Violet learns the full truth about Tate. Vivien should be worried about the baby, but not for the reasons she has been worried so far.
**CONTENT WARNING: Violence, death, suicide, disturbing images**
Synopsis
In 1994, we see what really happened to the teenagers from Halloween. Tate roams the school, shooting everyone he comes across. These particular teenagers try to hide in the library, but he gets in and kills them one by one. Tate makes it back home (his family is currently living in the Murder House) without getting caught, but the police find him there, cornering him and aiming several guns at him. He goes for his gun and they all shoot, killing him, while Constance watches on in horror.
Violet looks up the massacre the ghosts mentioned and learns all about the previous scene. Understandably freaked out by the fact that her boyfriend not only murdered several people, but supposedly died two decades prior, she tries to find consolation in her parents but instead finds Constance in her kitchen, who suspected Violet would figure out the truth. Constance introduces her to Billie Dean Howard (Sarah Paulson), a medium. They explain that Tate doesn’t know he’s dead, which is why Constance wants him to see Ben for therapy—to get closure. Violet is still freaked and reaches out to Leah, the only one she thinks can relate. Leah gives her some pills she uses to sleep. Violet thinks she sees Tate in the house and follows him to the basement, but instead she sees several of the house’s ghosts, including the two home invaders she definitely saw alive before. Unable to handle it all, she ODs on Leah’s pills, but Tate finds her and gets her to throw up. Afterwards, he tells her he’s worried about her and loves her but can feel something distant about her now. Violet doesn’t tell him the truth about himself, but agrees to cuddle.
Ben has moved out, but his practice is run from there and they can’t afford to rent a different office. He meets a new patient, Derrick (Eric Stonestreet), who has an irrational fear of urban legends. Lately the one weighing heavy on him is the Piggy Man, who supposedly appears and kills you when you look in a bathroom mirror and repeat, “Here, piggy pig pig”. Ben tries immersion therapy by trying to get Derrick to say the phrase in the mirror there, but Derrick doesn’t go through with it because he glimpses Gladys’ ghost in the bathtub. He tries it again at his own home, and gets shot by a robber who happens to be hiding in the shower and thinks Derrick is calling him a pig.
Vivien is lonely and keeps using the security alarm panic button as an excuse to talk to the cute security guy. Constance gifts her some offal (animal entrails) that are supposed to be good for the baby. Hesitant at first, Vivien eats it and actually enjoys it. So later when Constance brings a raw brain, Vivien is unperturbed and readily devours it. Vivien investigates whatever the ultrasound technician saw, getting ahold of the technician who has quit her job and will only meet her in a church. The technician says that there was something evil in Vivien, something with hooves, but Vivien doesn’t believe that.
Billie Dean helps Constance have a sweet moment of closure with Addy’s spirit. Addy is grateful that Constance didn’t get her to the lawn of the Murder House because she wouldn’t want to be trapped there with Tate, now that she knows what he is.
The Ghosts
We now know Tate has actually been a ghost this whole time. Also, we got proof that the home invaders did, indeed, turn into ghosts, and this is the first time we see the doctor/original home owner as a ghost.
The Family
I totally get why Violet is so disturbed by everything she has learned and seen. I recalled she had a suicide attempt halfway through the season, but I could have sworn it was from cutting her wrists the way Tate advised her to do back in their very first conversation in episode one. I feel like that was a huge missed opportunity. They’ve established that she cuts her wrists and had a whole scene where she learns the way to do it if she’s serious, but then she overdoses? Very strange. Vivien’s baby seems to be a problem, but not in the way she was so worried about. It doesn’t seem to be a health issue but a supernatural one. Ben didn’t do much (besides force a poor patient to become extra scared and inadvertently get him killed due to his advice), but he notices Vivien flirting with the security guy, so that will probably become a problem.
Constance and Billie Dean
This was our first introduction to Sarah Paulson in this season. I’m not sure if she’ll come back, but like Lily Rabe she’ll come back more frequently in upcoming seasons. Her character was interesting because her reason for lamenting her gift of communicating with the dead was because she just wanted to live in ignorance as a privileged, upper class woman. She was so callous about her first experience, seeing her cleaning lady who had been murdered by her husbands. But it was fitting that she would be a trusted friend of Constance, who has similar worldviews and callousness towards others less well off than her. Anyway, the way Billie Dean talks about ghosts and how they are generally stuck here because of trauma or lack of closure, it makes me wonder if there is hope for some of the Murder House ghosts, like Moira and Chad.
Derrick
I’ve mentioned earlier that it was fun seeing actors from other shows, but I wasn’t prepared to see Cameron from Modern Family! This poor guy. I’m not a big fan of immersion therapy, and it was difficult to watch him become so scared when he was trying to get help. Also it was pretty crazy that he happened to die from a robbery as a result of repeating the phrase he didn’t even want to say. The thing is, this didn’t even happen inside the Murder House. It seems coincidental, so I wonder if the evil nature of the house can actually rub off on people or something.
Conclusion
One of my favorite things about this show is that they utilize classic horror elements, beyond just a haunted house. Halloween myths, home invasions, killer copycats, and now urban legends. I’m looking forward to what else they’ll incorporate. This might not have been the most exciting episode, but I actually really enjoyed it, between Violet’s horrification leading to depression and a suicide attempt to Derrick’s surprisingly interesting side story. I’m now halfway through the season and I’m feeling more optimistic.
Score: 7/10
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