AHS: Roanoke “Chapter 2” channels Blair Witch as a past fan-favorite returns to shed some light on the mysterious farm house.
Maybe Eric Stonestreet’s character in Murder House was on to something with his fear of the Piggy Man. Week 2 of AHS and the jumpy rhythm of the Roanoke is still jarring, but it is not quite hitting it out the park.
We’re once again in the mix of a Ryan Murphy experiment where the more you pick up on, the less you understand the picture as a whole. You can spend an entire afternoon looking for Waldo, but never be able to answer if he was at the zoo or the beach. Sometimes we might just be looking too closely to enjoy what is happening week after week.
For example, “Chapter 2” opens with Kathy Bates’ unnamed settler woman reciting lines from The Song of Amergin, or the “Birth of Song.” This invites comparison to a battle once fought for the right to the shores of Ireland. By claiming ownership of the elements of the land, it perhaps provides the power of land. Breadcrumb? Maybe. Random thing to include? Also possible.
I’d personally take the chants invoking the spiritual elements over the screeches of wild pigs every night.
I am the queen of every hive’
Roanoke, the location, is just the tip of the AHS iceberg this season. Nurses murdering feeble old women, illusions of friends in bonnets who just want the bleeding to stop, hooks lying around the floor, and pig heads burning on stakes, with a mix of two battles: one for custody and the other with alcoholism.
Only two episodes in and the landscape feels flooded with storylines to tackle, yet none of them feel quite pressing once the horror of the moment begins to swell. There is a dominance in the horror this season that has been absent in place of more complicated storylines in years past. That said, “Chapter 2” did set up some groundwork for Lee’s character as she falls off the wagon and loses her child.
‘I am the fire on every hill’
Literal fire brought down two pigs in “Chapter 2.” One, an illusion in the woods of a man captured for stealing provisions from the land. The second, an effigy of pig-headed man with its organs strung over flames frying like bacon.
If Murphy and company are trying to make a point with the pigs to the audience, and by extension his more devoted reviewers, it is this: “You are greedy, stubborn, and selfish. For that, I burn you with this season of misdirection to purify your mind and body.”
Perhaps the former is tainted by my own experience of watching and writing about AHS over the years. I do miss the days of watching Murder House when no connections needed to be made and Connie Britton’s hair was the star of the show. Burn me for wanting a return to the basics!
‘I am the shield over every head’
Lee is a protector, something that Matt mentions when he tries to put her to bed after she hits the bottle. Flora, her daughter, comes to visit but embraces the house’s less charming quirks, choosing to befriend a spirit named Priscilla.
What Lee believes to be harmless acting out in rebellion of the divorce is actually her daughter talking to a member of the colonists who wishes to murder her entire family. After Lee’s bender, she goes off to bring Flora back to the house against her ex’s wishes and Flora is taken into the woods by her friendly ghost.
‘I am the spear of battle’
The battleground is littered with debris and the spear is here to provide some guidance. The spear, in this case, comes in the form of an AHS staple, Dennis O’Hare.
Elias Cunningham, professor, serial murder hunter and Blair Witch enthusiast swoops in to connect some of the dots. In a home video, Cunningham explained that forces are at work in the house, forces that terrify, yet captivate him. That is until they physically torture him and he reveals they have driven him from the house into a cellar.
Dennis O’Hare has a knack for playing the crazy, estranged, and misunderstood. He unloads a detailed history of the Roanoke home — that was once served as the site of a home for the elderly run by two twisted sisters who killed their clients for sport.
The objective of their game was to take in patients whose first names would spell out “MURDER.” But before they could finish, the sisters disappeared, leaving nothing but rat poison and bodies in their wake. Cunningham took us back into the home, armed with his camera, where a person in the mirror left both viewers and Shelby unable to see what happened next.
‘Who (but I) am the tree and the lightning that strikes it’
And thus, AHS remains a beacon of ingenuity and a melting pot for ingredients that don’t quite go together.
Are we overthinking AHS season 6? Most definitely. I’m inclined to believe that Roanoke is meant to scare us for the sake of scaring us. It wants us to lock our doors, walk away from it feeling jittery and leave the water cooler talk to simple three letter combinations — OMG, WTF, WOW!
Then again, “Weird things happen when we rationalize the irrational.”
Watch AHS: Roanoke chapter 3 Wednesday, September 28 at 10:00 p.m. ET on FX.
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