, the first owner, is played by Evan Peters (
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) who also played the creator of the haunted hotel in the previous Season.
The actress who plays the historian is wooden and unconvincing, like the one in
Stephen King's Rose Red
.
Matt (Cuba Gooding Jnr -
Chill Factor
) and Shelby (
Sarah Paulson
) are besieged by
Kathy Bates
and the Roanoake ghosts.
However, Mott is the only one not scared of the Butcher.
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 6]
Chapter Six
Shown 19 Oct 16
With the reconstruction over,
the show really begins to look good.
A sleazy Producer and his sidekick (
Shannon Lucio
) plan a sequel to the Roanoake series.
Instead of reconstructions they will have a reality TV setup,
like Big Brother ... in the haunted house itself!
The result is a Found Footage effort.
This episode was directed by
Angela Bassett
.
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 7]
Chapter Seven
Shown 26 Oct 16
The actors and interviewees settle in on their first evening.
Things are supposed to get spooky,
and allow the show's atmosphere to develop naturally.
However, things go bad from the very start.
The most jarring thing is that everyone tries to film everything
with their camera-phones,
even when they should be running for their lives!
This dedication to the Found Footage format is distracting and unconvincing.
Agnes (
Kathy Bates
) was banned from the production because of her mental breakdown.
This was not a good idea on the Producer's part.
He hoped she would have another breakdown and turn up to cause trouble.
However, he never actually had a plan for what to do if and when this happened!
The problem with this episode is that it just seems uneven.
Are the audience meant to be uncertain as to whether the ghosts are real?
If so, this is spoiled by the fact the previous five Seasons all had real ghosts in them.
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 8]
Chapter Eight
Shown 02 Nov 16
Shelby (
Lilly Rabe
) and Cuba Gooding Junior (
Chill Factor
) are trapped in the house.
The three other women make a break for it.
Unfortunately they forget about the evil redneck cannibals living next door.
Worse, the cannibals have a Confederate flag on display
so we should all associate everyone in Dixie-land with racism.
Yes, things have changed a lot since the Dukes of Hazzard.
Lee (
Adina Porter
) discovers the origins of the Pig Man serial killer myth in
American Horror [Season 1, Episode 6] Piggy, Piggy.
Then she gets chunks cut out of her leg.
Typically for a TV show, when she makes her inevitable escape attempt
she is not hindered by massive pain, blood loss or muscle damage!
The good thing about this episode is that the villains are played by complete unknowns.
Yes, the original five episodes gave us the recognisable faces as the re-enactors.
Now we have genuinely unsettling scenes
that feature characters who do not ruin our suspension of disbelief.
However, there is one main problem.
The majority of the killings turn out to be by humans.
However, the ghosts clearly appear on-screen in the found footage.
This certainly seems to be a bit of a wasted opportunity.
So much for suspense.
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 9]
Chapter Nine
Shown 09 Nov 16
Taissa Farmiga
and a couple of tweenage friends get lost in the woods.
They have GoPro video cameras,
with the intention of uploading their footage
to a My Roanoake Nightmare website.
Two of the survivors have taken refuge back in the haunted house.
Then they have another guest - one of the other actors from the show.
He is ex-military, and offers to help them rescue their missing friend
who was last seen trapped in the hill-billy camp next door.
Unfortunately the ghosts of the Roanoake colony are out in force.
They demand a human sacrifice in order to appease their gods.
Who will they get?
And will the whole thing be captured on the found footage cameras?
American Horror [Season 6, Episode 10]
Chapter Ten
Shown 16 Nov 16
The good news is, one of the cast members from Roanoake Season Two survived.
The bad news is, she was put on trial for killing the racist hill-billies at the Polk farm.
Yes, despite the whole thing being on video she still gets Zimmermanned!
Lana Winters (
Sarah Paulson
), last seen facing Bloody Face the serial killer in
Season 2: Asylum
, comes out of retirement to interview the survivor.
This is the show's compulsory tie-in,
although it seems the odd-numbered Seasons tie in with each other
but they do not with the even-numbered Seasons, and vice versa.
