This week’s “Chapter Four” of American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare was a curious episode. A lot technically happened, yet the plot is still moving at a snail’s pace. When does this big twist happen again? Episode six? Good gravy. On the plus side, lead characters Shelby and Matt no longer insist that hillbillies are terrorizing them and are finally willing to admit that their property is haunted, but they still, stupidly, refuse to leave the house because their niece Flora is still hanging out in the woods somewhere. This, in itself, is annoying because Flora is a character nobody was ever invested in who was only introduced as a device for keeping our intrepid heroes from leaving harm’s way. But in good news, Shelby and Matt were finally reunited with Flora at the end of this episode! Bad news, they’re all about to be horribly murdered by dead colonists who now have the power to do so thanks to some weird moon.
We also learned more about the mythology of the woods and the Roanoke colonists, as well as the backstory of Lady Gaga’s character, which is a plus because we got to bask in her awesome weirdness for part of the episode. As it turns out, her character is a descendant of druids who was a stowaway to America on a ship from England, and later blamed for deaths aboard the ship. She was sentenced to being burned at the stake, but managed to murder the entire camp before that happened, so they weren’t entirely wrong about her after all.
But aside from Lady Gaga — and I’m just going to use her name since her character doesn’t yet have one of her own — just about every other single character in this episode continued to do really dumb things, leading up to the aforementioned imminent slaughter. Here’s a ranking of the characters from least to most dumb.
8. Pig-Headed Man
Other than getting an axe to the back from that Dr. Cunningham guy, the pig-headed man wasn’t really in the episode enough to do anything too stupid, but it’s just nice to be mentioned. And just to be clear, that’s definitely Evan Peters under there, right?
7. Flora
Nothing to see here, just a little girl playing blindfold games in the woods with her good friends Priscilla the dead pilgrim girl, a couple of serial killer nurses, and the pig-headed man. Then again, considering the alternative (her awful family), you can’t really blame her.
6. Cricket Marlow
Not even getting into the fact that Cricket was able to get an Uber in the middle of nowhere and these people can’t even find a motel, this poor sucker just ran into the woods one too many times. Running into the woods? That’s a disemboweling.
5. Dr. Elias Cunningham
As much as I welcome the triumphant return of Denis O’Hare — a scene stealer in any given season of American Horror Story — something about this Elias guy’s story is not checking out. First of all, this guy is definitely dead, right? I mean before he got a bunch of arrows in his chest in the attack by the colonists. Not gonna introduce O’Hare just to have him get killed off in the very next scene.
Also, he claims that he was a guardian of the house, which until recently he had kept so no one else would fall prey to it — but had lost to “property taxes going up” leading to Shelby and Matt buying it. So why did he wait until the evening of the first quarter of this blood moon lunar cycle to finally show up to try to warn them away — when the ghosts are actually capable of murder — instead of, say, at the dang auction? Not that they would have listened to him.
4. This Soldier Guy
Bros before hos, dude.
3. The Colonists
Taking fruit from a murderous colony leader who very questionably decides to turn on a dime and say she’s going to stop with all the human sacrifice and repent to God, doesn’t seem like it’s going to end well. And by not ending well, I mean she’s going to poison then brutally murder the entire colony and have their spirits tethered to the desecrated land.
2. Matt
Matt didn’t have much to do this episode except get yelled at for having sex with Lady Gaga, then having more sex with Lady Gaga. “My wife is super mad at me for having sex with Lady Gaga, better go have more sex with Lady Gaga.”
1. Shelby
If I never have to hear Sarah Paulson scream “Mattttttttt” in that nasally whine ever again, it will be too soon. Here are actual things Shelby said this episode:
On being presented with proof of the house’s history, immediately after almost being murdered by a filthy pig-headed man who disappeared into thin air when Elias yelled “Croaton” at him: “Here was a guy who admitted that he lost the property because he couldn’t pay a tax bill, maybe he just wanted the house back.”
Yes, he probably just wants his house back.
Before running off into the woods for the umpteenth time: “I actually could not believe that we were back out in those woods again.”
Maybe everyone on this show should stop going into the woods! Just a thought.
