Without Jester (who is terrified of things), I've watched the first two episodes of American Horror Story, or AHS as I will refer to it from now on. If it's all right with you, I'd like to blog about it. I haven't had a good show to blog about since The OC went off the air. God, I miss it. Every damn day.
This will catch you up on the first two episodes, as best I can tell what in God's name is going on, and ask hard-hitting questions that I hope to have answered in the next episode.
Here are the main characters:
Ben Harmon, played by Dylan McDermott, is a psychiatrist. His wife caught him banging one of his students, so they moved from Boston to LA.
Vivien, played by Spin City and Friday Night Lights alum Connie Britton, is Ben's wife. She recently had a miscarriage, so don't talk about it.
Violet is Ben and Vivien's downer teenage daughter. She is a cutter, not unlike Frankie from the first San Diego Real World, which, by the way, was by far the best Real World. Cameran, Jamie, Jacquese, Brad, Randy ("Big Rand"), Robin, and don't forget Charlie, the Serbian guitar player who came in after Frankie left because she's afraid of boats or something.
The house in LA into which the Harmons move is, in a way, its own character. It is a big old '20s brick and limestone house with dark wood finishing on the inside. It could very well be a frat house – were it not a house of murder.
Constance, played by Jessica Lange, is the Harmons' nosy old neighbor. She does not give a shit what you think.
Addy is Constance's adult daughter who has Down Syndrome. She likes to tell people who live in the Harmons' house that they are going to die in there. She is also quite adept at breaking and entering.
Moira is a maid. She approaches Vivien right after the Harmons move into the house and says she would like to be their maid, since she has been the maid at that house for something like 80 years. Vivien hires her. To everyone but Ben, she appears to be a withered old maid. To Ben, she appears to be a young, hot temptress.
Larry, played by the guy that plays 2,800-year-old gay vampire king Russell Edgington on True Blood, is the former owner of the house. He follows Ben around and tells Ben, rightfully so, that the house is haunted. He says that it was the house that caused him to torch his family when he lived there. He is very badly burned, and released from jail because he has terminal brain cancer.
Tate is a teenage psycho who is one of Ben's patients. He has Columbine-like fantasies, although for some reason he kills his friends, which is even creepier. He also has a thing for Violet. I have a good feeling he will be AHS's version of Ryan Atwood.
In the first episode, we see that, in 1977, two dicknosed ginger twins walk up to the house. A young Addy is standing in front of the house, which is abandoned at that time. She tells the gingers that they will die in there. They do. Serves them right for going into an abandoned haunted house.
Flash forward to the not-so-distant past. Boston. Vivien comes home, thinks someone broke into the house, calls 911, grabs a knife, then heads upstairs to find Ben's wang firmly implanted in one of his female student's orifices. Wicked brutal. She slashed his bicep and runs away.
They decide to move to LA because, in addition to Ben's adultery, Vivien had a miscarriage. LA is just the place to avoid sluts and heartache. There is no indication anything shitty happened to Violet, although by her disposition, it's clear she's not happy with anything.
So they get to LA, and look at the house. It's cheap. Too cheap. The woman selling the house – it's unclear whether she's a real estate agent or a realtor – explains that the last owners of the house, a gay couple, came down with a bit of the murder-suicide. It happened in the house. Violet, who I didn't assume had the authority to bind her parents, says, "We'll take it." I think this will turn out to be a big mistake.
Moira shows up out of nowhere, and Vivien hires her because Moira knows not to use Murphy's Oil Soap on the baseboards. Later, Ben walks in on Moira twirling her bean, which would be awkward for anyone, even a philanderer. Later, she comes onto Ben when he's sitting on a couch. Violet sees this, which has to be especially weird since she sees Moira as an old woman.
When checking out the attic, Ben and Vivien discover a head-to-toe black latex gimp suit. You have to assume this was a remnant from the two gay dudes who lived there before (and offed each other, both sexually and murderously). Vivien tells Ben to throw it away. He claims he will, but not throwing it away would save some money come Halloween. That would be my thought anyway.
Ben goes all Jason Seaver, and sets up his psychiatry office in the house. Tate is his first patient. Dude's a psycho, but it appears Ben may be able to handle him. After their meeting, Tate walks in on Violet making a piss-poor attempt to slit her wrists. Tate explains she should go lengthwise, presumably because he's a psycho. They form a bond, which turns out to be a good thing.