Another TV crew go back to the haunted house during the blood moon.
They want to get their OWN footage of murderous ghosts.
How shocking that nobody seems to take the previous year's footage seriously!
Presumably the police and Feds do not believe that anyone,
even Agnes, was murdered by actual ghosts.
And even the people who claim to believe in ghosts
do not fear that the ghosts will murder them.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 1]
Election Night
Shown 05 Sep 17
This starts on Election Night 2016, in a small town in Florida.
The main characters, a group of Democratic Party supporters,
are shocked and horrified.
In the next few days, things slowly get worse.
The Mayor (Tim Kang - The Mentalist)
opposes a speech made by Trump supporter Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
). The Trumper feels humiliated, and implies he will seek revenge.
He then starts to target immigrants and homosexual people.
This is where Peters is at his best,
playing barely-repressed tweenage psychos like in Season One.
Amber Wilson (
Sarah Paulson
) is a lesbian who suffers from extreme anxiety.
The stress causes her to halucinate.
Her son's horror comic-book (about the Killer Clown from
Season 4: Freakshow
) triggers her.
Is she really seeing ghosts?
The lesbian couple hire a nanny (
Billie Lourde
) to look after their son.
Yes, two career women in a relationship and no home-maker.
Unfortunately the new nanny has her own secret agenda.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 2]
Don't Be Afraid of The Dark
Shown 12 Sep 17
Amber Wilson (
Sarah Paulson
) and her son both believe they are being stalked by Killer Clowns.
Luckily the new neighbours (
Leslie Grossman
and her husband) are also paranoid,
although they are gun-toting survivalists
rather than easily-triggered safe-space-seekers.
Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) declares his intention to run for office.
How convenient that his enemy was murdered by killer clowns.
The bleach-blond police detective (Colton Hayes -
Arrow
) believes it is a murder-suicide brought on by depression over Trump's victory?
There is a power blackout across the town.
Naturally, this makes the paranoid people even more jumpy.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 3]
Neighbors from The Hell
Shown 19 Sep 17
Amber Wilson (
Sarah Paulson
) was panicky, paranoid and pistol-packing.
Unfortunately (but predictably) someone got killed.
The bleach-blond police detective (Colton Hayes -
Arrow
) is willing to write it off as self-defence.
After all, he takes a pragmatic view.
Unfortunately, as TV News reporter Beverly Hope (
Adina Porter
) puts it, this makes her look like the Lesbian George Zimmerman.
The Extreme Left (?) use Amber as a scapegoat for their frustrations.
However, right-wing extremists Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) is the only one who actually helps her.
In all fairness, they have a lot in common.
He gets his info from Facebook, while she gets it from Instagram.
The new neighbours (
Leslie Grossman
and her husband) turn up the heat on Amber.
They call her a racist, the worst insult you can give to a Progressive.
This is all turning into an amazing satire
instead of just the predictable Trump-bashing.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 4]
11/9
Shown 26 Sep 17
This starts with a flashback to election night.
TV News reporter Beverly Hope (
Adina Porter
) covered the event for her station,
but gets beaten to the plum job by her work rival (
Emma Roberts
) who is sleeping with the boss (Dermot Mulrooney -
).
It turns out that Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) has been recruiting members for his Cult for quite some time.
This means he is not the impulsive type implied in the first episode.
Instead he is an ambitious sociopath
who wants to rise to power on the back of the protest voters.
Yes, he is taking his inspiration from Donald Trump himself.
Amber's wife (
Alison Pill
) met the nanny (
Billie Lourde
) at an anti-Trump rally.
Strange that they never recognised each other later.
They bonded over their mutual man-hating.
Also, we get to find out how the grocery-store clerk lost his hand.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 5]
Holes
Shown 03 Oct 17
TV News reporter Beverly Hope (
Adina Porter
) gets confronted by her boss (Dermot Mulrooney -
). He has become suspicious because of her Fake News,
and sympathetic treatment of Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
). Apparently the local police chief has played down the
The Cult's plan is made clear.
Create a public panic based on fear of rising crime,
then step in and provide leadership.
