All right, I have to say I’m impressed at the sheer number of revelations the creative team behind ‘American Horror Story’ comes up with for each episode. The laundry list of the ones we’ve got in this week’s offering include Larry and Constance having an affair, an apparent bait-and-switch on the way Larry’s family died, and we get to meet another one of Constance’s kids. Also Violet gets loads braver — Yay Violet!
This week we start off in 1994 again, after the police stormed Murder House and shot Tate dead. Constance sits in the living room staring into the flames, with Larry keeping her company and looking just fine. Well color me confused, because I thought Larry killed his family in the house by burning them alive and that’s why he wanted Ben to kill him on the property. Constance expresses a fear that she’ll be charged with criminal child neglect because of Tate’s actions, so she asks Larry to do … something … like they discussed.
This “something” turns out to be a murder. Remember that red ball Addie was playing with in the basement in one of the earlier episodes? As it turns out, that little red rubber ball is a plaything of Constance’s third child, Beauregard, who has extreme physical deformities. We meet Beau when Larry heads up into the attic, and I think we can predict where this is going to end up going. The future Mister Crispy acts all fatherly to little Beau, who’s playing with the red ball, and has the child get into bed before ruthlessly smothering him. This now makes two of Constance’s kids who have met their end in this house. Mayhaps this is what Constance meant by “complications?” Hmm … the plot thickens even more with Constance’s deep-seated connections to Murder House.
Back at the doctor’s office with Ben and Vivien, who are freaking out a bit over the possibility of something being wrong with their baby. Turns out Vivien’s tough act last week when that nurse said she was carrying the Antichrist hasn’t held up as well as we thought. The doctor assures them everything’s all right, not to fret, and oh happy day! Turns out the Harmons are having TWINS! I bet the Rubber Man is going to be so goshdurn happy.
Crazy Realtor Marcy is showing the house to an Armenian man, Mr. Eskandarian, who is veeeery interested in purchasing Murder House even after Vivien relates its sordid history. His visit with young and attractive Moira doesn’t exactly hurt his interest level. He says he wants to dig up the yard to put in a swimming pool. Moira loves this idea because, like Hayden, she’s buried out back. If Eskandarian does purchase the house and put in the pool, this means that Moira can get a proper burial off the house’s property and Constance might go to prison for murdering her.
Larry shows up to look at the house, and Marcy does what pretty much any Realtor worth their salt would do. She pulls a gun on him. It’s stuff like this that makes me adore the character of Marcy so much. Vivien talks the psycho Realtor down off the proverbial ledge, and then the pair of them show Larry the house. Turns out Mister Crispy is very interested in the fireplace. Anyone else think the show creators are giving us a not-so-subtle hint as to how Larry got his burns?
Show co-creator Brad Falchuk wrote this week’s episode, incidentally, and he brings back some of the psychosexual weirdness that’s been missing for the past few weeks. And no, I’m not talking about the mini-foodgasm last week over the raw brains. Mrs. Harmon enjoys some … ahem … alone time after the open house ends. Her fantasies include liaisons with Luke the Security Guard, her estranged hubby Ben, then lastly the Rubber Man himself. Well that was a joy-douser wasn’t it?
Poor depressed Violet is once again cutting herself. Poor girl … it’s not every day you find out your boyfriend is really a ghost and he killed a whole bunch of people. But Tate shows up to stop her, and forces a promise out that she won’t hurt herself anymore, right before asking “Do you believe in ghosts?” Then we cut away to a highly awkward dinner between Violet and her parents. She assures them she’s not going to commit suicide despite being terribly depressed. Once Violet leaves, her parents discuss the sale of the house. Vivien wants to dig up the entire sordid past of the house so she can be honest with potential buyers, but Ben’s more interested in just dropping the house quickly. He and Marcy the Crazy align on that, and he warns Vivien not to screw up selling the house.
Eskandarian returns to take another look, but the only one there to meet him is Moira. She takes him up to Violet’s room for a … ahem … a special tour; saying he wants to Buy Now is kind of an understatement at this point. When they run into Ben in the upstairs hallway, Dr. Harmon’s not too keen on having them wander the house. That is until he finds out Eskandarian is interested in purchasing the place. Then he lights right up and talks turkey with the Armenian man, who reveals his plan to bulldoze the place in favor of a new real estate development after Moira leaves.
