American Horror Story Recap: Episode 1.05 – Halloween Pt. 2
Breaking the mold of starting with a flashback, this week’s second part of the Halloween two parter picked up moments before the first part ended. If you remember last week, we were left with Crispy Larry banging on the door demanding his money and a startled Violet backing away from the door with freaky Rubber Suit Guy right behind her. Flash to Vivien and Ben getting home to the alarm going off and Violet is nowhere to be found. It was an excellent way to end the episode and I had hopes that suspense would boil over to the second part. But did it?
Sadly, no. Not really anyway. Just as Violet senses something behind her, she turns around to find nothing. She heads upstairs and locks herself in her room and hears a tapping sound on her window. As she makes her way to the window a hand comes out from underneath her bed. Since it’s Tate throwing rocks at her window, who the hell is under her bed? That was Abby’s M.O. but since she’s dead, is it her ghost now? We don’t get to find out because the next scene, Violet heads to the basement to meet Tate and the two take off to the beach, which is why Ben and Vivien couldn’t find her when they got home from the ER.
As Vivien and Ben frantically search the house, Violet calls her mom to let her know that she’s “out with friends.” This is apparently ok by Vivien because she tells her to be home in a hour. While making out on the beach, Tate goes into a monologue about how he visited that same spot when life was becoming too much to handle and how he hated high school. As the two commiserate, a group of teenagers approach telling Tate they’ve been waiting for him for a long time. Since it’s Halloween and all, no one would question their gory make-up, but this references back to the first session that Tate had with Ben when he talked about how he fantasized of inciting a school shooting. I’m thinking that wasn’t fantasy at all. He actually did it and this group are his victims. I find it curious though they all still sport their wounds in the afterlife, but Tate doesn’t have any. And neither do Chad and Patrick for that matter. Anyhoo…..the ghosts are out for vengeance. Tate doesn’t seem to know what the hell they’re talking about and Violet thinks they’re actual people. The two haul ass out of there and head back to Violet’s house where things aren’t getting much better.
Ben, meanwhile, is going bat shit crazy on Crispy Larry and is visibly shaken after he answered the door at the end of part one to see a haggard looking Hayden at the door. He seems to think this is all a scam cooked up by Hayden and Larry in an attempt to swindle him. Now, mind you….he BURIED HAYDEN’S BODY AND BUILT A GAZEBO ON TOP OF HER GRAVE! Regardless, he takes a shovel to Larry’s face and proceeds to beat the snot out of him.
Vivien on the other hand thinks this is a prime time for a bath. As she’s prepping for said bath, her phone rings and it’s Hayden. Of course. Hayden keeps telling her to ask Ben about Boston, and Viv proceeds to tell her about a similar situation that she herself experienced when she was younger. After she hangs up on Hayden, she turns around to find “Ask him” written on the steamed mirror. This of course freaks her out and Viv heads downstairs to tell Ben that Hayden is in their house. She tells Ben that she’s going to call the police, but Ben tells her not to because it would make the house look even worse to have the cops there on Halloween and it would be even harder to sell. He goes searching in the basement where he finds Hayden looking like 10 miles of hard road. She repeatedly tells him that he needs to tell Viv about Boston. This is a running theme with her. Then she coughs up a ball of goo and mentions how she’s rotting from the inside out and proceeds to question Ben’s decision on the gazebo until Crispy Larry shows up and whacks him over the head and hog ties him.
This leaves Hayden free to go take a bath and terrorize Vivien some more. Which she does by calling her and making Viv think that she put the family dog in the microwave. It was a bit shocking to see something explode and coat the inside of the microwave in red blobs, but alas, it was just tomatoes. The two women end up in Viv’s bedroom where Hayden is getting her crazy on, holding a shard of broken glass. She keeps telling Viv that she needs to hear the truth about Boston and about the pregnancy to which Viv is shocked that Hayden knows about her pregnancy. Oh wait….oopsy Hayden! This sets her off even more, then finally…Viv finally finds out about frakking Boston! Even though Ben was tied up in the basement, Nora, the wife of the original owners, showed up to set him free. He heads upstairs and confesses to Viv that his business trips were a lie and he went there to see Hayden and he knocked her up. The confession really took the wind out of Hayden’s sails because she just deflated right before the security guy came to arrest her.
Meanwhile, the grisly group of ghouls that were after Tate show up at the house. Violet grabs a pair of scissors (because those will help) and goes out to confront them. Tate eventually heads outside as well, and takes off running back to the beach. Once they catch up with him they proceed to ask him why he did what he did. He seems genuinely confused and it seems he doesn’t remember anything. This apparently happened over a decade ago because one of the girls mentions how she should be 34 and married with kids. The group realizes that they aren’t going to get anywhere so they leave Tate sitting on the beach, processing.
Constance gets a hold of Violet and takes her next door where she tells Violet about Abby dying. The two converse over tea and Constance also admits (which is no big secret) that Tate is her son. She asks Violet not to tell him about Abby however, because he doesn’t do well dealing with trauma. Next door at the Harmon house however, Viv sends Ben packing. As the sun rises, all the frolicking ghosts head back to the house. This includes Moira, Chad, Patrick, the red-headed twins, Nora and the two nurses. Halloween is over, no more walking the earth for these folks.
So that wraps up this week’s episode. Ok, first of all, this show is beginning to lose me. This week wasn’t anything more than being beaten over the head with how Vivien MUST find out about Boston! Ok, she did….now what? It was a whole lot of build up to no payoff at all. What’s up with Viv’s baby? Does she have a womb with a view of hell or what? Seriously after this week, I can only equate this show as a supernatural Melrose Place. And Ben….stop with the crying and the yelling dude!
It looks like we get back to the creep-fest next week so we’ll see if it gets any better.
Tags: AHSFX, American Horror Story, Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, F/X, Jessica Lange, Ryan Murphy
