American Horror Story does Halloween right

Sorry for this digression, but I have to just say this. Every night when I head upstairs to go to bed, I walk through my dark house by the light of my iPhone so I don’t trip over something and kill myself. It gives off that same sort of glow that’s not quite a flashlight, casting shadows off toys and other crap in my way. Now it freaks me the hell out to walk through my house by that light, because it looks so similar to those opening credits. Thanks, American Horror Story!

During the opening scenes of this episode, I thought it mighty deja-vu-like that Zachary Quinto would be appearing in it just days after the TV Clique had that discussion about gay characters on television, and Chuck made mention of Quinto there. In any case, he played a fantastic role here as one of the couple who last stayed in the house before the Harmons. What I found most interesting about their particular flashback was that it appears they actually were not the owners of the infamous full-body leather suit, and it’s unlikely either one of them has anything to do with Vivien’s pregnancy. So was there another owner of the Murder House before the gay couple who owned that suit, or is it unrelated to the house’s occupants altogether?

The leather suit is definitely the running symbol for this show. I know it constantly freaks me the hell out, and there was no shortage of it in this episode. It was weird that Tate somehow found the suit, though, and then it only appears again later. Would that really just be Tate again?

As for Vivien’s pregnancy, the moment in the hospital was one of the most chilling of the series so far. After hearing of what happened with the child of the original owners of the home — another scary-as-hell moment — one can only wonder what the heck that nurse saw on the sonogram monitor to cause he to pass out. Is there enough to see with that machine to draw out horrible details to cause you to freak out? What bugs me about the moment is how the Harmons so quickly brush off what happened, simply assuming the nurse passed out for some other reason than their baby looking like a mutated freak. It didn’t cause them concern that the nurse said their baby was much larger than normal? At this point, if that baby comes out looking normal, I’d consider it a let down after all of this buildup.

That’s a running theme with the Harmons, though. They always seem to rather brush off odd things, and I’m not sure if we’re just supposed to accept that they are idiots or that it’s just overly convenient storytelling in order to keep the Harmons together and in the Murder House. For example, I was at first shocked that the first scene we see with Ben in this episode isn’t of him sitting in a corner alone, rocking and weeping, since he’d just assisted in hiding a murder. See, brushed off again.

I think everyone saw Addie’s death coming from a mile away. Anytime the camera follows someone crossing a dark street, that person is getting hit by a car. Will we ever know who was driving the car? Or were we supposed to put two and two together and decide it was actually Constance who decided to take the opportunity to get rid of the daughter she clearly never wanted, then using that opportunity to use it against Violet? It’s not hard to imagine that she’d do something that sick. Did I hear Constance right, though, that Addie was in her 30s? I didn’t see that at all.

Any guesses as to what it takes to put people at rest here? Last week I thought it was the baby’s clothes we saw in that pit under the new gazebo, but it does seem it was Moira, the maid’s. That makes more sense for why Constance said to Moira that she was stuck there now, and why the maid kept drugging Ben and putting him over that spot to dig. Does it take putting the bones to rest or burning them a-la Supernatural to allow them to pass on?

Now that Ben has seen Hayden at the door, does that mean he’s finally privy to the ghostly goings-on in the house, or will he assume it’s just some sort of trick? That right there was yet another one of those Halloween-worthy moments of the episode, and a brilliant way to cap off the first part of this two-parter.

One last question: Have we seen yet that any dead people have appeared to past occupants of Murder House, besides Larry, the burned man? And do we know for sure that he saw any at all?

I wrote the above before I saw the second part of this episode, but I have seen it and I’ll just say this: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on Oct 26, 2011 @ 23:00 EST5EDT