American Horror Story Tries To Go Viral

Don't Be So Clicky

Name:	Sophie, Milo, and Todd.
Age:	Early 20s.
Occupation:	Part-time My Roanoke Nightmare bloggers. Who'd probably be full-time students with no new media sidelines if they knew they were in a Ryan Murphy show. It's like they don't even remember what happened to that Oscar blogger or those discount-seeking "influencers" last season.
Goal:	To boost the cred of their MRN blog by travelling to Hell House in person and shooting all over the property. It's all going great until all of a sudden they see a very confused Diane in the clearing by that tall-ass tree Flora's hoodie ended up in. Diane takes off and the bloggers give chase... ...and instantly regret it.
Sample Dialogue:	"You can't just Google Map the Roanoke house, but I've studied every frame of Season 1: I know where I'm going."

Sharing Rides, Not Information

As Dylan cleans up and puts on non-Ambrose clothes, he tells Audrey and Monet his side of the story: Sidney hired him to show up at this time on the assumption that things would be flagging by this point, so he's been hanging out in a motel for three days, not having heard from anybody. But just because everyone else is unprofessional and uncommunicative doesn't mean he's going to miss his call time! Or bring his phone when specifically instructed not to, which he was. The women eagerly ask if he has a vehicle nearby, but of course he doesn't: he Ubered.

Uber: Literally Anything Goes.

Ewyah

All Hail Det. Not Having It

When we rejoin our intrepid bloggers, it's at the local cop shop, as we cut between the interviews a detective is doing with each of them, separately and one at a time. Apparently what happened after they discovered that the lady they'd chased out of the clearing was, in fact, the ghost of a corpse in an overturned car, they all freaked the fuck out and fled the scene -- and when the cops arrived to check it out, there was no body there at all. In his interview, Milo paces and yelps, "Dude, don't you get it? This is exactly how every horror movie works! God -- the cops don't believe it until it's too late!" But Det. Not Having It is NOT HAVING IT: "Go back home to Virginia, 'cause if you go anywhere near that house, I will have you arrested for trespassing." And look, obviously local law enforcement is, as we learned in the last episode, bought and paid for. But this guy seems to me to be coming from a place of disgust with the overzealous fans making shit up to gull their readers/followers, and frankly that doesn't get called out enough. You go, Det. Not Having It! Maybe if you're stern enough, they'll be embarrassed enough to try pursuing a career more honourable than writing about TV on the internet!!!

R.I.P. Dylan

You guys, seriously, with this whole sequence. At the act break I was like, "Why does watching this show always give me a headache this season?" and then realized it's because (a) the bouncy camera gives me motion sickness, and (b) I'm always squinting at it because it's TOO DARK TO SEE WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING! And this scene is no exception. But I'll do my best.

Dylan, Audrey, and Lee creep up to some bushes on the edge of the Polk farm. Since it's bigger than he expected, he declares his desire to take the truck and go, and "let the cops come back for Monet." Lee asks what happened to all his "leave no man behind" talk back at Hell House, and he's like, "It's right up there with 'Don't walk into enemy territory blind and unarmed.'" They plan their attack. Audrey's going to go look for a weapon. Lee's going to try to find the camera. Dylan's going to try to hot-wire the truck. When he's scampered off, Audrey tells Lee that as soon as she hears the truck start, they've got to go, whether Lee's got the camera or not. Lee, determined: "I'll be there, with those damn tapes." I guess if your choices are: death at the hands of hillbillies or ghosts; or: death ordered by the state due to your taped confession of murder, you'd do what you could to avoid the latter?

The women take off and things are going well: Audrey grabs a gun right away; Lee finds the camera. Audrey also finds a very traumatized Monet holed up in the room where Audrey had killed Mama. Things are looking gooooood!

No, wait, things are looking bad.

And then worse. Bye, Dylan! Maybe if you were on Seal Team 9 you'd still be with us instead of totally murdered by Chip from Kate & Allie.

R.I.P. Ishmael

After Audrey gets the oldest and grizzledest remaining Polk to repeat his threat on her and Monet's lives and gets it on camera...

Bye, Ishmael! Maybe it will be a comfort to you to know that your murderers (a) immediately see that they're not going to be delivered in that truck; (b) have to flee the advancing ghost-colonist army; (c) abandon the shit out of Lee. Which, spoiler alert, one of them is really about to regret.