This is a new new version of the old real-estate scam plot,
which made up the storyline of every episode of Scooby Doo.
Amber Wilson (
Sarah Paulson
) decides to spy on the neighbour, like in Rear Window.
After all, his wife (
Leslie Grossman
) went missing under mysterious circumstances.
Amber does not believe in the serial killer,
but she believes in Killer Clowns!
The Cult decide to take out their own weakest link.
As befits the satirical nature of this Season,
most of them are Democrats rather than Trumpers.
Nobody has even mentioned Bernie Sanders,
which is odd because Clinton and Jill Stein are referred to repeatedly.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 6]
Mid-Western Assassin
Shown 10 Oct 17
The episode starts with a political rally by Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
). In a typically American scene,
it gets shot up by a gun-toting killer.
Amber Wilson (
Sarah Paulson
) tries to save her neighbour Meadow (
Leslie Grossman
). As a result she gets some exposition about the Cult,
and some flashbacks to the recruitment phase of the Cult.
However, even though Amber knows what is going on
she has no idea who she can trust to help her fight it.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 7]
Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag
Shown 17 Oct 17
Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) has successfully played the victim card,
and lots of people have volunteered to help his campaign.
The new people are white men with short hair.
This all feels a bit like the Project Mayhem phase of
Fight Club
.
TV News reporter Beverly Hope (
Adina Porter
) is unhappy at the turn things have taken.
Luckily she gets confronted by a mysterious woman (
Frances Conroy
) who has worked out what is going on.
The two meet up with Amber's wife (
Alison Pill
) met the nanny (
Billie Lourde
), who have both been excluded from the new Cult.
The stranger recounts the story of Valerie Solanas (
Lena Dunham
) who is famous for writing the SCUM manifesto.
In real life, the manifesto is regarded by many people as being ironic,
intended as a parody of the extreme Female Supremacist movement.
Perhaps the real irony is that such extremism is now virtually mainstream.
Anyway, in this version of events SCUM (the Society for Cutting Up Men) was a real thing.
Solanas started a cult that moved to San Francisco
where it staged the Zodiac Killer murders.
The excluded women take this as inspiration.
Kai's Cult has shown a number of weaknesses in previous episodes.
To start with, they are eager to sacrifice their fellow members.
Secondly, Kai is more than willing to sacrifice them.
Thirdly, he is pulling their strings and he is always a step ahead.
So are they just playing into his hands?
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 8]
Winter of Our Discontent
Shown 24 Oct 17
Beverly Hope (
Adina Porter
) is still unhappy at the turn things have taken,
but she and the other women are back working for Kai again.
Amber's wife (
Alison Pill
) is unhappy about being treated like a servant in her own restuarant.
She has to serve food to the customers.
Poor woman!
Winter (
Billie Lourde
) tells her fellow female Cultists about Kai's first kill,
a right-wing fundamentalist preacher like Kai now pretends to be.
She believes her brother has a plan,
and that he still has a use for the others.
Kai wants Winter to have a Messiah baby,
conceived by the bleach-blond police detective (Colton Hayes -
Arrow
). Unfortunately neither of them really wants to become a parent.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 9]
Drink The Kool-Aid
Shown 31 Oct 17
Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) has gone full whacko.
He shares his obsessions with his new army of minions.
As the episode title suggests, the focus is Jim Jones from the 1970s.
But he also refers to a couple of more passive cults from the 1990s
- Heaven's Gate and the Branch Davidians.
Poor old David Koresh is portrayed as killing his followers rather than protecting them,
although this is Kai's interpretation of events.
He is not exactly a reliable narrator.
The women decide that they should get out of town ASAP.
However, the lesbians have one weakness - they cannot leave without their son.
Kai knows this, and uses it to manipulate them.
Also, Amber Wilson (
Sarah Paulson
) has an agenda of her own.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 10]
Charles (Manson) in Charge
Shown 07 Nov 17
The episode starts with a flashback.
Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) was the victim of sexual harrassment
when one of Winter's friends went all Harvey Wankstain on him.
He physically fended her off,
and got court ordered treatment from an Anger Management therapist.
