American Horror Story may be the rare instance where graphic violence makes graphic sex seem ho-hum. I know, I saw that movie about the MPAA too, but for some reason, dead people hump each other raw in hand-to-god vinyl gimp suits and I’m all, “Zzzzz, somebody eat human brains, please.†In this very sexual episode, we open a mere six months ago in flashback: Marcy and the movers are bringing in all the Harmons’ effects, I mean stuff, and poor Nora is not happy with the fact that another family is moving into Murder House. Somebody offscreen asks what he can do to help, and like all hysterical ladies, she wants a baby.
Out comes the gimp suit and here we are, way back in ep one, when Viv and SOMEBODY conceived the hoof baby while Ben was downstairs, naked and looking at the fire, which they totally could have showed again, you know, for continuity. If they wanted.
Then, the big reveal, as the Rubber Gimp Ghost removes his mask to reveal he’s TATE.
1) Welp, ghost boner mystery solved.
2) GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS
3) Poor Violet! Poor Viv! Poor humanity! Unsafe for work!
And, titles. Okay, side note here. The next time you’re watching the creepy AHS jar-baby intro, pretend like that voice effect is saying “Great skirt.†I do. I pretend it’s Chad! End side note.
Okay, back in the present, Viv is explaining to Conroy Moira and Marcy that Nora came to see the house, despite being dead. Marcy is like, “That’s immigrants, I mean gay Chinamen, I mean impossible.†Then she explains that Mr. Eskandarian isn’t returning her calls, and Moira gets a funny look on her face, because it’s so awkward when one of your friends is still in touch with a guy whose penis you ate and then you killed. Right? Incidentally, my favorite Sex & the City episode.
Then OH MY GOD IT’S CHAD! I hope you guys know that I actually Bieber scream when Zachary Quinto comes on the screen, so encrusted in this show am I. He and a gal pal are enjoying Mojitos (DREAM DATE) and he’s saying that he’s sure his bf Patrick is cheating on him, which incidentally I would never do. Turns out, they were trying to have a baby. But Patrick is more interested in cyber sex with some S&M master (JungleJim4322 ha ha ha, Yahoo messenger, right?) under the name “Hardlovejunky656.†Because of course, in the AHS universe, “Hardlovejunkyâ€s one through 655 are taken. His girl friend is like, “You better get into S&M if you want to save that marriage†and he runs off to look at ball torture and “ass lock†devices. Incidentally, “Mr. Monk Goes Ass Torture Shopping†is my favorite Monk episode.
So, turns out, the rubber suit was bought in your average West Hollywood sex shop, just before the Halloween when they died. It’s funny when the clerk tells Chad that the suit is “slimming.†You know, because his body is perfect. He heads home, puts it on, and surprises Patrick, who is clipping his toenails, which you know is making Chad crazy. Yay, then we get to see Patrick’s buns. Patrick tells Chad that jerking off with hard core bondage leather daddies on Yahoo! Messenger isn’t cheating, which, thank you, I have been saying for YEARS. Patrick leaves him alone, crying in a gimp suit, apparently stranded in my Saturday night.
Back in the future, ghost Hayden (lookin’ good, for a zombie) is reprimanding ghost Nora for crying so much. Hayden tries to tell her how fun the house can be, and what a blast ghost rapey Tate and fun mangled brother are. She also likes to harass Moira and knock books off the shelf, as one of the perks of being dead is invisibility. I guess that the Murder House deads can also have sex because she also has a fun side gig banging and stabbing Constance’s husband. (Ghosts are such sluts.) But nothing that they do is permanent, so people can just come back to life or whatever. OK, with you so far. Hayden and Nora plot to steal the twins and gaslight Viv into an institution.
Via more flashbacks, we also find out that it was Tate who killed the ghaysts, although my money was on Marcy. And oh my, God, does Patrick get it in the worst way. Fire poker up the butt! NO! But for some reason, Tate apparently knows that he’s dead in these flashbacks… He killed Chad and Patrick because they’d decided not to have a baby, so a couple that he could more easily impregnate could move in. Jeez oh man.
Violet has also been ditching school to hang with her new ghost buds. When Ben tries to call her out, she tells him that his cheating is making her poor mother literally go crazy. Luckily, Moira is in Viv’s corner, and is just in time to give a short history of female mental health (Charlotte Perkins Gilman ref!) and I have to hear Frances Conroy say “masturbate.†She helpfully tells Viv to leave the house. Viv and Vy pack up to leave, but the Strangers scare them in the car. Ben, obviously doesn’t believe any of this.
Meanwhile Violet is upstairs being deflowered by Tate (nooooooooo). Wow, can’t wait til she has to tell that story to her girlfriends in twenty years. She’ll be all boozed up on Chardonnay, swapping virginity loss stories, and they’ll be totally unable to top “phantom school shooter rapist.†God, Harmons. You two are just the worst parents. Maybe Nora should take your babies.
Vy of course, can’t confirm that she saw the Strangers, because she’s afraid she won’t see Tate again. Ugh. Hayden tries to hump up on Tate to stir him into some kind of masculine murder frenzy, but he won’t have it. Uh… Sweet?
Meanwhile, Viv invites Marcy over (all the way from THE VALLEY), only to sneakily steal her gun. Remember Marcy’s gun? Of course you do, because it totally made sense when she pulled it out and threatened a potential buyer. Although it’s LA, so if Viv really wants a gun she can pretty much walk into any Ralph’s. While drunk.
Tate sneaks into her room that night to scare her, and Ben comes running when she screams, so of course she shoots him. He’s okay though, although unfortunately he did not get shot in the butt so we don’t get to see the EMTs go to work on McDermott tush. Luke comes by to answer Viv’s life alert signal, and because he is the greatest, he is totally Team Her.
Poor Viv is all Valium’d out when Hayden shows up to freak her out, and boy, does she not make a convincing case to Ben and Luke that she’s sane. The cops are going to take her away, and I officially do not feel super great for Violet anymore, because, we’ve all sold people up the river for booty, but this is ridiculous.
We leave Murder House in a flashback, where Moira and Tate are making the ghaysts death look like a murder suicide number. Tate remarks about how romantic their “being together forever†is. God, he’s so that boyfriend you had in high school who read too much Chuck Palahniuk and wrote poems about smoking for the school lit mag. I wonder what happened to that guy? Probably spending his days being very deep at his job as a clerk at Lidz.
I gotta be honest, here, guys. I wasn’t wild about this episode. It posed more questions that it answered, and with the exception of that business with the poker, didn’t go out of its way to try and shock us in the reliable way of Nip/Tuck Cannibal Glee Corpse. There was plenty of Chad screen time so I’m not complaining… much. More butts, less butt torture. Incidentally, the title of my favorite episode of NOVA.