Ben finally gets some clarity on what’s been happening. The Black Dalia murder is recreated.
**CONTENT WARNING: Violence, death, rape, disturbing images**
Synopsis
In 1947, aspiring actress Elizabeth Short (Mena Suvari), wearing a dahlia in her hair, comes to the house to get some dental work done by the current owner. She’s short on cash, but implies she’ll give him favors instead. He gasses her and rapes her while she’s passed out, but she’s under the gas too long and dies. Charles’ ghost offers to take care of it, but mutilates her in the way the real Black Dahlia victim was found. Her body is dropped off elsewhere and found by a mother and her young daughter on a walk.
Ben finds out that the babies’ bloodwork has shown they have different fathers. He goes to the asylum to visit Vivien, who is unable to conversate due to being restrained and drugged after attacking an orderly for dismissing her claims that she was raped by a man in a rubber suit. Ignoring this hint to the other baby’s parentage, Ben monologues his disgust in her for cheating on him, while claiming to be a saint, and says he won’t help her get out of here.
Moira passes on the information about the twin’s parentage to Constance, who realizes that Tate raped Vivien. She yells at Tate about it, but plans to take that baby to raise with her young boyfriend Travis, an aspiring actor who has just started an affair with Hayden (not realizing she’s dead). Constance visits Vivien and supports her stance that someone raped her, but Vivien says she’ll pretend to stop believing that just so they’ll let her out.
Elizabeth’s ghost, not totally aware of her status as dead, appears to Ben as a potential patient. She tries again to pay with sexual favors, desperate for help so she can become famous, but Ben rejects her advances. Hayden speaks with her after and clues her in on just how famous she became after death. Travis returns to Hayden but pisses her off, so she kills him. Travis’ ghost says he’ll never be famous now, but Elizabeth says he might become even more famous now. Charles recreates the mutilation he did to Elizabeth, and Larry helps them plant the body elsewhere to be found.
Missing persons shows up to investigate Hayden’s disappearance, but her ghost appears, fooling them all into thinking she’s alive and not missing. When the detective leaves, Ben is very angry with her for showing up again and tells her that they are officially done. In an act of vengeance, Hayden blames Vivien’s supposed infidelity on the security guard, Luke. Ben intentionally triggers the alarm to lure Luke over and confronts him, but Luke shoots down the accusation. Ben asks Moira if she knows what really happened to Vivien, and he admits he’s starting to think maybe Vivien was attacked after all. Moira congratulates him for finally starting to see what’s going on in the house, and for the first time he sees her as an old woman.
Constance asks Billie Dean for advice on what happens when a baby is created from someone who is alive and someone who is dead. Billie Dean believes that child will be the antichrist.
The House and Its Ghosts
One thing I find interesting about the house is this theme that the man of the house often runs his medical profession out of it. From the very beginning, Charles had his lab and abortion clinic. In 1947, the Black Dahlia killer was a dentist with a practice inside the house. Now Ben runs his psychiatry clinic there. I don’t think it’s the house’s influence, since Ben had already decided to run his business there before moving in, but it is a neat theme. Also interesting is the fact that while these are all medical professions, they are all different types.
Unlike the Charles Lindbergh reference that was merely similar to what happened in the show, this episode blatantly recreates the Black Dahlia murder. The victim even has the same name and is found the same way. It makes sense, since this murder happened in L.A. where the show is set. I like that Elizabeth’s story ends up coinciding with Travis’, so that they are able to use the same tactic and he gladly became famous as well. Elizabeth is another fun appearance, played by Angela from American Beauty. I guess she exchanged her roses for dahlias.
The Family
I don’t actually think Violet was in this episode at all. I feel SO bad for Vivien! No one believes her (well, except Constance, but that’s not all that comforting). Ben even has proof that she is pregnant with a baby by a different father, but completely ignores all of her previously repeated claims of being raped by a man in rubber suit and just jumps straight to assuming she cheated—even though she’s the one who is staunchly against cheating. It makes me so mad that he would treat her like that. It’s only mildly encouraging that he finally starts to come around to the idea at the end of the episode. He should have supported her from the start, instead of locking her away for paranoia over things she was absolutely justified about. And now Vivien is going to pretend she wasn’t raped just to appease the doctors who control her future (unless she will no longer have to, now that Ben has “seen the light”, but that is her current plan). The worst part is that this probably isn’t even that farfetched. People have been disregarding women’s claims of rape and guilting them into silence for ages.
Moira
The viewpoints of these doctors and Vivien’s own husband play well into Moira’s stance that all men are awful and doctors are charlatans. She’s a bit extreme about her view, perhaps, but she’s certainly not wrong about Ben. I still don’t fully understand her, though. All the way up until the end of this episode when she finally appeared as the older version to Ben, she was nonstop throwing herself at Ben despite his continual rejections. Ben is the worst and a cheater, but he did at least have the decency to reject her despite the crazy amount of effort she put into getting him to cheat with her. I just don’t understand why she tries so hard. We already know he’s a cheater. He’s already done plenty of other awful things. Why is she so desperate to get him to sleep with her when her only motivation seems to be to prove that all men suck and only want sex? It really just feels like the showrunners were looking for an excuse to put an extremely sexualized young woman in their show. The irony, of course, being that the way they did it actually points the finger back at them, since they are basically proving themselves to be the ones Moira despises and believes only want sex.
Curious, I just looked up this episode to see if they have women writers or if I was making assumptions that Moira’s portrayal was driven by men. Interestingly enough, this particular episode was actually written by a woman. However, the pilot, where Moira’s character and sexualization was established, was written by the show’s two creators, both men.
The Babies
Vivien is pregnant with two babies, one is Ben’s and one is Tate’s. Tate’s baby is shaping up to be the antichrist, apparently. This lines up with the earlier episode’s claim that one of the babies had hooves in the ultrasound. It seems like everyone is gunning for a shot at claiming these babies for themselves. First Hayden and Nora decided to each take one, and now Constance wants one. Technically one of them is Constance’s grandchild, so she has the most claim out of any of them, but dear god do not let this woman near another baby! She’s a horrible mother! Can’t Vivien just have her own babies and live happily away from haunted houses and asylums?
Conclusion
Again, the references to well-known horror stories is always fun to see. I like what they did with the Black Dahlia, offering an explanation for it and then recreating the situation with Travis. I’m glad Ben finally is realizing something is up, though I don’t forgive him for all the crap he’s done so far. Maybe he’ll start making amends by getting Vivien out of a place that punishes her for trying to convince them she was raped. The way everyone in the show handles her claim pisses me off, but I think that was the intent at least. I have such a hard time scoring some of these episodes because there are things I enjoy and things that frustrate me, but in this instance the frustration seems to have been caused on purpose instead of by plot holes or unclear details. I have to be honest, though, I have no idea what the title of this episode means. There were no spooky little girls. If they are referencing Elizabeth, she is neither spooky nor a little girl.
Score: 7/10
About Author
