In the ‘American Horror Story: 1984’ recap, Montana’s motive for wanting Brooke dead is revealed and Mr. Jingle’s discovers details about a fateful night in 1970…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It’s hard to remember a time when ‘American Horror Story’ was more about horror and less about satirical comedy but that seems to be the road this show has been traveling down for several seasons now.
The latest installment — ‘American Horror Story: 1984’ — is no different with a lot of classic horror tropes being poked for laughs as Ryan Murphy and company tackle the slasher genre with their campground serial killer season.
The twists and turns in ‘American Horror Story: 1984’ haven’t been all that surprising but they kept on coming with predictable results in the latest episode.
Last week saw Mr. Jingles and the Nightstalker compete for a higher body count as they both stalked Camp Redwood searching for victims. The big revelations last week were that Nurse Rita was actually a woman named Donna Chambers, who was studying serial killers and she was behind Mr. Jingles’ escape before leading him back to Camp Redwood to observe him in his natural habitat.
Meanwhile, the Nightstalker didn’t find Brooke by accident after all because his girlfriend is Montana — the horny aerobics loving Madonna wannabe, who once upon a time tried to kiss the girl she’s trying to have killed.
It’s not easy keeping up with all the random threads running throughout this show but by the end of the latest episode, a few more people are dead so it’s getting easier to follow along because there aren’t that many counselors left alive for the final six episodes.
With that said, let’s recap the latest ‘American Horror Story: 1984’ titled ‘True Killers’…
Rebel Yell
The episode begins this week by exploring the origins of Montana’s relationship with the Nightstalker, Richard Ramirez.
It seems she was teaching a late night, all male aerobics class when the Nightstalker happened to walk in like a sailor following a siren’s call because he just couldn’t resist the sounds of Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”. The attraction between Montana and the serial killer was immediate but they really ratcheted up their relationship after the Nightstalker murdered one of her patrons who was complaining about trying to work out to Billy Idol.
Disemboweling the rowdy aerobics student was the perfect foreplay for Montana to hook up with the Nightstalker but after a bloody good romp on the locker room floor, she turns her attention towards revenge.
As predicted, Montana wanted vengeance on Brooke because of her murderous wedding day a year earlier. It seems Brooke’s fiancé Joey’s best friend Sam is actually Montana’s brother. You’ll remember Sam was gunned down by Joey because he believed his best friend had betrayed him by sleeping with Brooke the night before their wedding. Joey killed Sam and Brooke’s father before turning the gun on himself.
Montana blames Brooke for her brother’s death while and so she puts the Nightstalker on her trail to have her murdered. After he failed to kill her on the first attempt, Montana brought her murderous boyfriend along with her to Camp Redwood where he would finish the job.
Fast forward to present day and Montana is seething that Brooke is still alive but she’s not giving up hope that the Nightstalker will fulfill his duty to slay her dead. Montana also has to inform the Nightstalker that he’s not alone on these campgrounds because the real Mr. Jingles has also made an appearance while slaughtering anything and everything in his path.
Meanwhile, Xavier and Trevor are able to bring Chet back to the infirmary where they shoot him up with adrenaline to wake him up before realizing that they still have one more way to escape this hellacious campground before being murdered. Xavier forgot about Blake — the porn producer blackmailing him into doing gay for pay — and his Cadillac parked near the showers. Blake’s dead so he won’t need it so Xavier and Trevor rush off to collect the last two staff members — Margaret and Chef Bertie — before hightailing it back to the car to escape.
Sadly, Xavier’s rescue attempt comes up short when Mr. Jingle’s interrupts his conversation with Bertie in the mess hall. He hides under a table while Bertie reminisces with her old friend Benjamin, who worked at the camp at the same time she did back in 1970. She makes him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and it appears she’s soothing the savage beast until Xavier makes a noise that rattles the serial killer.
Mr. Jingles then stabs Bertie, knocks out Xavier and then shoves him into an industrial sized oven and turns the heat up to broil before leaving.
Thankfully with her last breath, Bertie is able to save Xavier from being cooked to death but his skin is already blistering with boils after sitting in the oven for way too long. Xavier then helps put Bertie out of her suffering before stumbling out of the mess hall while trying to make his final escape.