This explains why he started a cult based on the works of Valerie Solanas.
Back in the present day,
Kai's fascist rallies have attracted the attention of Anti-Fascist types.
They use urine bottles and pepper-spray.
Kai's plan is to push things to an even more extreme level.
Kai's favourite Cult leader is no longer Jim Jones, it is Charlie Manson.
Well, he was the male version of Solanas.
Anyway, he is getting incredibly paranoid.
Who will he turn on next?
His original inner circle has already lost half its members.
Amber Wilson (
Sarah Paulson
) is still hanging around.
She says she wants to help Kai,
but she seems mostly interested in revenge.
American Horror [Season 7, Episode 11]
Episode 11
Shown 14 Nov 17
The episode starts with Kai Anderson (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) in prison.
Of course, he is completely beyond redemption
and merely starts a prison gang of his own.
Eleven months previously, we see how Kai's first Cult ended.
The FBI let things keep going, and the bodies mount up,
until they have all the important facts in clear sight.
In real life, they would have enough to indite people for conspiracy
based on a simple conversations about hypotheticals.
Amber Wilson (
Sarah Paulson
) gets what she always wanted.
She has sole custody of her son because her wife was murdered,
and she has now upgraded to a hot new girlfriend.
Her restuarant business is doing better than ever,
because she now has celebrity status thanks to surviving the Cult.
She has made so much success out of her suffering,
in fact, that one cannot help but be reminded of the actress's character in
American Horror Story: Asylum
. Has she successfully out-manipulated the arch-manipulator?
How long will it take before she starts a Cult of her own?
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 1]
The End
Shown 12th September 2018 [Wednesday]
The USA is about to be destroyed in a nuclear war.
A spoilt rich bitch named Coco (
Leslie Grossman
) is allowed to take three people with her into a survival shelter.
Since her boyfriend is stuck in traffic an unable to make it,
she picks her assistant Mallory (
Billie Lourde
), her hairdresser (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) and his grandmother (
Joan Collins
).
Many months later, the survivors are in an underground bunker run by
Sarah Paulson
. Outside is nuclear winter, where the survivors have become murderous cannibals.
The alternative, being buried alive in a concrete tomb, seems to be worse.
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 2]
The Morning After
Shown 19th September 2018 [Wednesday]
HQ has sent a specialist named Langdon to interview the survivors.
He is meant to select the most worthy ones,
and take them with him back to safety.
However, they are not told what criteria he will base his selections on.
As a result they all try to betray each other.
Things are strained between the hairdresser (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
) and his grandmother (
Joan Collins
). Langdon plays on this, to drive them further apart.
The hairdresser also gets visited by someone in a gimp suit, like in
Season 1: Murder House
. This is strange,
because the crossovers are usually either odd-numbered Seasons or even ones.
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 3]
Forbidden Fruit
Shown 26th September 2018 [Wednesday]
After the previous episode's gimp suited ghost from
Season 1: Murder House
we now get the introduction of magic.
This links the show to
Season 3: Coven
, which means that we may get scenes between Mallory (
Billie Lourde
) and Madison (
Emma Roberts
). They were a double-act as the Chanels in
Scream Queens
.
Coco's boyfriend, who she abandoned in traffic,
somehow survived the nuclear war.
He is looking for the sanctuary, so he can find her.
The HQ has a cargo of fresh apples delivered to the bunker.
Sarah Paulson
and her hench-person (
Kathy Bates
) decide to poison them with snake venom.
They want to kill all the survivors,
so they have the sanctuary all to themselves.
This is reminiscent of other post-apocalypse shows like
The Walking Dead
and
The 100
, which have the human species trying to cause its own extinction.
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 4]
Could it Be ... Satan?
Shown 3rd October 2018 [Wednesday]
The episode starts where the previous one left off.
Then it becomes an extended flashback,
in which we see the back-story of Langdon.
In
Season 3: Coven
we saw that witches were real, but now we meet their male counterparts.
Apparently testosterone inhibits magical powers,
which explains why the Warlocks are so effeminate.
BD Wong (
Gotham
) has discovered Langdon - a powerful young man with a lot of potential.
