This week’s American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare, “Chapter Three,” spent the bulk of the episode following our intrepid heroes as they searched for Lee’s daughter Flora, who disappeared in last week’s cliffhanger. Which is really making me look forward to this supposed twist coming up, because so help me if this turns into season two of The Walking Dead over the course of the next several episodes…
Since the police continue to be no goddamn help (and can you really blame them, since they’re dealing with actual ghosts), Shelby, Matt, Lee, and Lee’s ex-husband Mason enlist the aid of a psychic named Cricket Marlow (played by Leslie Jordan) — previously known as Quentin Fleming, a member of the witch’s counsel from Coven. It’s unclear whether or not these are supposed to be related characters, or possibly parallel characters from different universes. (This also makes you have to question the existence of the so-called “reenactment.”) While it’s obviously not out of the ordinary for one actor to play multiple characters on American Horror Story, both Cricket and Quentin are pretty similar in that they are both warlocks with psychic abilities from New Orleans, who both have written books on the supernatural.
If the two are somehow connected, what this tells us is that the series of events in My Roanoke Nightmare take place prior to the events in Coven, since Quentin Fleming is killed by Frances Conroy’s Myrtle Snow — who you may recall popped out his eye with a melon baller.
Speaking of, this week also really cranked up the Ryan Murphy-ness of the season with some truly disturbing imagery and events. Here are some other things we learned from “Chapter Three.”
Flora Is Safe… Sort Of?
Despite over 72 hours having passed since Flora’s disappearance, Cricket confirms to Lee that she is in fact safe… for now. The bad news is that Flora is also being hidden by her ghost friend Priscilla, and the pair have also an entire ghost colony hunting them down. Flora is in a better place than her father, however, who police find burned to a crisp on another one of those life-sized stick doll things, and her mom is the main suspect. Actually come to think of it, maybe Flora is better off with her new ghost family, after all.
Children Of The Hillbillies
While searching the woods for Flora, Shelby, Lee, and Matt stumble across Flora’s doll, which has been dismembered and had some parts replaced with pig parts. The group continue where they happen upon a ramshackle farm, which may or may not have been the home of the hillbillies they still presume to be tormenting them, where they make a horrifying discovery in the barn: two human-seeming, yet very filthy and very feral children nursing on a giant sow. When taken into custody, it appears that the only word the boys know how to speak is “Croatoan.” Nothing too weird about that!
We Finally Know The Deal With Kathy Bates
Cricket doesn’t have a lot of luck in his attempts to contact Priscilla to find out where she’s keeping Flora, however, he is able to make contact with Kathy Bates, a.k.a. “The Butcher,” and learns some very interesting things about the colony. Originally the wife of the governor of Roanoke, Bates’ character is put in charge of the starving colony while her husband goes out in search of help. The governess is overthrown by the men of the colony along with her own son (Wes Bentley), who exile her to the woods with a spiked metal cage over her head.
It’s there that the Butcher encounters Lady Gaga, who appears to be not a pilgrim after all, but some sort of evil being, who removes her restraints and feeds her the still beating heart of a wild hog, Having been “purified,” the Butcher returns to exact revenge and regain control of her colony, which she decides to move from Roanoke to the very land Matt and Shelby purchased.
This Is Lee’s Second Missing Child! Dun Dun Dun!
This seems like a pretty important detail, but Cricket gains Lee’s trust by revealing to her that he knows about her first daughter Emily, who she had at 17 and also went missing when she was just four years old, and whose spirit now wonders why her mother never looked for her. How her own brother and ex-husband apparently never knew about this other child is anybody’s best guess.
Orgy In The Woods? Orgy In The Woods.
Well, we all know it wouldn’t be a proper Ryan Murphy affair without a good old fashioned orgy, so while trying to locate Flora in the woods with Cricket, Shelby learns that Matt and Lee made a deal with the colony to burn the house down in exchange for the girl. For some reason that doesn’t sit well with Shelby, who goes running off and gets separated from the group, only to happen upon Matt, who had wandered off and is now having some very primal-looking sex with Lady Gaga, while the hillbillies, uh, enjoy the show.
So, just your average episode of American Horror Story: feral children, pig parts, heart-eating, and possible demon sex. And we’re only about a quarter of the way through the season!
