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You can tell this is a good season of American Horror Story because it feels like it’s just been breezing along and here we are at the sixth of ten episodes. Only four more to go! Time flies. And that real sense of pleasure came in this week’s extended episode ‘Return to Murder House’, a place fans have been wanting to revisit for quite a few years now, hoping to check up on the Harmon family and all the other spirits who are trapped in the house for eternity.
The story was set in motion by Cordelia needing real intel on just who Michael Langdon is before she hands over the title of Supreme to him. Sending Madison and Behold as her emissaries to where it all began in Season 1, the episode was a treat for long-time fans of the series with quick glimpses of some of the spirits seen in that first season — like Gladys the nurse and Elizabeth Short (Mena Suvari), but sadly no Nora Montgomery to give Lily Rabe a little more screen time — and of course Tate Langdon, brother Beau, Moira the housekeeper and the Harmon family.
Here we find Madison and Behold attempting to pose as a married couple looking to buy the famed and infamous house. The banter between Emma Roberts and Billy Porter here was hilarious, especially Behold’s reaction to Madison talking about having babies in their new home. But when they got into the house, they found more — a lot more — than they bargained for in the form of some very uncooperative spirits, namely Tate (who denies Michael is his son) and Ben Harmon. Somehow psychic Billie Dean Howard even shows up, the one living person the spirits allow to come and go as she pleases, and neither Madison nor Behold remark how familiar she looks. And then she disappears as if she had never been there.
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But not before introducing them to the woman who claims the house as her own — Constance Langdon, who lets the two ‘witchiepoos’ know in no uncertain terms that they are on her turf and will play by her rules. If they want information about Michael, they need to do her a solid — get rid of Moira, the housekeeper who just won’t shut up. (And we are afforded one great scene between Jessica Lange and Frances Conroy that just crackles with energy.) There’s only one way to get a spirit to move on from their prison — dig up and rebury their bones. Not an easy task on the grounds of this house, but Madison is finally able to figure out which bones belong to Moira, who is filled with joy when the bag is presented to her. Madison allows Moira to pick where she wants to be buried, and it turns out she just wants to be in the cemetery near her mother. When the deed is done and the pair leave, episode director Sarah Paulson gives us what has to be the absolute sweetest moment of the entire series — perhaps the only sweet moment of the series — where Moira’s mother appears and Moira confesses it was she who killed her. But it wasn’t a cold-blooded murder, she pulled the plug on her mother because she didn’t want to see her suffer any longer. Fearing mom would be angry with her — and knowing this series it could have gone horribly sideways — mom thanked Moira, telling her she was in agony. Released from that burden, and from the house, Moira and her mother walked hand-in-hand into the fog, putting her story to rest once and for all. It was a lovely, emotional scene and kudos to everyone for making it absolute perfection.
But back to the house. With Moira in her final resting place, Constance is ready to talk. Now when we last saw her, she was very much alive so it was a bit puzzling as to how she ended up in the house. She recounted to the witches how young Michael had a penchant for gifting her with small dead animals. And each one she would bury in the yard with a rose bush over it. She loved roses but it got to the point where she couldn’t stand them as the yard became rows and rows of roses. When Michael slit the throat of a nanny, Constance knew something was wrong (but she convinced the authorities the nanny took her own life so she didn’t have to bury that one), and that became even more apparent as he aged ten years overnight. After nearly strangling her and committing more atrocities (slitting the throat of an exorcist being one of them), Constance sensed that her time of being a mother had come to an end with Michael, so she took herself to the house and drank herself to death … all so she could be with her children, at least the ones in that house, for eternity where she could be a mother forever. But she still wasn’t able to give Madison and Behold any solid answers as to who or what Michael is.
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Ben Harmon wasn’t much more helpful. He did try to take Michael under his wing as if he were Ben’s real son, conducting therapy sessions with him as he did Tate, but he also sensed there was something off about the boy who seemed to have been drawn to Tate’s rubber suit (so wait, was that Michael who Gran’ma saw having sex with her grandson in the Outpost which led to her demise?). Ben witnessed Michael carving a smile into Elizabeth Short’s face, but when Michael murdered the newest owners of the house and then incinerated their souls, Ben knew there was nothing he could do to help the boy.
It was Vivien Harmon who finally gave Madison and Behold the answer they needed (after Michael nearly destroyed her own soul). She revealed to them about the night a group of Satanists came to the house — led by Anton LeVay (the real life founder of the Church of Satan) along with Mrs. Miriam Mead and an unnamed Cardinal (played by AHS favorite Naomi Grossman, aka Pepper) — to perform a ritual that would prove once and for all Michael’s parentage. Picking up a young woman on a rainy night, Mead remarks to the girl that it’s a wonderful night … for murder (and the upside-down crucifix hanging from the mirror should have been a warning sign), and she ends up with her heart yanked out by LeVay for Michael to feast on, Mead exclaiming, ‘It’s all for you’, just as Damien’s nanny did in The Omen before hanging herself. (And this leaves us with a question about Mead … she’s a human being here and obviously she is smitten with Michael so how exactly did she become a robot, and is this Miriam Mead the mother figure he made her to be and not Constance?)
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Taking a bite of the heart, a kind of goofy shadow rises on the wall behind him, signaling that yes indeed he is the Anti-Christ. Well that’s enough for Madison. Time to report back to Cordelia before it’s too late. But … here’s a potential problem with starting the season at ‘the end’ … it’s already too late. The Apocalypse has happened. But we know Cordelia, Madison and Myrtle have arrived at the Outpost, reviving Coco, Dinah and Mallory, so obviously the battle will continue. But how will that change what’s already been done to the planet? We have four more episodes to find out.
One final note: Besides finally confirming Michael’s heritage, we also learned that Madison Montgomery is not the stone cold bitch she appears to be. Besides helping Moira reunite with her mother and finally leave this world, she also took a moment to talk with Violet Harmon, who is still in love with Tate but can’t deal with all the terrible things he’s done (like rape her mother). Madison tells her that it is the evil of the house that has caused him to do those things and she blows a little pixie dust in her face to help her see things more clearly, reuniting the two lovers for all eternity. Even the Harmons seem to be in a better place at the end, and Constance is happy to be there with her children. So most of these beloved characters actually got a happy ending, something quite unusual for this series.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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