However, Cordelia (
Sarah Paulson
) and the other witches refuse to test him.
Langdon took it upon himself to prove himself worthy
by doing what the Supreme Witch could not do - raise the dead.
Precious is stuck in the Hotel Cortez, the last place we saw her in
Season 5: Hotel
. She is playing cards with the ghost of the owner (Evan Peters -
X-Men: Days of Future Past
), who has apparently been abandoned by all the other ghosts.
Meanwhile, Madison (
Emma Roberts
) is trapped in her own private hell.
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 5]
Boy Wonder
Shown 10th October 2018 [Wednesday]
The episode starts where the previous one left off,
in the extended flashback of Langdon's back-story.
Cordelia (
Sarah Paulson
) has a nightmare about a white-faced demon in a post-apocalyptic workd.
She doubles down on the testing,
and insists that Langdon raise Misty Day from the dead.
She is triple-covering herself with this.
If Langdon fails the test and dies, her problems are over.
If he succeeds and is good, he will be strong enough to fight the demon.
And if he succeeds and IS the demon, at least Misty will be back to fight against him.
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 6]
Return to Murder House
Shown 17th October 2018 [Wednesday]
Madison (
Emma Roberts
) and the gay black warlock buy the murder house from
Season One
, and move in posing as a married couple.
At least three of the ghosts are played by the same actresses as members of her coven,
but Madison does not comment on the resemblances.
It is nice to see the old characters again.
Several of them had unfinished story arcs,
and now Madison manages to give them closure.
Constance (
Jessica Lange
) raised Michael, her grandson.
Yes, the male Supreme is the Antichrist baby from the first Season.
That whole story arc is finally getting completed.
The boy aged ten years overnight, which explains the time frame.
The shrink (Dylan McDermott -
) took over Michael's parentage after Constance's death.
He did his best, but discovered that
Michael can touch and even magically annihilate ghosts.
Finally the witches speak with Michael's mother (
Connie Britton
). She tells of the time that the house was visited by Anton LeVay (
), the Anti-Pope, and his two bishops.
One is Kathy Bates (
Misery
), the other is
Naomi Grossman
. Yes, we get to see what Pepper the Pin-head looks like
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 7]
Traitor
Shown 24th October 2018 [Wednesday]
Joan Collins
re-enacts her role in the Horror portmanteau
Vault of Horror (1973)
. Madison (
Emma Roberts
) brings her out of retirement because the coven needs her mind-reading superpower.
They know that the Warlocks are up to something.
Michael the male Supreme is out of town.
BD Wong is in charge
He and the Church of Satan bishop (
Kathy Bates
) are top of the witches' hit-list.
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 8]
Sojourn
Shown 15th November 2018 [Wednesday]
Michael the male supreme comes back from his solo meditations,
and discovers his closest advisors have been burned at the stake.
Alone, he goes back to the meditation.
Alone and defeated, the Antichrist stumbles into a church of Satan.
This may be a branch of Anton LeVay's group,
but the Antichrist does not attempt to contact LeVay or the other Bishop.
Instead he joins the congregation.
The Church of Satan has connections.
There is a network of believers,
people who sold their souls for material gain and physical pleasure.
A couple of these are tech nerds who can build their own humanoid robots.
The Antichrist gets them to build a robot version of the Bishop.
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 9]
Fire And Reign
Shown 22nd November 2018 [Wednesday]
Michael the male supreme gets his own back on the witches.
They should have realised what they were getting
into when they burned his closest advisors at the stake.
Precious uses her human voodoo doll superpower,
but it is not much use against an android.
The death-vag girl should have used her own power against Michael,
but nobody thought of it in time.
Michael's next problem is how to destroy the world.
His plan is to take ideas from the plot of the movie
The Omen 3
. However, the techno-nerds who built his android have a better plan.
They put him in touch with the Illuminati,
and give him the blueprints for the system of sanctuaries.
They even recruit their office manager to run one of the outposts.
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 10]
Apocalypse Then
Shown 29th November 2018 [Wednesday]
Finally we pick up where
American Horror [Season 8, Episode 3] Forbidden Fruit
left off.