Larry heads home to his dingy apartment to find Ben waiting for him there. The industrious Dr. Harmon did a little background check on our pal. Turns out Larry didn’t serve prison time for burning his family alive; he wasn’t even the one that killed them. Flashback to 1994, when Larry reveals to his wife that he’s got a mistress named Constance and is in love with her. He tells the missus she should move the family back to Ohio so he can be with his Constance and be happy. Except soon Larry smells smoke, and heads upstairs to find his wife has lit both herself and their two daughters on fire. Holy crap monkeys on a stick, so that’s how Larry’s family really died! Larry did serve time somewhere though — a mental hospital. He reveals to Ben that he needs the house because that’s the only place he and Constance can be happy. Ben doesn’t care, naturally, drops the threat of a restraining order on Larry and declares “game over.”
Oh, and this week we get to find out how Nora and Charles Montgomery met their grisly end. Vivien and Marcy are on the murder tour, and Vivien gets identified as the “celebrity” who now owns Murder House. The tour guide talks about the original homeowners again, but this time we pick up after the baby is dead. Charles reveals to his wife that he’s reanimated their dead son, and says he’s waiting upstairs in the nursery for her. Nora goes up and sees a crib draped in gauze. The baby’s not inside, but we do hear a hissing from the corner. I love the move of naming the kid Thaddeus; makes it that much creepier. Nora comes downstairs and asks Charles how he did it. Apparently the “good” doctor used the still-beating heart of a girl he aborted. Nora’s injured after her visit with FrankenThaddeus. She tried to nurse the kid, but apparently he’s hungry for something else. Nora says she tried to kill the creature, but couldn’t, and I’m now wondering if the Frankenkid is immortal. Though she assures her husband she thinks him a genius, Nora instead puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger. Then she sticks the pistol in her own mouth and offs herself. So that’s how Ghost Nora got the massive head wound we saw in the Halloween two-parter!
Larry and Constance have a meeting in the house’s basement. Poor Larry’s still in love with her, but gets only pity and revulsion in return. As proof of his undying love, Larry tells Constance that Eskandarian plans to tear down the house and build apartments. Constance naturally doesn’t like this plan, seeing as much of her family is haunting Murder House in some form or another. Meanwhile upstairs in the attic, Violet meets the ghost of Beauregard who leaps out to terrify her before Tate shows up and shoos the deformed child away. Apparently Violet has “evolved” to the point where she can see all the ghosts that are haunting the house. Tate shows her a box of photos he found from the original owners, which will I’m sure play a part somehow. Remember how I said Violet got loads braver? Well a nurse ghost shows up, and Violet tells it to back off … which it does. Hooray for Violet! Later, during a session with Ben, Tate reveals that he’s feeling better. Off the clock, Ben asks Tate to come to him if there’s something wrong with Violet. Awww, I guess papa’s accepted Tate’s interest in his daughter.
Constance comes to the house to see Tate, and her son reveals the root of his problem is that he hates his mother. D’oh! Constance then heads on to the attic and tells Beau that “they” are coming to take him away from her and this is goodbye. Downstairs she goes again to argue with Moira, and reveal that Eskandarian is only interested in the house because he wants to bulldoze it and build crappy apartments thus dooming the ghosts to an eternity of government-subsidized housing. Moira hates this idea, and she invites the Armenian buyer over for another tryst down in the basement. Yeah, something tells me Eskandarian isn’t going to like this. And then Moira bites off his … ahem … bits right before Larry suffocates him with a plastic bag. Constance appears and orders the nearly-dead buyer taken off the property so he doesn’t hang around as a ghost, which Larry does rather happily.
The episode winds down with Vivien telling Violet that they (she and Ben) want to send the teen to live with a relative. Violet quickly changes the subject, and pulls out some of the pictures from the box Tate found. Told you it was important. Vivien loves seeing the house at such an early stage, and is initially excited. Until she turns to a photo of Nora Montgomery, and her jaw drops open. After all, they’ve met already.
If you missed the previous episode, be sure to read my ‘American Horror Story: Piggy Piggy’ recap to catch up.
