Lee has lost her daughter, Flora and is predictably
panicking. The fact she was a cop herself is a cold comfort – she definitely
doesn’t trust the local cops and their complete disinterest in finding her
child and her knowledge of being a cop means she knows how quickly the chances
of her daughter being found are plummeting.
They search the forest and find ever more disturbing
things – including Flora’s doll being cut up and left mixed up with bits of
dead pig
Honestly I have to say yet again how this season is doing a really good job of being utterly, utterly creepy rather than just gory and horrifying. This is first class creepiness
They find more horrible creepiness in the woods until
they find a house, a horrible horrible house with much awfulness and two
children suckling at a pig
Not eating a suckling pig. Suckling at a pig.
Yup. That’s now a mental image I now have. Thanks for
that, American Horror Story.
They take the kids to social services to try and see if
they give any clues to where the presumed owners of house are but all the kids
can say is “Croatoan”. Ominous, but not helpful.
Things get even more tense when Mason arrives and he
assumes Lee is has kidnapped Flora and is now hiding her. In a rage he pushes
her down and storms out into the woods.
And his completely incinerated corpse is found later
Tragic, horrifying and ominous – because Matt’s CCTV
caught Lee leaving the house just as Mason did – and then returning 4 hours afterwards
Of course Shelby instantly assumes Lee is a murderer
because Shelby is terrible and hates Lee. Lee demands to know if Shelby really
thinks she’s capable of murder
To save/protect/keep her daughter? Hell yes I do – I think
most parents are.
Of course Shelby kind of wants to go to the evil police. Because
Shelby
While they’re all despairing in comes Cricket. A psychic. He is sure he can find the lost child and even has an apparent track record of doing just that. He could be a fraud – Mark certainly thinks so – but he holds a séance after he shows how he knows all about Flora’s spooky imaginary friend. In the séance he manages to summon the ghost of a colonial woman known as the Butcher – with a big cleaver. She uses it to split the candle
That kind of proves his psychic powers. Then he asks for
$25,000. Yup, Matt kicks him out as a fraud. Or at least an arsehole.
But as he leaves he whispers something to Lee – about the
daughter, Emily, she had when she was 17. A child she lost when she went
shopping. The acting around this is incredible – but I don’t know why it’s
there? Couldn’t we have had a story from her dead grandparents or something
equally touching and spooky which doesn’t involve trying to present Lee as a
terrible mother several times over?
Of course Lee pays up, her child is missing, who wouldn’t?
And for that he hears the history of The Butcher – Thomasin
Thomasin was the wife of the governor of the fabled lost
colony of Roanoke. Her husband went back to England leaving her to lead her
people: she stubbornly demanded the people stay near the coast despite the fact
they were starving and wanted to move inland. The men then rebelled – and banished
her, sealing her head in a metal cage and kicking her out into the woods to
starve
Which would have happened if she wasn’t found by… someone
(croatoan?) who magically removes her metal hat and then offers her a still
beating pig’s heart in exchange for her soul. She accepts – and then kills all
the men – except her son – who banished her with a meat cleaver. She is the
butcher – and she led her people inland to where the house now stands
A house she now intends to protect, a land that is hers and she views everyone else as trespassers. Which is why they know she doesn’t have Flora – because if the Butcher had her she’d already be dead. No, Priscilla has her, her ghostly imaginary friends, and is protecting her from the Butcher
So it seems a little off that Cricket would recruit the
Butcher to get her back… but in exchange he and Lee offer to leave the land and
burn down the house (which is news to an outraged Shelby). She’d probably argue
with Matt about this but he’s disappeared into the woods…
…to have sex with a woman who looks a lot like Croatoan
while watched by hillbillies. Matt doesn’t remember this. Anyone seeing his
completely glazed eyes would see something is wrong. Shelby doesn’t – so I can
only assume that this is Matt’s actual O-face. Wow, that may be the most
horrific depiction of anything on this show!
Shelby, who I am steadily coming to hate, decides the
best way to deal with this is hand Lee to the police for Mason’s murder