The Witches face off against the AntiChrist.
Their last best hope for victory is time-travel.
The problem with a reset is that certain characters will not get their proper ending.
Season 1: Murder House
loses a happy ending, and
Season 5: Hotel
loses a not-so-happy one.
American Horror [Season 9, Episode 1]
Camp Redwood
Shown 18 Sep 19
The series has covered so many different scenarios from horror movies,
it was only a matter of time before they got round to the 1980s slasher genre.
The genre was parodied in
Scream Queens
, which starred two of the leads in this show.
However, that was a modern-day show and this is a period piece.
Beyond that, if you like one then you will like the other.
A group of horny tweenagers meet up at an aerobics class, reminiscent of the
Jamie Lee Curtis
movie Perfect. Montana (
Billie Lourde
) is eager to work as an instructor at a newly re-opened camp in the woods. Brooke Thompson (
Emma Roberts
) is reluctant to join them, but that night she gets burglarised by Richard Ramirez (who later pops up in
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 4] Devil's Night
). She decides to leave town and joins the others.
After all, what are the chances of there being TWO serial killers on the rampage?
In a scene straight out of
Cabin In The Woods
the tweens get a warning from Roy the gas station guy (Don Swayze -
). Then the Camp Owner (
Leslie Grossman
) and the Camp Nurse (
Adina Porter
) give them a real-life campfire story about the camp's history.
Matthew Morrison (Glee), hiding behind a Tom selleck moustache,
is the camp's head of physical education.
In 1970, the camp's handyman Mr Jingles (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
) massacred the camp counsellors.
Now the camp is being re-opened, he evades his shrink (
Orla Brady
) and Art the security guard (Mitch Pileggi -
The X-Files
) and breaks out of the secure mental hospital.
Yes, this ticks all the boxes that
Black Christmas (2010)
ticked - with the camp instead of a sorority house.
American Horror [Season 9, Episode 2]
Mr. Jingles
Shown 25 Sep 19
Mr Jingles (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
) is on the loose, so his shrink (
Orla Brady
) turns up to warn everyone.
However, she does not exactly do a good job.
The Nightstalker goes after Brooke Thompson (
Emma Roberts
). Judging from the story she tells about her wedding ceremony,
the audience might be forgiven for assuming that she was just paranoid.
After all, what are the chances of TWO serial killers being on the rampage?
Ramirez discovers what happened to the hitch-hiker,
and goes to the Camp Owner (
Leslie Grossman
) for more answers.
He recounts his own backstory, which omits any mention of James March from
American Horror [Season 5, Episode 4] Devil's Night
.
The tweenagers discover there is at least one killer on the loose.
To escape they need their car keys, so they split up to find them.
They forget that Mr Jingles loves to collect keys - as well as human ears!
American Horror [Season 9, Episode 3]
Slashdance
Shown 02 Oct 19
Guest star of the week is
Dreama Walker
. She is perfect fodder for this kind of slasher parody,
and she gets a pivotal role in the episode.
We get a flashback to a week previously.
It explains how and why Mr Jingles (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
) escaped and started his murder spree.
It turns out that the Nightstalker also has special motivation.
After all, it is not a coincidence that he managed to track down Brooke Thompson (
Emma Roberts
) at such a remote location.
On top of everything else,
someone has dug pit-traps around the area.
This must have taken a lot of work,
and a long time to set it up.
This implies that there is yet ANOTHER spree killer on the loose.
American Horror [Season 9, Episode 4]
True Killers
Shown 09 Oct 19
The two killers each pair off with their respective accomplices.
Everyone's agenda is now in the open, and it just becomes a kill-fest.
American Horror [Season 9, Episode 5]
Red Dawn
Shown 16 Oct 19
Just as the previous episode paired the killers and accomplices,
now they each pair off with their prime victim.
We are reminded of the supernatural aspect of the storyline.
There are a handful of ghosts, and an unholy intervention or two.
Also, some loose ends are left for the rest of the Season.
