After view the pilot episode last week, I had some serious reservations about this show.  I wasn’t ready to completely write it off, but I was leaning that way.  Episode 2, titled Home Invasion, aired last night and I crawled into bed dog tired to watch it.  I actually didn’t think I’d make it through the episode before falling asleep, but after the pre-credit segment, I was wide awake.

It starts much like the last one, set back in time, but now we see the house in 1968.  Instead of the house being run-down and abandoned like the beginning of the pilot, this time the house is well-kept and beautiful and it looks to be a sorority house.  Two girls are left alone when a knock on the door reveals an injured man who’s asking for help.  Being nurses, the girls let the man in to fix him up, only he’s not really hurt.  He drowns one of the girls in the bathtub upstairs, and forces the other to dress in nurse attire.  He then hog-ties her and stabs her in the back multiple times.  The scene was actually pretty chilling and came complete with Psycho music.

Cut to present day and Ben is in the midst of another session with Tate.  Tate is clearly trying to get under Ben’s skin as he goes into details about his sexual exploits with Violet, Ben’s daughter.  Ben abruptly ends the session and Tate leaves.  Ben then gets a phone call from his ex-mistress back in Boston…you know, the one he got busted with.  Well, she’s pregnant, which is just one more thing for Ben to worry about.

The episode really gets its crazy/creepy on after that.  Ben has a new patient who is having the same dream of being stuck in an elevator and gets chopped in half while trying to escape.  The kicker here is F/X actually showed the dream sequence.  It was all kinds of bloody and a bit shocking.  That stuff doesn’t normally bother me, but I was surprised to see that they actually showed it.  But then again, it’s F/X.  The girl proceeds to ask Ben questions about the house and informs him that it’s actually on an L.A. Murders tour.  That would have been nice info to have prior to buying the house yeah?  The session ends and Ben makes a phone call to Tate’s mom, but the gal he just met with shows up in his kitchen claiming she got turned around.  He shows her to the door and goes about his business.

Meanwhile, crazy Constance is next door whipping up a batch of cupcakes complete with ipecac syrup and her daughters saliva.  For those of you who don’t know, ipecac syrup induces vomiting…and Constance used A LOT of it.  She shows up in Vivien’s kitchen with two cupcakes, which she says are for Violet.  Constance immediately knows that Vivien is pregnant, which kind of freaks Viv out.  Viv then asks if Constance can tell if anything else is wrong with the baby because she hasn’t been sick at all and she’s concerned something isn’t right.  She should be more concerned about the fact that the pregnancy was a result of a tryst with her husband (or was it??) while he was sporting the bondage get-up.

Ben goes for an emotional jog and with all the things weighing on his mind, has a breakdown.  Former house owner Larry just happens to be there and two have a little pow-wow over what Ben should do about his ex in Boston.  Larry tells him to man up about it.  Ben does his version of this by lying to Viv, and flies out to Boston to pay for the abortion.

Ben’s absence means that it’s just Viv and Violet alone in the house.  Violet locks herself in her bedroom and when Viv comes to her hoping for some mother / daughter time, Violet shuts her down telling Viv she knows about the pregnancy, that she thinks Viv is a coward and how a baby won’t save the marriage.  Nice kid Viv’s got there.

Viv takes to her room to watch what sounds like a scary movie when she hears the doorbell ring.  She heads downstairs and looks out the peep-hole to see an injured girl asking for help.  It’s identical to what happened in the beginning and we find that the freaky dream girl and two of her friends look to re-enact the murder that took place in 1968.  Viv is tied to a chair and Violet is taken upstairs to be drowned in the tub.  Tate mysteriously shows up and helps her however, and tells her to get them to the basement. Which Violet does.

Freaky dream girl spies the cupcake that Constance made and mows it down but then gets sick because of the special ingredient.  She goes into the bathroom to look for her friend but finds Tate instead, who takes an axe to her gut and just about chops her in half.  Kinda like her dream no?  The other gal takes Violet to the basement, only to meet a gruesome end at the hands of the spirits of the two girls from the original murder.  The guy makes the ultimate mistake by going into the basement to look for his cohorts and meets a similar fate.

The aftermath shows Constance, Tate and Moira standing over the two dead bodies in the basement.  Constance asks Tate if it was his work and he says no…”it was them.”  The three hatch a plan and conspire to get rid of the bodies.

Ben, in the meantime, is at the abortion clinic with what’s-her-name and he tells her that he’ll be there for her when she gets done with the procedure.  Once she’s taken away, he checks his phone to find 13 missed calls.  He knows something is wrong and leaves right then to return home.

After giving their statements to the police, Violet tells her mom that she was really brave through the ordeal.  This nightmare seemed to help mom and daughter mend fences and seems to be a little bit of a sliver lining.  The episode ends with Vivien telling Ben that she want to move. Ummmm, you think?

This episode has made me feel the need to stick around to see what happens.  Aside from the quick cut takes that riddled the episode, this one flowed much better than the pilot.  Jessica Lange is killing it with her portrayal of Constance.  She is, by far, THE BEST part of the show so far.

More questions are raised this week and I hope they don’t keep stringing us a long.  I mean seriously….What the hell is going on with Constance, Tate and Moira?  We already knew there was history between the two ladies, but where does Tate fit in?  Is the house out to get anyone who lives there because it seemed like the spirits were protecting the family this week.  And what’s up with Constance’s daughter and her obsession with the house?  Who was she playing ball with in the basement?  Weird things are afoot that’s for sure.  I’ll be back next week to see what happens so stay tuned.

About the author

Tracy Ladd has written 534 articles on this blog.

Tracy has been writing about film since her days on the her high school newspaper. Even though she took a decade or two off to explore other things, she's back to doing what she loves. She also bakes, can knit a pretty nifty scarf and makes lightsaber sounds with her knitting needles. Or chopsticks. Especially with the lightsaber chopsticks. Follow her on Twitter: @ReelGoddess

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Television, TV Show Recaps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.