A lot happened this episode and I want to jump right in, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that this episode was directed by the one and only Sarah Paulson. This was her directorial debut and she totally nailed it. Why are you so good at everything Sarah? Why?!
Makes total sense. Now, let’s talk about this episode and all its glorious-ness.
**Spoilers**
So You’re An Obstinant House
Last week, we saw Madison and Behold head out for where Michael Langdon grew up, Murder House. After having to convince a real estate agent that they really do want to buy the house, they finally get to go to probably the worst house in the world. Murder House. (Also, we get a death toll from the real estate agent that 36 people have died there. But, we all know that number is way higher than 36.)
Madison looked scared this episode and you finally get to see a side of her that isn’t awful. She’s scared of dying again (for the third time), she wants to do some good, and most importantly, she does not want to go to Hell ever again. Behold and Madison conduct a spell in order to be able to see and interact with the ghosts in the house, since none of them wanted to come out and play with them.
First, Madison and Behold break up a therapy session between Ben Harmon and Tate Langdon. Which, is a little weird considering the history between the two. You would think Ben would NEVER want to speak with Tate again, but then you remember that Ben wants to be everyone’s savior and has a shit ton of his own issues that make him so very deeply flawed.
When our Witch and Warlock ask for the info on Michael, both Tate and Ben shut down and walk away. Tate warning them to watch their backs in the house and Ben telling them he has to go stare out a window, cry, and masturbate. Deeply, deeply, flawed.
The Queen Returns
After getting nowhere fast, Billie Dean Howard shows up to warn Behold and Madison away from harming Beauregard (one of Constance’s dead kids). That’s when the Queen herself makes an appearance and confirmed my theory I had last week, that Constance is dead and now residing in the house. Constance and Moira fight, yet again, and Constance finally calls it quits on Moira’s employment. She tells Madison and Behold that if they get rid of Moira once and for all, that she will tell them all about Michael.
So they dig up Moira’s bones and ask her where she wants to be buried. Now this is a huge part of Madison’s character growth. Behold GAVE Madison an easy out, saying he could use a spell to bind her to a closet. But Madison instead insists on moving the bones and doing the right thing. I didn’t even think Madison knew what the right thing was, but she surprised me. Maybe she’s taking that whole: Hell is horrible, let’s not do that again thing, for real?
Moira was a favorite of mine from the Murder House season. She really didn’t deserve all the horrible things that happened to her and when we saw her saying good-bye to her mother and wishing so much that she could go with her into the afterlife, it was a heart-wrenching moment. So, while some fans of the show might have been pissed that so much time was spent on wrapping up Moira’s story-arc, I personally loved it. Watching her with her mother in the cemetery and seeing that sweet interaction brought me back to season one and feeling like finally something GOOD happened in AHS.
Now that Moira has been put to rest (literally), Madison and Behold get the scoop from Constance. She tells them about how she was born to be a mother, how much she loved all four of her kids (Beauregard, Tate, Addie, and an unnamed daughter). She talks about how Michael would murder small animals and leave them for her like a gift. With each “gift” she would plant a rose bush and bury the body underneath it.
Constance thought she was simply raising a future serial killer, and was okay with that. Look y’all, Constance said she was born to be a mother, not a GOOD mother. It is what it is.
It was after Michael aged one whole decade literally overnight, that Constance began to get worried. She recalled feeling as though he was aging faster on purpose. She called in a priest to help with Michael and well, Michael murdered him. Then, Michael almost killed Constance. He starts strangling her while she sleeps but then seems to snap out of it and apologizes and asks for a glass of water. After correcting his grammar, Constance gets him a glass of water. Once again, not a great mom, but also maybe not the worst mom?
After that near miss, Constance kills her self by taking an overdose of pills inside Murder House. As she put it, no man was going to take her out. She lived to be a mother and died to be one too. In a dear sort of way, her three kids that all died in the house were there to greet her into her new “ghost life”. Addie, if you remember, died in the street and so is not haunting the house with her siblings.
Constance leaves to go play with her daughter who was born with no eyes and Madison and Behold go to find Ben and get his story.
Ben’s Story
Ben talks about how he found Michael right after Constance died and immediately started therapy sessions with him. Ben is a shitty therapist.
Ben goes into how he couldn’t help but feel a fatherly bond with Michael and wanted to be there for his son who was still alive. Michael finds Tate’s Rubber-Man suit and tells Tate he just wants to be closer to him, Tate shuts him down hard and that Ben says is when Michael started withdrawing from him.
Michael dresses up like Dr. Montgomery and starts cutting up Elizabeth Short (Mena Suvari) in the basement. Ben talks about how the darkness at Michael’s edges was taking over. A wife and wife couple buy Murder House and literally get murdered by Michael as soon as the door shuts on their brand new purchase. When Ben takes Michael to task for killing them for no reason and tells him that now their ghosts will forever be trapped inside the house, Michael simply murders their souls as well. This kid is a savage.
Just like any great therapist, Ben basically tells Michael that he is the worst and there is no hope for him. Exit Ben. Enter Vivien.
Vivien’s Story
Vivien comes in and tells her story, which isn’t that interesting. But we do find out about the Satanists that find Michael (due to the murder of crows hanging out above Murder House on the reg), and Vivien says that the Satanists seemed kind of hooky, until they brought an innocent girl to the house and ripped her heart out. The only thing interesting in this entire scene is how reluctant Meade looked. It’s one of the few times you see Meade looking not 100% sure of Michael.
So, after ripping that poor girl’s heart out, Meade hands it over to Michael, where he proceeds to eat it while a winged beast rises up behind him. I’m over here like, wait, is this Game of Thrones and no one told me?
The only other interesting thing we find out here is that Murder House was built over a portal to Hell. Which makes a ton of sense.
Violet’s Story
As Madison and Behold beat feet to leave Murder House, they come across a sobbing Violet. She’s crying because of Tate. Because Tate is a terrible monster and she still loves him. Madison suggests that perhaps Tate wasn’t INHERENTLY a monster and that instead, the house used him and made him do evil things and ultimately, used him as the vessel to bring about the Anti-Christ. This theory makes a ton of sense and I actually really like it. Does that make me like Tate Langdon at all? Nope. He set a man on fire, he killed 15 students in a school shooting, he violently murdered a bunch of people in the house, and he raped Violet’s mom. But upon hearing from Madison (and her blowing some powder in Violet’s face), Violet decided it was OK to love Tate after all. I could rip this entire scene a new one, but then I remember that Violet is essentially a 15-16-year-old girl and so…well we all make poor romance choices at that age, even if we’re a ghost.
Side-note: props to Madison for doing another good deed in this episode. Seems like she really is taking that third chance seriously.
This week’s episode was so good. My only two complaints were that we didn’t see any connection between Madison and the original Montgomery owners of the house and that we really didn’t need to see Billie Dean Howard at all. Otherwise, it was amazing.