Audrey vs. Monet

So the first thing Monet and Audrey do when they've closed themselves back up in Hell House is start yelling at each other about having returned to Hell House. Monet's like, "Where else are we supposed to go? At least here we have some cover, some protection," to which Audrey shrieks, "Don't you get it, there is no protection! Christ, that dead bloke we left back there -- he was in the bloody military and he's dead -- just how long do you expect us to survive this?!" Hey, come on, have some confidence! Maybe you're the Seal Team 9 material he could never be! After they've both calmed their Funyuns, Audrey comments that Lee is probably dead, whereupon Monet takes the camera from her -- I guess Audrey took it from Lee somewhere in the dark and jumpy melee between the murders -- and rewinds it to see what's on it. As she watches with Audrey, their empathy for Lee after watching Jether saw into her leg quickly dissipates when Monet MAGICALLY fast-forwards to the exact place in the recording where Lee confesses to Mason's murder.

Loser: Lee.

Getting Perilously Close To The Fourth Wall

Having been sprung from the police station -- come on, Det. Not Having It, not even a charge for public mischief or making a false police report? -- the bloggers are high on their success: "Since we posted that video with the dead body and the ghost, we've added 20,000 followers!...That was an hour ago!" "We're trending on Twitter!" squeals Sophie. "Hashtag BloodMoon!" Now they're making their way back to Hell House, AFTER DARK. Well, it's not quite fully dark:

Todd, with the confidence of a cute dude, approaches this mysterious figure and...

Sophie and Milo take off running, pausing in that little glade with all the Blair Witch dollies in the trees...

...before proceeding to the production trailer with all its bodies littered around it. When they've barricaded themselves inside and get in front of the live feeds of all the cameras, they start to get some idea of what they've wandered into, since Sophie -- as a leading My Roanoke Nightmare blogger -- knows that everyone was returning for the second season. As they freak out about the bodies they can see in the house, Audrey and Monet return to Audrey's room for a moment of calm.

WHOA, DEEEEEEEEEEP.

As Sophie implores Monet, on screen, not to break her sobriety, Milo sees a zombie-like Lee approaching the house. Sophie gets all het up about returning so that they can save Audrey and Monet from a homicidal Lee; Milo is not about that idea, but since (I assume) he is susceptible to Sophie's cuteness, he reluctantly agrees.

In the bedroom, Audrey and Monet are discussing Lee -- Audrey saying Lee must almost certainly be dead; Monet uncharitably snorting that she hopes the Polks got her and that they were hungry -- when they hear an ominous noise.

Failing to notice that Lee is not quite herself -- or assuming she's acting weird because she's, you know, traumatized -- they ask her where she was and what happened. "You don't belong here, your vile presence defiles this sacred ground," Lee replies. So it's like that! She's full of hearty energy! Monet still doesn't get what's happening and gets in Lee's face to yell back at her threats.

Well, that'll do it, probably. Audrey runs back into the bedroom for a knife and, in the battle of knife vs. cleaver, manages to get in a good stab at Lee before running out of the house and toward the cellar.

Which turns out to be a bad idea.

There Are Some Forces More Powerful Than Social Media Engagement

Milo and Sophie have made it to the side of the house and are broadcasting live with their helmet cams when the torch-wielding pilgrim army approaches. They've barely had a chance to register how extremely fucked they are when they come upon Dylan's disemboweled body AND see that Lee is right behind them.

That warning screen...is not kidding. Sophie and Milo are tossed into a circle of colonists led by Lee, who orders them, "Present yourself for the slaughter." In desperation -- because, like, I don't think she really thinks it's going to work -- Sophie starts babbling that she wants to be a doctor and that Milo's a good person.

Yeah, to no avail, as they both end up crucified and splashed with something flammable.

That's what you get for prioritizing the wrong things -- for example:

Then the cops actually show up at Hell House, just in time!

To come upon the corpses of Dylan, Milo, and Sophie. A search of the house soon reveals Monet, Dominic, and Shelby too.

They follow the sound of whimpering to Lee, lying on the grass outside. When a cop approaches her, she reacts as though waking from a nightmare and, in answer to his questions, can basically only scream. He helps her into a cruiser...

...whereupon the officers also hear Audrey emerging from the cellar. She's also very traumatized and mute with relief -- at first.

Then she sees Lee.

Aaaaaaaand that would make Lee our Final Girl. SEE YOU NEXT WEEK FOR THE "ASYLUM" CROSSOVER/SEASON FINALEEEEEEEEEEEEE!