American Horror Story Reboots My Roanoke Nightmare

R.I.P. Original Premise

Turns out last week's episode really was the finale...of a sort!

EMPIRE DOESN'T AIR ON SUNDAYS AND NEVER HAS, AMERICAN HORROR STORY. Also does literally anything ever beat The Walking Dead? Whatever: now we're doing something else. BUT WHAT?

A Pitcher, Not A Belly Itcher

Broken Shelby

Situation: Sidney's interviewing Shelby in preparation for her return to Nightmare House.

What makes it awkward? She's not crazy about admitting on camera that, when she and Matt were in a rough patch (specifically, he wasn't speaking to her), she went on a date with Dominic Banks.

TMZ "Divulge Online" covered the assignation, and Matt left her.

How is order restored? It's not, but Shelby hopes it will be when she and Matt are stuck together in the house and he's forced to speak to her again. Surely then he'll take her back, without Dominic casting his shadow over their love story; Sidney assures Shelby that Dominic's not participating. Then he goes out to the car and asks Diana, his second-in-command, where they are with Dominic. Diana: "Casting closed him today." Whoopsie doodle!

Hack Performance

Name:	Agnes Mary Winstead.
Age:	Late 60s.
Occupation:	Method actor.
Goal:	She's dying to get back to the Saturn Award-nominated role she originated: My Roanoke Nightmare's Butcher. She's even moved her whole life to North Carolina since her gig on the show's first season. But there's a problem. In addition to having stolen props and costumes from the production, Agnes had a breakdown of some kind and got arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, for which she served six months. So that's why Sidney is telling her, on camera, that she's not getting hired back for Season 2; he's even arranged for a local cop to serve her with a restraining order. ("Do you really think that a restraining order's going to keep her away?" asks Diana as they speed-walk away from the curses Agnes, in full Butcher mode, is raining down on them. "God, I hope not," grins Sidney.)
Sample Dialogue:	"In my mind, there are only two great roles in the American canon: it's Mary Tyrone, in Long Day's Journey, and The Butcher."

R.I.P. This One Crew Guy

Sidney and Diana are summoned from their meeting with this lawyer to the set, to deal with what is described as a "major problem." Watch my man with the chainsaw on the right.

Basically? The union rep present agrees that it was an accident so there's no legal reason to shut things down, but generally crew members will get a day off to deal with things when, you know, SOMEONE GETS DECAPITATED WITH A CHAINSAW IN FRONT OF THEM. But Sidney's got a ticking clock -- he has to have everything in place in time for the Blood Moon -- so zero moments of silence later, it's back to work!

Eyes On The Road, Diana

Diana is so horrified by Sidney's total lack of human empathy -- and just horrified in general about how creepy this whole fucking place is -- that she quits on the spot and peels off. In the car, she puts her phone in a dash mount and tells her video camera that she's recording this as evidence of what really just happened on the set, because she knows Sidney's going to paint her as a crazy bitch: "I know something freaky is happening at that place, and you know, I would rather look like a crazy bitch than get killed trying to make this show."

"I have no intention of finding out who that is." Diana swerves off the road, but...

My Sweet Audrey

Name:	Audrey Tindall.
Age:	Early 40s.
Occupation:	Actor. (Specifically, the secretly English kind.)
Goal:	To share with the world the happiness she's found since she finished shooting Season 1 of My Roanoke Nightmare... ...she's gotten married to her co-star, Rory Monahan! We watch a LOT of footage of their rustic wedding -- officiated by Chaz Bono, btw -- apparently just for the sake of this joke. Here are Audrey's vows: "Love has always been a mystery to me, like a tune whistling through the air. I could hear snatches of it, be moved by its melody, but it always eluded my grasp. But you heard my voice and I heard yours. For all you have given me, I make these vows: I promise to love you loyally, and fiercely, for as long as I shall live." Rory's reply: "Audrey, you are red and blue. You are the colour of the sun -- so bright and hot. So hot! Sorry, Mom. I promise to eternally, forever love the shit out of you." LOL, only Evan Peters could sell this line and still make an asshole like Rory kind of adorable.
Sample Dialogue:	"I'm not at all concerned that he'd leave for six months to some distant location. We trust each other implicitly."

Spooks vs. Newlyweds

Audrey and Rory -- having arrived first at the house -- are mildly arguing about whether he can cut out to return to L.A. to do a screen test for a possible role in a Brad Pitt vehicle when...

