‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ Chapter 3

❉ We continue with our reviews of the latest series of ‘American Horror Story’: ‘Roanoke’.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

After Flora’s disappearance and the discovery of her coat in the woods, Lee and co. get the police and volunteer search parties involved. In the woods they find two Build-A-Bears, gone horribly, horribly wrong. That, in turn, leads them to another farmhouse. It’s abandoned and under disgusting conditions. They search the barn and find two children suckling off a pig, and they are as wild as they could be. At the police station, Lee’s husband Mason joins up with them. He’s not a very happy camper. The Pig Boys, can barely speak English. Mostly squealing, but they do know one word that is rather foreboding…..’Croatoan’.

Back at the house, tensions rise between Lee and Mason. He thinks she’s just hiding Flora somewhere and Matt and Shelby are in on it. He gets in a bit of a scuffle and throws Lee on the floor, and leaves.

In the middle of the night Matt receives a phone call. Mason has been, mutilated and burnt on what appears to be another one of those Blair Witch symbols. And it’s a very nice PSA on why you don’t hit your wife, kids.

The next day, Shelby tells Matt she thinks Lee might of killed Marcus. Matt even has a security camera alert that shows Lee walking back into the house in the dead of night. Of course, Lee overhears this and they start to argue about family and trust, yada yada.

Enter Cricket Marlowe (literally from right behind them and he says exactly what I’m thinking…”Why don’t you lock the doors?”). Cricket, played by the wonderful Leslie Jordan, is a celebrity psychic of sorts. He’s helped out the FBI in finding children before. So they let him stay. Armed with only a terrible wig and an ornate walking stick, he soon becomes my favourite character of the season, so far. He quickly tells them that Flora has been taken by Priscilla (a colonist ghost child with a tendency to drop her bonnet) for safe keeping from the other ghosts.

And so the next step is to hold a séance. Cricket does the usual spiel and you just when you start to think he’s just a bullshitter, he proves you wrong. The spirit he talks to is ‘The Butcher’ (Kathy Bates’ character). She’s not very happy. She says she will protect “her land”. She’s killed many, many people for it. Now whilst Cricket can relay all this info, all the trio can see is him talking in the corner and probably thinks he’s bullshitting them too. That is until The Butcher starts showing off her candle chopping and glass breaking skills. Eventually Cricket (apparently) gets the whereabouts of Flora, BUT….but….he will only reveal them for $25,000. This is not received well. Lee pulls a gun on him. She believes him, but Matt not so much. He convinces her to put the gun down and he tells Cricket to leave and never come back. But not before Cricket whispers something to Lee.

And here’s where it gets really interesting….It cuts back to the talking heads and they ask the real Lee what he said and she’s being coy about it and they ask “Was it about Emily?” and she freaks out. She demands they turn off the camera, which they do for a bit and you see the people doing the interview and the room they are in and everything seems normal, so far. Eventually she gets back on camera. Emily, we find out was her other daughter. She went missing and was never found. Cricket, had whispered to her that Emily was upset that she stopped looking for her.

That convinced Lee that Cricket was the real deal, so the next day she comes to his office and gives him the money. Cricket then proceeds to tell the story of what happened to the Butcher at Roanoke.

The Butcher was the wife of John White, the Governor of Roanoke. When he left to go back to England for food, he left her in charge with their son (Wes Bentley). However the other colonists don’t take to her style of command too well. So they chain her up in this almost reverse Iron Maiden headwear which also handcuffs her. They also, for good measure force her son to put the lock on it.

They then just leave her in the woods. She can’t eat or fend for herself, so they’re all expecting a quick death. That is until Dirty Shaman Woman (Lady Gaga) pops out of nowhere with a fresh, still beating boar’s heart. She magically pops off The Butcher’s headgear and let’s her eat the heart, which gives The Butcher’s soul ti her. Clearly this was the usual ‘Welcome to the Neighborhood’ greeting.

Armed with a cleaver, The Butcher strikes down all those who threw her away to rot. She spares her son, but not without a threat.

Back in the present day, Cricket leads the Trio into the woods to find Flora. He meets up with the ghosts all waiting for them in the fog. He promises if they give the girl back, if they can convince Priscilla, to hand her over, the people will leave the farmhouse and never bother them again. Lee even offers to burn down the house, despite Shelby’s objections. The ghosts seem to be on board with it, until Matt goes missing.

Shelby finds him naked screwing Dirty Shaman Woman whilst two hillbillies are watching. Shelby is a bit miffed at this turn of events.

Matt claims in the interviews that he doesn’t remember any of the experience at all. When he gets back home, Shelby won’t let him touch her. She’s pissed that he agreed to let Lee burn the house down and she’s also called the cops on her too, presumably on the charge of Mason’s murder. This does not bode well.

❉ Still no Evan Peters or Cheyenne Jackson.

❉ From what the press has revealed the twist only happens in Episode 6…which is long time to eek this thing out.

❉ More Cricket please. I fear for him though. He’s not a talking head…so he maybe up for grabs on the murder roulette we have going on.

❉ Suddenly Shelby cares about the house? That’s new.

❉ Nice little Season 3 reference in there. Did you spot it?

❉ Another 40 minute episode but when you are actually getting the story, it seems a lot longer.

❉ The Pig Boys were the grossest thing this season, so far. Seriously.

❉ I grow tired of the Talking Heads. I don’t much care for Real Matt’s performance and is it me…or all they all getting less convincing per week?

Lot more answers this time round. We’re getting somewhere. The Butcher is almost sympathetic…almost. Leslie Jordan needs to stick around. The Trio needs some life injected into them. I’m back to looking forward to next week. Let’s get this party started.

I’ll bring the pork rinds.

❉ ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ airs in the US on Wednesdays at 10pm on FX, and in the UK on Fridays at 10pm on Fox UK.