BWW Recap: Cheap Tricks and Twists on AMERICAN HORROR STORY

The penultimate episode of AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ROANOKE just aired and while it was a thrilling gore fest, the introduction of new characters solely as extra lenses to tell the story only to have them killed off within the very same episode was the perfect example of the cheapening overall effect of where this story was always fated to end up.

Ryan Murphy's goal for this season was to shock, surprise, and edit the past mistakes of the series. He certainly did all of the above and the pacing of this season itself was marks above the last two or three, and he can also certainly be commended on his resignation to hire female directors for the latter half of the season, starting with leading lady Angela Bassett in the twisty Episode 6, but it doesn't distract from the fact that this season also had another agenda and a much less exciting one. AMERICAN HORROR STORY is at its best when it is an anthology series. It's exciting to see these actors take on different roles in different worlds, but the entire structure and captivation of that falls apart as soon as any of those worlds start colliding on a macro scale. With the promise that this season would be the one to possibly connect them all, or at least a few, not only was Season 6 met with exceedingly high and wary expectation, but it also set itself up for failure because it was working towards an end goal that would only hinder the impact it could have if it simply was allowed to revel in itself.

This episode opened up with three new characters, fans of My Roanoke Nightmare and teenagers Todd, Milo, and Sophie (Taissa Farmiga). While it was lovely to have Taissa Farmiga back on AMERICAN HORROR STORY, her character and the other two teen characters did little to nothing to add to the narrative we were already following, and as we knew only one person would LIVE TO TELL this tale, the more interesting notion of them interacting, as uber fans allowed to partake in the real life fictional world they fell in love with, and outsmarting the story they had grown to be obsessed was knowingly impossible since they would not survive. While the suspense of knowing only one of them would come out of this situation alive was gripping and certainly weaved you through the whole episode, it wasn't enough of a structure.

The episode beings with Milo, Sophie, and Todd discussing what was so great about Season 1 of My Roanoke Nightmare, including Sophie's retrospective opinions about the piece and what it represents in terms of the themes of colonization and patriarchal societies. However, the show we watched, however, fascinating it was and is, doesn't even begin to actually touch those themes.

These three teens are there to solely be more cameras on set and to be the means to an end of more shock, violence, and gore. They find Sydney's assistant wandering around hurt and abandoned, but she keeps running way from them until she disappears and they find her dead in her car. Clearly she's a ghost and they end up, as smart and intelligent people should when you find a dead person, at the police station to report it but unfortunately for them, there is no picture proof apparently and it's clear by now the cops are pretty useless generally here.

Back with Audrey and Lee at the house, Ambrose the actor that we found in the pig costume on the door step last week comes in and explains that Sydney hired him to show up halfway through the suit and get them all. He totally did and doesn't believe them at first about the ghosts until he sees the havoc and the death in the house. Then, totally on board to save Monet, he resigns to helping them return to the Polk farm to save her.

Their rescue mission goes horribly wrong however, as some of the Polk family are home, Ambrose gets killed in the process of hot wiring a car, and Audrey and Monet are confronted with a Polk wishing for vengeance for Mama. Audrey, who is having none of it, requires him to confess to his plans for murder on camera to declare her next move, of shooting the guy in his stomach, that it was purely self defense.

Now with the blood moon high above the sky and Lee missing, Audrey grabs the video camera they had originally planned to get and the two return back to the murder house (pun unintended). Back at the house and on their last nerve, Audrey and Monet try to keep each other in check. Eventually they decide to watch the tape and find the piece when Lee confesses to killing her ex-husband. The two, horrified at what she is, save for Monet who feels like she knew for a while, pleadingly stare at each other hopelessly.

This sequence itself was rather beautiful with the three perspectives we were watching it from; from outside the house of Lee crawling around in fear until she comes upon the real Scathach who presents her with a heart to eat, the inside of Audrey and Monet watching the tape, and the teens breaking all of that up as they drive themselves closer to the heat of the horror.

The teens run into Lee who kills Todd on the spot, much to their horror and shock, and they run away, eventually ending up in the production trailer. Ambrose comes up to them, but scared that everything is a ghost or evil, they lock him out and find the screens that are attached to cameras across the house. They fangirl over their favorites for a while and then see that Lee, mad and deranged is walking towards the house and then into the house. Sophie decides it's their duty to pull everyone out of this hellhole and it's also called false hope, but her "we have to stop her" vigor is pretty great!

Audrey and Monet, at the end of their tolerance threshold, hear a noise in the corridor and see it's Lee talking to herself. Monet straight up calls her a murderer and as they ask her what happened to her and she pushes Monet off the balcony, spearing her right through the middle. Audrey manages to get away, stabbing Lee and climbing into the cellar but she doesn't get there fast enough as Lee is clearly out of her mind. Lee cleavers Audrey on her shoulder and knocks her down the ladder, closing the door and leaving her for dead.

Of course, Sophie and Milo miss all of this, despite their main objective. Eventually they do get to the house however, and they see Ambrose being gutted by the colonists. Just as they turn to get out of there, they come face to face with Lee who appears to be now leading the ghoulish group. We find out this footage was recovered from Todd's iCloud upload, and one after another the colonists literally skewer them and burn them alive. It certainly feels sadomasochistic as these characters literally added nothing to this episode or arc and weren't even used to their full potential as their knowledge or personalities got them and got the story nowhere.

Of course, the cops finally show UP IN THE MORNING after all of this carnage and find everything, including Lee alive. They also find Audrey who seemingly crawled out of the cellar. Both are so ecstatic to have found a savior until they see one another. Audrey sees Lee and angrily shouts "Murderer!" at her, pulling out the gun she had from before and just as she's about to shoot, the cops immediately shoot her down. Even the climax of this episode felt out of nowhere or at the very least not very impactful as the focus wasn't on the fact that this situation was literally making the monsters out of the people not the ghosts, but rather chose to focus on something that wasn't building all season that was only in this episode; Lee turning into the possessed murdered she becomes and that relation to Audrey. There was no thematic significance here, no foil, no impact other than pure and predictable shock.

Thus, Lee is our lone SURVIVOR and it couldn't be the Lee we had all rooted for in the former half of the season. Instead she had to become this fantastical possessed murderer and simply couldn't be a strong and complex woman with issues but a beautiful truth to her at the end of the day. The ghost and supernatural presence has felt like it was totally underutilized in the wrong moments this season and blown out of proportion in others. However, all of the season itself felt like on an never ending line as we were heading towards something that doesn't give anything to the story we watched for ten weeks. Next week it is revealed that Lee is interviewed by Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson's character from Season 2 Asylum) in an attempt to connect the two seasons but the only question that can actually be asked is why? Lana Winters has been one of themes interesting and well executed character on AMERICAN HORROR STORY to date and her character arc and plot has certainly been one of the most impactful. It was wrapped up nicely and everything felt right about it within the season (disregarding the secondary storylines that had nothing to do with her and randomly everything to do with aliens). To bring her back for a cheap gag of connecting something that should and would stand on its own as it has done in the past and get its strength from its own structure seems a rather cheap way to end a season that seemed like a vast improvement on the past few. It also, of course, just breaks any involvement and fantasy we had with this season as seeing Sarah Paulson twice playing two different characters does sort of break the illusion. Hopefully we're proved wrong and next week will elevate a season that could swing either way.

Check out a sneak peek at next week's episode below:

Photo Credit: FX

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