Violet is getting bullied at school by some uppity twat because, whenever a new kid moves to California from out of state, he or she must pay. Thus, this chick and her friends gang up on Violet at lunch and kick her in the face. That old chestnut. Violet tells Tate about it, and they hatch a plan to scare the chick. Since all Southern California high school chicks are cokeheads, Violet tells the chick to come over to her house to score some coke. The chick comes over, and Violet leads her into a creepy room in the basement, where Tate is sitting in a rocking chair. They turn off the lights, Tate turns into some sort of hobgoblin, and he slashes the chick in the face with his giant claws. She runs away. The lights turn on. Tate turns back into a human. Violet seems concerned, but probably turned on.
Larry sneaks up on Ben, who explains his predicament – lived in the house, the house made him burn his family to death, he escaped with major burns. That whole thing. He warns Ben that the house is evil and will kill Ben and his family. Ben tells him to leave him alone.
That night, Ben and Vivien get into a huge fight because they haven't had sex in like a bajillion years. They get some things off their chest – deep shit that should probably remain between the two of them. Then they bang in the study.
Later that night, Ben sleepwalks. He goes downstairs, turns on the stove, and holds his hands over the burners. This is not normal activity, even for a philanderer. Constance walks into the kitchen. I should mention that she is a bitch. She tells Ben that it's not his time. While all of this is going on, a man in the black latex gimp suit walks into Ben and Vivien's bedroom. Vivien's all "Round 2. Nice. But wait, I thought you threw that away." The gimp bangs her, although she thinks its Ben.
Vivien gets knocked up. Whether it's Ben or the gimp's remains to be seen. While Vivien is telling Ben the good news, Constance is upstairs trying to steal some of Vivien's earrings. Moira walks in, and they exchange unpleasantries. Constance then says, "Don't make me kill you again." That doesn't make any sense.
The second episode starts out with a flashback to the house in 1968. It was apparently a sorority house. Three fun sorostitutes are going to see The Doors at the Hollywood Bowl – a legendary concert. As they make their way to the living room, they ask another sister, Maria, if she wants to go to the concert. (Apparently there were still tickets available, which is the part of the show least grounded in reality.) Maria is a nerd, so she says no, so that she can stay home and study. Maria should have gone to see The Doors.
After making a joke to a woman who is apparently the sorority's live-in nurse about how one of the other chicks will be getting an STD, there is a knock on the door. Some dude is on the porch saying he just got injured. His head is bleeding and Maria is an idiot, so she lets him in. They try to treat him, and then realize his wound has no source. It doesn't take a nurse to realize this is an issue. He grabs a bowl and knocks Maria out, ties her up, then drowns the nurse in the bathtub upstairs, and then stabs Maria to death in the back. The worst part is that whenever the other three chicks returned, this probably ruined what had been a totally awesome night.
Flash forward to the present. Ben is meeting with Tate, who is explaining that he wants to do bad things to Violet. That has to be awkward for Ben, even if he is a philanderer. Ben later calls Tate's mom and tells her that he can no longer treat Tate.
Ben then meets with a patient, Bianca, who is having a recurring dream that she is being cut in half trying to escape a stuck elevator. She's also overly excited about "the murder house."
After that, Ben gets a call from Hayden, the chick he banged back in Boston. Guess what? She's pregnant. Damn, this guy has some potent sperm. So, Ben's gotta fly back to Boston to pay for an abortion. He lies to Vivien and tells her he has to go to Boston to treat a former patient who tried to commit suicide. He goes to Boston and turns his phone off.
Constance – who is a conniving whore, mind you – makes cupcakes with ipecac and brings them over to the Harmons' house and insists that Vivien give them to Violet. She also tells Vivien that she knows Vivien is pregnant. A woman who can smell pregnancy should not be trusted. By the way, for punishment, Constance locks Addy in a closet full of mirrors so that she can "she what you are," while Constance bangs a guy who appears to be 40 years her junior. If not a gentle mother, Constance is certainly a gentle lover.
So Vivien brings an ipecac-laced cupcake to Violet, who doesn't want to eat it. Then get in an argument because Violet is a bitchy teenager and Vivien is an unstable preggo. The doorbell rings. It's some chick who says she has a head wound and asks Vivien to help. Vivien, unlike Maria, has some street smarts, so she says that she'll call 911 instead. Then Vivien can't find her phone. By the time she gets back to the front door, there are people wearing masks inside her house. She just can't catch a break.