American Horror [Season 9, Episode 6]
Episode 100
Shown 23 Oct 19
The main storyline climaxed in the previous week.
However, this is like the
Roanoake
Season they add an extra level to the main storyline.
Brooke (
Emma Roberts
) got the blame for eleven kills, and is now on death row.
She only did one - the others were by Ramirez and Mr Jingles (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
). But despite the cops knowing the two notorious killers were on the loose,
they still decided it was easier to pin the kills on a tweenage girl.
Back at the summer camp, Montana (
Billy Lourd
) has hooked up with the gay-for-pay actor.
This is ironic, considering what happened between their characters in the previous Season.
Mr Jingles spent a year as the room-mate of Richard Ramirez.
Eventually he got sick of all the murders, double-crossed Ramirez,
and then settled down with a wife and kids in Alaska.
His day-job is as a clerk in a video store,
although ironically he refuses to rent slasher movies to customers.
As he says, there is too much violence in society -
although he should know more than anyone that it is not movies that cause violence.
Matthew Morrison somehow survived multiple stab wounds.
He married Margaret (
Leslie Grossman
) as part of a blackmail deal.
She has become a real estate mogul,
buying places like Briarcliffe from
Season 2: Asylum
and turning them into tourist traps.
The camp site is next on her list.
And to make the most money out of it,
she decides to hold a music festival there.
So what happened to Donna (
Adina Porter
)? Well, she pops up at the end in an almost unexpected way.
American Horror [Season 9, Episode 7]
The Lady In White
Shown 30 Oct 19
The episode starts in 1948.
The camp is run by
Lily Rabe
, who trusts her fat little son to look after his baby brother.
It turns out that this is the secret history of the camp,
the reason the ground became unholy and site of many massacres.
Brooke (
Emma Roberts
) gets a second chance at life, thanks to Donna (
Adina Porter
). However, for them to get revenge and redemption they must visit the music festival.
First they attend a 1980s theme bar,
which plays the song Armageddon It (released in 1987).
Then they meet a creepy hitch-hiker (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
). He acts sleazy, like a white Richard Ramirez,
and he is played by the actor who played Bloody Face Two
What are the chances he is a serial killer?
Mister Jingles (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
) gets back to the camp site.
He must have teleported,
since he came all the way from Alaska.
However, Ramirez seems to teleport himself around the place
and yet still lets Jingles beat him to the camp site.
The thing is that several of the ghosts in the site were killed by Jingles,
and they want to have revenge.
American Horror [Season 9, Episode 8]
Rest In Pieces
Shown 06 Nov 19
Brooke (
Emma Roberts
) and Donna (
Adina Porter
) eat breakfast and dodge the press.
They even manage a conversation about the term
Final Girls
. Somehow the hitch-hiker (Dylan McDermott -
Hardware
) manages to get ahead of them, instead of just bleeding to death.
Richard Ramirez is there too, being hunted by Mr Jingles (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
). Time for another serial killer team-up.
Mr Jingles has other problems.
He killed some of the ghosts who are haunting the camp site,
and they are obsessed with taking revenge on him.
Margaret (
Leslie Grossman
) wants to go ahead with her music festival.
She is a step ahead of everyone else,
and she is willing to make a team-up with other killers.
Her plan is the same as Montana's -
create a massacre so the place becomes a major tourism trap.
American Horror [Season 9, Episode 9]
Final Girl (65 min)
Shown 13 Nov 19
The story moves forward to 2019.
Bobby, the son of Mr Jingles (John Carroll Lynch -
The Walking Dead
), hikes to the long-abandoned site of Camp Redwood
and meets up with some of the ghosts.
They tell him the tale of the events of 1989,
so we get to see an extended flashback.
There is yet another scene reminiscent of
Season 6: Roanoake
- a group of ghosts with flaming torches surround their victim in a building.
There is one thing which is both ahistorical and out of continuity with
Season 5: Hotel
. Richard Ramirez apparently did not die in prison of cancer,
and instead has been imprisoned in his undead state for thirty years.
As a result he could not have appeared as a ghost at the annual killers' banquet.
American Horror [Season 11
, Episode 1
]
