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Last week I wondered if or when we’d see Dr. Cunningham again, and lo and behold he turned up — in the flesh — this week. And boy, what a week this was. I have to say, as a loyal viewer of the series, this week’s episode of American Horror Story lived up to its title as it had to be one of, if not THE most unnerving and frightening episode of the entire series.
Chapter 4 of “My Roanoke Nightmare” was chock full of characters and story as Matt and Shelby continued their quest to find Flora with only mild regrets on Shelby’s part about calling the cops on Lee. Of course Shelby also had to deal with seeing Matt having sex with whatever Lady Gaga is portraying (and we do find out this week), and she finally believed that he had no memory of what had happened. And just as they were coming to grips with that, Shelby is nearly murdered by the Piggy Man and is miraculously saved by … Dr. Cunningham who used the word “Croatoan” to banish what turned out to be one of the evil spirits tied to the land.
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Of course Shelby remembered seeing the poor soul being burned alive when she stumbled upon the pagan ritual in the forest, and Cunningham related how he had owned the property until he defaulted on the payments, but until they had been unfortunate enough to buy the house at auction, Cunningham had been keeping the grounds free from outsiders while he dug through the history of the house, which has been standing there since the 1700s. But every year during a week in October leading up to the Blood Moon, terrible fates befell anyone who was on the property (including the ancestors of Freak Show‘s Dandy Mott, who actually built the house). Interestingly, FX started this season earlier than usual, perhaps to be in sync storywise with the current moon cycle.
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Cunningham revealed that the murderous nurses hadn’t simply disappeared … they were murdered during that week by The Butcher and her people. And we got to see the murders, one of them at least, in gruesome detail as the arms were ripped off of one of the girls, and the other we assume was beheaded. Once blood is spilled on that land, the souls of the deceased are forever bound to it. They can be a nuisance during the rest of the year, but that week they can be murderous. The spirits also murdered an Asian family who had come to America and tried to become one with the culture (and in one of the episodes more humorous moments, had a serious discussion about The Partridge Family).
Cunningham warned Matt and Shelby that they had to leave but they refused until Flora was found, and it just so happened that Cunningham knew exactly where the spirit of Priscilla loved to play. Unfortunately, the other spirits were nearby and as he tried to get Priscilla to release Flora, The Butcher’s people shot several arrows into his chest which means Cunningham is now also tied to the land for eternity. Maybe. And they still didn’t get Flora back.
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But as they raced back to the house, who should be there again but psychic Cricket Marlowe. Cricket knew Flora was still alive because he’d talked with Thomasin himself, and he also knew there was a greater power guiding her — the witch of the woods (that would be Gaga’s character). Cricket learned the story of the colony (which he bought by promising Matt to her again … but just a ploy to get her to talk), as the witch transports Cricket back to when the colonists had left Roanoke and settled on that land, and they were doing pretty well for themselves. Thomasin’s son Ambrose was unhappy with this deal his mother made with the witch for their prosperity as it wouldn’t sit too well with the Lord above. Thomasin seemed incensed, but proclaimed she had seen the error of her ways and provided a lavish meal for the settlers and a treat of a special fruit. This could be the poison apple origin story as everyone became ill and then Thomasin butchered them all and offered herself to the witch, spilling all of that blood during that moon cycle and binding their spirits to the land.
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But now knowing all this Cricket has a plan to rid the land of the evil and takes an Uber back to his hotel (and Leslie Jordan is just given some of the best, funniest lines of the episode which he delivers with aplomb) but he never makes it because Flora dashes in front of the car and he goes chasing after her. Matt and Shelby wait and wait for his return, but when he doesn’t come, Matt goes outside when he hears voices — not words exactly — that lured him to Cunningham’s old bunker in the ground. Matt hoped to find Cunningham somehow still alive but instead he found the witch, who again cast a spell on him and opened herself to him physically and emotionally, revealing her story of how she came from England — as a human — was imprisoned for a crime of witchcraft and was to be burned at the stake, then she murdered her captors (which was blamed on the natives) and ventured out into the forest where she became one with a dark force and formed some entirely new evil.
Shelby, who had been asleep but awoke alone, also ventured outside and became hysterical when confronted with the colonists who had Flora. Shelby’s screams snapped Matt out of his trance and he races to her, seeing Thomasin about to slit Flora’s throat with her meat cleaver. But Thomasin learns paybacks are a bitch when Priscilla hits her with a rock (just as Thomasin had done to her when she made the girl a human sacrifice), allowing Matt to retrieve Flora from the clutches of the evil spirits. They run into the house and hope to get away but Flora keeps talking about “the man,” repeating “the man” over and over again.
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Matt and Shelby look out the window and see the colonists dragging Cricket to the front of the line, but he is made to pay for his failure to get the couple to leave the property as he had promised in a scene even more horrific than the nurse’s arms being ripped off. Poor Cricket was disemboweled right before Matt’s and Shelby’s eyes, and Thomasin makes it clear that there is more blood yet to be spilled before the end of the lunar cycle.
Which leaves us with many questions. Will they be able to escape the property now that they have Flora back? Shelby hoped that by producing a live child, Lee would be set free (and we have to assume they do escape since the real Shelby and Matt are relating this story … or are they?). We’re also left to wonder when we’ll see Evan Peters … or have we seen him? Could he be the pig man? And what about Cheyenne Jackson (is that his voice conducting the interviews)? And will we see the return of Uber driver Rhett Snow, who also participated, briefly, in the interview segments? One thing is for sure, Ryan Murphy and company pulled out all the stops for this episode and with all of this new information and a major twist coming in Chapter 6, we need to fasten our seat belts and hold on for the rest of this wild ride.
What are your theories about what’s happening or what’s to come? Are we seeing what we’ve been led to believe we’re seeing? Sound off in the comments below!
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