As for Brooke — she wakes up after being drugged by Nurse Rita aka Donna Chambers but she’s able to bust down the door of the cabin where she’s been left for dead. Outside, Brooke finds that she’s not going very far after evading one booby trap only to get snared in a net ‘Star Wars’ style and hoisted into the air with nowhere to go.
Donna finds Brooke and tells her that she’s a scientist and this is all being done for the purposes of studying serial killers. She wants to know if Mr. Jingles will murder a helpless Brooke or if the hunt is what he needs to go in for the kill. She promises that Brooke’s death won’t be in vain because she’ll go down as a feminist icon for her sacrifice.
Dead Man’s Party
With Brooke dangling like a worm on a hook, she calls out for help and Montana arrives. Of course, Brooke has no idea that Montana is the one who wanted her dead in the first place so her faux-new friend runs off for “help” while actually seeking out her Nightstalking boyfriend to come back and finish the job.
When he arrives, the Nightstalker is ready to finish off Brooke when he’s interrupted by Mr. Jingles, who shows up just in time to see the prey left for him by Donna Chambers. The two serial killers engage in a fight while Montana attacks Donna from behind as she watches all of this unfold from the bushes.
Montana is able to get the upper hand on Donna but her boyfriend is not nearly as lucky. While he manages to get a few cuts on Mr. Jingles during the fight, ultimately the Nightstalker gets impaled by a tree. In the melee, however, Brooke is able to escape from the net that had snared her as Mr. Jingles is left without a victim.
He then decides to turn his attention back to Margaret aka the one who got away back in 1970. When he shows up to kill her, Margaret flashes back to her first time as a camp counselor at Camp Redwood when Mr. Jingles was just a maintenance man she called “Benji” who would carve little animals for her out of wood while promising to protect her from the rest of the camp counselors who were bullying her.
Rather than need protection, Margaret decided to take matters into her own hands by butchering the entire camp staff, cutting off their ears and then framing Benjamin Richter for the crime! Yes — surprise, surprise — Margaret was the real serial killer this entire time.
Back in 1970, Margaret framed Benjamin and he was electroshocked into forgetting everything about that night except for the doctors who kept telling him that he was a murderer, which eventually convinced him that he must have killed all those people.
In present day, Mr. Jingles is stunned by the revelation but he’s already gone too far now to go back — he is a monster of Margaret’s creation and he’s going to finish the job. Fortunately for Margaret, she has a gun and she fires off a few rounds to knock down Mr. Jingles before he can get to her.
Around this same time, Trevor shows up to rescue Margaret only to find that she’s already killed Mr. Jingles. His excitement is short lived, however, because Margaret stabs and kills him and then cuts off his ear as one final “victim” of Mr. Jingles. When she turns around after killing Trevor, she sees a bloody spot but no Mr. Jingles because he wasn’t quite dead yet.
Mr. Jingles eventually runs into Xavier but rather than killing him, he spares the crispy fried counselor after realizing that he’s not actually the murderer he’s been painted to be. Brooke then finds Xavier before they both spot a fire off in the distance.
They run to the fire where they are joined by Margaret, Montana and Chet as the find Blake’s car ablaze. Their last means of escape has been destroyed. Margaret explains how Trevor “sacrificed” himself to save her while Montana “apologizes” to Brooke for not making it back to her in time before a pair of serial killers attempted to murder her.
Now the group is left without any way to leave the campgrounds and at least one more serial killer stalking all of them.
Finally the last scene shows Donna Chambers waking up following her fight with Brooke as she witnesses the Nightstalker being brought back from his grave after he’s lifted into the air, his eyes turn black and all of his wounds magically heal. Obviously there’s more to this campground than meets the eye because the Nightstalker is at least the second person who has been resurrected after death.
Who will the Nightstalker go after next after being miraculously brought back to life? What will happen to Mr. Jingles now that he knows he was never actually a murderer (until now anyways)?
Find out more when ‘American Horror Story: 1984’ returns for a brand new episode next Wednesday night at 10 p.m. ET on FX.