Audrey doesn't see anything at first, but there's no missing what happens next.

Just then, Sidney shows up with the rest of the cast. Turns out she's got a good reason to be scared of Agnes.

But Sidney shrugs off her worries. Yep, probably nothing!

Winner: Draw.

And Would It Kill You To Include Some Backstory

Situation: With the entire cast gathered in the kitchen decompressing after her big spook (and inspecting the special production phones they've had to trade their own phones for: these have all their functionality disabled except for the cameras, so that the cast can document events themselves, too), Shelby tries to talk to Matt.

What makes it awkward? It starts when Sidney announces that Matt and Shelby are going to be sharing a room. It continues when Shelby tries to talk to Matt, who doesn't want to talk to Shelby, and Lee inserts herself between them: "My brother doesn't need your permission to be upset. He's been doing just fine without you....He's too nice to say this, but you are a weak, self-involved little girl who does whatever you want without giving a damn about the carnage you wreak. You destroyed Matt, but that wasn't enough! Thanks to your reckless bullshit, everybody thinks I'm a cold-blooded murderer!"

Audrey and Monet are here for it, just like we all are whenever couples fight in front of us. After all the real people have taken off for their various assigned rooms, Monet, Audrey, and Rory shit-talk them for being such crybabies. Audrey actually thinks they made the whole thing up, since if their account was true, what could ever make them come back to the house? "We sat here for eight weeks," says Rory. "Nothing happened -- no ghosts, pilgrims, or people jerky." But Matt wanders back in for the end of this to drop some knowledge on them: "What, uh-- What time of year was that?" "Summer?" Rory vaguely recalls. "Look out the window," Matt tells them, drawing their attention to the Blood Moon that's about to fuck with all of them in ways only Lee, Shelby, and Matt are remotely prepared for.

How is order restored? I mean...

eep. (Also: guesses on the one survivor? Please let it be the crew guy who rigged up all the fake ghost effects! He really seems to love his work.)

Rory and Audrey fool around in the hot tub while the rest of the cast members settle in.

The cast members, and one notable under-five.

When she's made sure Lee didn't see her go, Shelby creeps down to the creepy-ass boiler room where Matt's decided he'd rather sleep than with Shelby, and starts in again begging him to forgive her for her one night with Dominic. But Matt seems like he's just as upset about Shelby's one night of infidelity as he is about, you know, being back on the scene of the worst experience of their lives? When Shelby assures him that there are more of them now and that Sidney won't let anything bad happen to them, Matt is not so sure: "You're smarter than that, Shelby. It will happen again. I don't know if we'll survive this time."

When Monet comes down to the kitchen for a snack, Lee gently confronts her about what they have in common: their drinking. Monet denies it, but Lee says she can smell the booze on her from across the room. (I thought the whole point of vodka was that it DOESN'T smell?) Lee says she doesn't judge Monet, but Monet judges her: "I'm a drunk because of you, you murdering bitch! I had to live in your head for months! I know how you think. How you live with yourself, killing the father of your child." But Lee refuses to take any blame for that, turning it back around on Monet: "That's how you played me. Those people on the street who yell 'murderer' at me -- they're not seeing me. They're seeing the person you chose to put on the screen."

Shelby's renewed efforts to convince Matt to leave the house/production with her and give their marriage another chance are scuttled when Dominic shows up at the front door.

Basically everyone on the ground floor gets involved in pulling Matt off Dominic.

Shelby finds the nearest camera and flips it off: "FUCK YOU, SIDNEY! FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!" Fair.

Audrey's just showered off her hot tub sexcapades when she sees good old Pig Man in the mirror behind her. She comes running downstairs screaming and crying, cursing Sidney for having put someone in the bathroom to scare her. Rory immediately runs up to search the bathroom for her tormentor...

...and is not successful.

And downstairs, Matt uses his phone camera to document the moment before trudging, dazed, into the kitchen. Audrey's already winding down with a rosé and sneering at those who think that maybe Sidney wasn't behind the Pig Man incident -- "You don't actually believe any of this haunting nonsense is real!" -- when Matt breaks in to deliver some pertinent news: "'R' is for 'Rory.'" At least the nurses are probably all murdered out, since no one left has any letters they can use? But that just means you're up, actual Butcher! Will you be played by Jessica Lange? WE SHALL SEE.