American Horror Story's Finale Is Too Much Story For Just One Show

Fan Fucked

What's the occasion? PaleyFest 2016! Sidney and the entire cast of My Roanoke Nightmare's first season are taking a victory lap in front of all their rabid fans: Shelby's yammering about how "cathartic" the experience was; Agnes says the show's "just scratched the surface of what makes The Butcher tick"; and Sidney's coyly dropping hints about what Season 2 might be like.

What are the refreshments? The viewers' adulation! Everyone on stage is lapping it up.

Whose big public scene will everyone be talking about tomorrow? If anyone noticed, it'll be how readily Rory bounded into the crowd to hug one of his young female fans and how sour Audrey looked as a result.

But the showier moment comes when a young woman named Crystal gets up to say she flew to PaleyFest from England: "It's been a really hard year, and My Roanoke Nightmare is the only thing that's kept me going." She's convinced Lee's been the victim of a lot of unfair talk, and wants to come up to give her a drawing she made of Lee and Flora, which Lee receives with a hug.

But after Season 2 of My Roanoke Nightmare, Crystal's no longer on board: "I thought the second series was just really exploitative."

And neither is the last surviving Polk, Lot (which is apparently what Chip from Kate & Allie has been called this whole time). "She took my babies," he says of Lee. "Killed my kin. If the law won't deal with her, I sure will." Guess all those cops climbed out of his pocket once all the Polk weed money dried up. Or Lot would just prefer taking a hands-on approach to the problem.

Bawl's In Your Court

Who's causing a family crisis? Flora.

How? As we learn from this segment of the true crime series Crack'd, Lee went on trial for murder. Though the footage from My Roanoke Nightmare showed her killing Jether, Monet, and Dominic, the prosecutor tells us the strongest case against her was for the murder of Mason, given Lee's confession, and the security footage from Season 1 that showed Lee leaving the house right before Mason's murder...and eyewitness testimony from Flora, who was in the woods and saw Lee and Mason fighting before Lee struck him with a rock. (There's no explanation of how Mason got onto the cross and burned, but never mind, I guess!)

Which relatives have a problem with it? Lee would presumably rather not have Flora take the stand and glare, "You killed Daddy." But it's not that big a deal once Lee's lawyer cross-examines Flora and gets the rest of the story: that the reason she felt safe just hanging out in the woods at night is that she was with Prescilla.

Who's an unlikely ally? The jurors who are easily convinced that Flora is, as Lee's lawyer states, "an imaginative girl from a broken home."

Spoiler: In case this is the first you've seen of the season: Prescilla is not a figment of Flora's imagination.

The Two Merry Murdereresses

Situation: Following her acquittal for Mason's murder, Lee has sat down for a live interview with the famous journalist Lana Winters.

What makes it awkward? Though Lana starts with the softballs, setting Lee up to say her only concern is repairing her relationship with Flora and having Flora back in her life, it doesn't take long for her to segue to the fact that Lee let her lawyer make Flora look like a liar in front of the whole world. Lee says she didn't come there to be put back on trial, to which Lana asks what she did come for, then -- given that she already turned down Diane Sawyer and the like. Lee says it's because she and Lana are killing twinsies: "I mean, jesus. You killed your own son. Bloody Face." Lana smoothly recovers and lets Lee look into the camera to deliver a message directly to Flora, if she's watching: "Flora. I'm going to tell you something that maybe you already know. But you need to hear it from my heart. I love you, baby, and I'm never going to give up, never stop, until we are together again."

And then Lana's like, "Where is she, Lee?" Because an hour before the interview, Flora's grandparents reported Flora missing. Again. And Lana's pretty sure Lee abducted her again.

How is order restored? It's not. Things get a lot worse, actually!

Lot vs. Lee

Lee's still in the middle of freaking out about this Flora bomb, wanting to leave immediately to try to find her, when they hear an assault weapon outside.

Yeah, it's Lot, there to take his revenge on Lee for the loss of his babies. Lana tries to talk him down by saying he's on live TV, but clearly this is a man past caring. Lana offers him the chance to tell his truth, because she sees his pain and empathizes, but reminds him that killing her won't bring back his mama.

Lot is unmoved.

And then he's dead.

Winner: Justice?

If You Look For Supernatural Trouble, You Might Find It?

The cast of Spirit Chasers (one member of which, for you Grand Unified Theory Of American Horror Story people, comment, "I haven't been this freaked out since we were in that asylum") is in the middle of dicking around at Hell House, getting spooked by dropcloths falling off windows and fiddling with Prescilla's bonnet claiming they can feel its pain when

ALL OF A SUDDEN FUCKING LEE IS THERE. She's there searching for Flora, knowing Prescilla had brought her there before, and she has zero patience for the Spirit Chasers and all their phony bullshit. She basically screams in their faces that they need to get the fuck out...

...but it's too late, of course.

But even if this is going to be a series wrap for Spirit Chasers, Lee's quest is successful.

And then, for the first time this season, we're just watching a regular TV show without any self-conscious camera work or framing device. It's like the end of The Comeback! IN EVERY WAY!!! Flora draws in the dust on the floor while Lee tries to understand what went on when she and Prescilla were in the woods all that time (they ate berries), and then tries to get Flora to empathize with her with an analogy: "You know when you're drawing a cat or a house, and you picture that cat or that house in your mind, and it looks so perfect, but you just can't get your hand to live up to that picture in your head? That's what it's like to be a parent. You picture how you want to be, and it's so wonderful, and flawless, but you can't ever live up to that picture you imagined." Parents, help me out: do kids EVER see your side of things, or are they mostly just selfish dicks? I'll take my answer off the air. "You killed Daddy," replies Flora. "With a rock." (Typical, right? Parents?)

Lee begs Flora to walk out with her, but Flora wants to stay with Prescilla: "She needs me!...I can keep her safe from The Butcher, burn this place to the ground." Prescilla must have shown her where to find the really dope berries.

Finally seeing that she's not going to get the win she's been aching for all this time, Lee realizes she's going to have to martyr herself to save Flora's life: "What if I stay and look after Prescilla? I fought off The Butcher twice. I can do a much better job of protecting her." "The Butcher would get you eventually," Flora declares. "Not if I'm like her," says Lee. "Not if Prescilla did to me what you want her to do to you. You can go live with your grandparents. I know you like them. Prescilla needs a mommy. Let me do that for her, and for you. You can come visit us when it's not the Blood Moon. And in time, you may feel differently about me. Please, let me do that for you." Flora looks past Lee and asks, "What do you think?

What up, P.

So that works.

Flora even manages to wander off completely unnoticed...almost.

"It's going to be okay," Lee tells Prescilla, handing her a gun and pointing it at herself.

Outside, Flora watches blankly as the house explodes.

Prescilla brings Lee to her new afterlife as a ghost -- exchanging one last look with Flora.

BUT WAS IT ALL FOR NAUGHT??!!?!? Even if it was, this was probably the best constructed season of the show's whole run and didn't feel like it was written by seven people who never talked to each other. Every season should be ten episodes from now on. And every episode should be well under forty minutes minus commercials. And next time: TURN ON A FUCKING LIGHT.