It turns out Bianca – the elevator dreamer – was actually just casing the joint so that she and her friends could reenact the 1968 murders. There are three potential murders, Bianca, the chick who was at the front door (whose name we learn is Fiona), and the dude who is in the US Postal Service commercials who says "I seriously do not care" when the postal carrier comes to his office and asks him if he wants to save his boss money. This night is the anniversary of the 1968 murders. They brought a nurses uniform. They have two female victims. They even bought the exact same bowl that the killer knocked Maria out with. You may not agree with what they were doing, but you have to respect their attention to detail.
Violet manages to escape for a few seconds, and of course, Tate has broken into their house as well. He tells Violet to get the three copycats into the basement. So Violet gets recaptured and goes upstairs with Fiona. Violet will be playing the part of the nurse who is drowned in the bathtub. Bianca then eats the cupcake. Smooth move, Ex Lax! Well, that's what I would say if there were Ex Lax in the cupcakes. Violet convinces Fiona that the real bathtub from the murders is in the basement, so they make their way down there. Bianca starts puking, since that's what ipecac does. Tate comes out of nowhere and jams an axe in her stomach. That couldn't have helped how she was feeling!
Tate, who I assume has teleportation powers, gets back to the basement, where Fiona and Violet now are. The lights go out, and Violet gets away. Fiona then goes to the room with the murder bathtub, and Tate is waiting for her. The nurse from the 1968 murder is in the bathtub. Say what?! She looks great for having been dead for 43 years.
Meanwhile, Vivien has used her superior intellect to convince the dimwitted postal service commercial guy to untie her. She then knocks him out with the very bowl that the 1968 murderer used to knock Maria out. Oh how the tables have turned. Vivien and Violet run out of the house, shrieking down the street.
The dude wakes up and goes to find Fiona in the basement. By this point, he's gotta be pissed because his plan has gone to shit. Talk about a letdown. He gets to the room with the bathtub. Now, not only is the dead nurse there, but so is Maria. They kill the dude and Fiona.
Then shit starts to get weird. Constance, Moira (where was she during all this?), and Tate enter the room with the bathtub and are all, "Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do!" Tate explains that Maria and the nurse killed Fiona and the dude. They agree to dispose of the bodies, and they also agree that they want Tate to keep getting treated by Ben.
Speaking of Ben, while he's waiting for Hayden to kill his zygote, he turns his phone on to see like 493 missed calls. He checks his voicemail and just leaves for LA. Upon his return, he finds out the Tate had been in the house, which he's not cool with. Then Violet is all, "Yo, dickhead. He was here saving our lives while you were in Bean Town." Ben is conflicted, even though he's a philanderer. At the end of episode two, Vivien is all "we need to sell this house." No shit.
Here are the questions we're left with after the first two episodes:
1. What the fuck?!
2. Will the Harmons sell their house? If so, was this show really just three episodes?
3. Did Ben put on the black latex suit and impregnate Vivien, or was it your classic case of a latex-suit-wearing raping ghost having his way with an unsuspecting housewife? Can ghosts impregnate the living? And does that gimp suit have a dong hole?
4. How did Constance kill Moira if Moira is, in fact, alive? Or is Moira, in fact, alive? And is it going to be really weird when Vivien walks in on Ben getting mounted by what Vivien sees as a 75-year-old woman? Or will Vivien join in?
5. Why haven't any of the owners of this house finished the basement? It would probably be a lot less creepy and haunted if there was some carpeting, a hunter green La-Z-Boy, and a wet bar. It's tough to want to haunt when you can pound Newcastles and play Madden instead.
6. So Tate is in kahoots with Constance and Moira? Do they even have anything to talk about? He's like 16. They're like 160.
7. Is Tate the devil or just a shapeshifting hobgoblin? There can be no other possibilities.
8. What kind of sorority only has four members and a live-in nurse?
9. Will anyone with a legitimate head would ever be able to get any help again?
10. What kind of loss are the Harmons going to take on the house? "Oh, you just bought this place last week. Why do you want to move out so soon?" If they aren't able to sell the house – you know, due to the constant murders that occur in the house – will they at least change the locks? Maybe that will keep Addy and Constance out. ADT doesn't seem to be doing enough here.
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