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The third chapter of “My Roanoke Nightmare” delved deeply into the mystery of the ghosts terrorizing Shelby, Matt and Lee. Lee’s daughter Flora is still missing, but another player in this drama has entered to give the family some information of her whereabouts and explain the whole mystery … sort of. Things also take a tragic turn for Lee, but not in the way any of us expected.
After days of searching fruitlessly for Flora, the family finds an unexpected and uninvited guest in their home, Cricket Marlowe (Leslie Jordan), a famed psychic who has helped the FBI in previous missing persons cases. Cricket is legit (at least according to the internet) and offers his services. Everyone agrees to a seance of sorts and Cricket draws out the spirit that haunts the property, Thomasin White (Kathy Bates).
Thomasin was the wife of the mayor of the Roanoke colony and when he husband returned to England for food and supplies, she and her son Ambrose (Wes Bentley) were basically left in charge, something that didn’t sit well in what was a normally male-dominated society. As the food supply dwindled, the colonists staged a coup and banished Thomasin to the forest, thanks in part because of the cooperation of Ambrose who locked a cage around her head in order to spare his own life.
Alone in the forest, Thomasin encounters something, perhaps a demon (Lady Gaga), who sets her free, allowing her to return to Roanoke where she exacts her revenge, splitting the skull of her banisher with a meat cleaver and killing the other men who helped imprison her (earning the nickname The Butcher), but sparing the life of her son, who is just hanging by a thread with her. One slip up and he’s dead too.
But as Shelby points out, the house is nowhere near Roanoke Island so why is Thomasin claiming this property? As most of us know about the legend of the Roanoke colony, when those who left for England for supplies returned, everyone had vanished with only one clue, the word Croatoan carved into a tree. This is the same word some feral children who had been found while looking for Flora would yell, but no one knows why (historically, the Croatoa were a native tribe in the area and could signal that the colonists assimilated into the tribe during that three year supply voyage to and from England). Cricket relates to them that Thomasin and the remaining colonists moved inland to the very spot of their home, and she still claims this land as her own.
Thomasin also tells Cricket that the girl Priscilla has Flora … and for $25,000 he’ll give them the rest of the information. That didn’t sit well with Matt and Shelby, especially after the show Cricket and Thomasin put on by breaking windows. Matt is sure it was all a hoax, but Lee went to Cricket and gave him the money, hoping he would help bring Flora back.
Lee’s ex arrived to help find Flora and accuse Lee of hiding the child because she knew she was going to lose custody. Shelby once again tried to talk him off that ledge, but after going out on his own to look for the girl a call comes from the police — they’ve found something. But when they got to the scene, what they found was the charred remains of Lee’s ex tied to another of those massive stick figures as we had seen during Shelby’s original foray into the forest. Unfortunately for Lee, the security cameras Matt had installed after the first incidents captured Lee leaving the house for four hours. Plenty of time to string up her ex and barbeque him. But could Lee do such a thing, or was it the Roanoke spirits or the local hillbillies?
Speaking of which, the season’s weirdest moment so far had to be when Cricket took the family to meet with The Butcher. Cricket explained that if she helped assist in Flora’s return, the family would leave the house immediately, never to return, even burn the place down so no one else could live there. This was all news to Shelby — who runs a bit hot and cold on the whole staying or going issue — who was not privvy to this deal Lee and Matt made with Cricket. During the negotiations, Matt disappeared and Shelby found him … engaged in a sex act with Gaga’s demon character! And the hillbillies were watching like a captive audience!! Afterwards, Matt claimed to have no memory of the incident but Shelby didn’t believe him and in retaliation called the police on Lee, claiming she was responsible for Flora’s disappearance (it probably didn’t help that we also learned Lee’s first child also went missing, and kudos to Adina Porter for her heartwrenching performance a “real Lee” relating that part of her story).
Chapter 3 was a gripping, terrifying episode that gave us a lot of juicy information and quite a few disturbing moments, and it left us with quite a few more questions. What is the meaning of “croatoan”? Shelby seems to think it may have some kind of magical power. How does the story of Thomasin tie in to the story of the previous occupants of the house and the hillbillies? What exactly is Gaga’s character (and I don’t buy into the theory that she’s somehow The Countess from last season)? Where are Evan Peters and Cheyenne Jackson?? Will we see more of Dr. Cunningham? And with a big twist coming in Chapter 6, was that one brief behind-the-scenes moment with Lee and a crew member of the docuseries a tease of … something? And in the next episode, expect to get some background on Freak Show‘s Mott family! Three episode in and the season has been a real rollercoaster ride. I don’t think anyone can say this season of American Horror Story has been boring.
What are your theories about what’s happening or what’s to come? Sound off in the comments below!
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