In the latest ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ recap, Matt and Shelby find out more about the history of the house and receive some help in their hunt for Flora…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
When we last left Matt and Shelby in the haunted land from Hell, they were watching Lee get carted off by the police after she was arrested in suspicion of killing her ex-husband Mason and kidnapping her daughter Flora after she was strictly forbidden from seeing her.
Of course, Shelby’s ire seemed a little justified after she learned that her husband and sister-in-law agreed to burn their house to the ground as part of an agreement with “The Butcher” — the ghostly leader of the group that’s been tormenting them since buying their house in North Carolina — in return for getting Lee’s daughter back safe and sound. It also didn’t help that Shelby found her husband Matt banging Lady Gaga’s character in the middle of the woods while two backwoods rednecks masturbated furiously while watching.
That would be enough to push anybody over the edge.
But if that didn’t do it, what Matt and Shelby learned in the latest episode and then watched unfold before their very eyes, would watch anybody slip from the realms of the sane to a place that can only be described as utter madness.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke ‘titled ‘Chapter 4’….
Pig Man
As Shelby berates her husband for his lewd act in the woods, Matt swears he can’t remember anything about what just happened as if somebody scooped that part of his brain out like it was never there. Shelby knew looking at the torment on Matt’s face that he was telling the truth and she decided to believe him. Somehow after a harrowing night in the woods and watching her sister-in-law get arrested, Shelby decided it was time for a hot shower and most likely crawling under the covers.
But when Shelby opens the shower curtain she doesn’t find comfort but instead the Pig Man — the same one from the video they found in the basement and the same creature she saw burned alive in her experience from the woods — is standing there just waiting to get at her. Shelby runs away terrified and after she finds Matt, they are both soon being chased by the Pig Man. Just when it looks like they are about to become feed for the piggy, an axe swings from behind and takes the creature down.
Welcome back, Dr. Elias Cunningham (played by Denis O’Hare).
It seems Elias didn’t die in the video as we all suspected and he’s returned to the house to protect the new owners. Sadly, the axe didn’t stop the Pig Man but when he shouts the word “Croatoan”, the creature disappears into the ether.
Elias explains that the word “Croatoan” has some sort of connection to dark magic and it wards away spirits. That’s not all Elias explains over the next few minutes.
Elias unveils a mystifying and very disturbing history about this house that was first built all the way back in 1792 by Edward Phllippe Mott — presumably the same Mott family that eventually spawned Dandy Mott, the clown face wearing psycho from ‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’ — and Mott was also the first person to disappear from the land.
Ever since that time, anybody who has owned the house and stayed there has eventually disappeared thanks to “The Butcher” Thomasin White and her band of spiritual miscreants that follow her around. In the late 70’s there was the Chen family, who moved into the house and a few months later went missing without a trace. Then there were the Jane sisters — Miranda and Bridget — who turned the house into a elder care facility before killing the patients. It turns out, Miranda and Bridget weren’t nearly as awful as the spirits outside the house and while rumors said that they just disappeared one day, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Instead, Miranda and Bridget were killed by “The Butcher” — one of them literally ripped apart by her arms being torn off and the other was beheaded. That all led to the house being purchased by Elias, who never lived inside but instead moved into the underground dwelling that Matt and Shelby found a few weeks ago. Sadly, Elias missed some tax payments and the house was repossessed and he couldn’t get back in time to re-purchase the house before Matt and Shelby got it at the auction.
So now Elias has returned to warn the Millers to get out of the house before the blood moon cycle begins because over those six days in October, the spirits can go from haunting the living to murdering the living. Of course that sounds slightly familiar if you remember season one when the dead are able to walk amongst the living around Halloween.
Before Elias can get Matt and Shelby to leave, they first want to find Flora, who has been missing for several days.
Elias agrees to help after they explain that Flora was taken by Priscilla and not “The Butcher”. Elias says he knows exactly where she plays in the woods and he will help retrieve the girl so they can get the hell out of there before the sun goes down.
As they venture into the woods, Shelby spots Lady Gaga (this character really needs a name) and gives chase out of some desire for revenge after she fucked her husband. Shelby never tracks her down but instead she happens upon three hunters who once owned the house, who all died after they shot each other. Shelby tries the “Croatoan” trick but it doesn’t work. Thankfully, Elias and Matt arrive to rescue her before fleeing to the opening in the field where they find Flora playing alongside Priscilla, the Pig Man and a whole bunch of other spirits who have died on these hallowed grounds.
Elias calls out to Priscilla asking her to return Flora to her home but before he can get the job done, a slew of arrows fly down into his chest and kill the good doctor. Matt and Shelby look off in the distance and see “The Butcher” and her people walking towards them as the blood moon is officially in the sky. They run back in great haste to the house where they are greeted by another familiar face — Cricket Marlowe is back!
The Bitch With the Real Power
Cricket has returned and he knows after everything that Matt and Shelby have gone through that they are ready to follow his lead. Of course never mind that Elias was just murdered and left for dead in the woods, but it’s onto Plan B!
Cricket explains that “The Butcher” was not happy that Matt and Shelby reneged on their deal and so now he’s going to be forced to go back into the woods to strike a new bargain for their lives. When Cricket returns, he explains that he didn’t find “The Butcher” but instead found “the bitch with the real power” aka Lady Gaga’s character.
It turns out this witch is the one who has the real spiritual force that’s been guiding the ghosts in this area for centuries and she was ready to collect Cricket as her latest disciple until he offered her the one thing she wanted — a man. So he said he would offer Matt as a sacrifice. Of course, Matt and Shelby don’t enjoy this plan one bit but Cricket promises that he’ll never spend a minute with this she-devil after he casts a spell on the forest that will wipe the ghosts out once and for all.
When he encountered Gaga’s witchy character, Cricket did learn some valuable backstory.
It was this witch that spoke to Thomasin White at the site of the new Roanoke colony — on the same land where Matt and Shelby’s house sits — and taught her to follow in the ways of this dark magic. Thomasin started performing human sacrifice including her murder of the little girl named Priscilla. Eventually, the rest of the colony turned against Thomasin yet again and this time Gaga offered a solution — Thomasin would kill them all and they would be bound to follow her for eternity.
So Thomasin butchered everybody, including her son, and then let Gaga kill her so they would all remain together and the colonists from Roanoke would follow her forever.
With all this information in hand, Cricket tells the Millers that he must go back to his hotel to retrieve a few items so he can cast this incantation on the house and get rid of these evil spirits once and for all. Unfortunately, on Cricket’s Uber ride back to the hotel, he spots a frantic Flora running across the street and he quickly jumps out of the car to pursue her into the woods.
We’re Next
When Cricket doesn’t return for several hours, Matt and Shelby naturally fall asleep on the couch and wake up hours later after the sun has gone down and the sky was now lit up by the light of the blood moon. With Shelby still in her slumber, Matt hears a noise and he leaves the house to see what it is and that’s where he discovers a light emanating from outdoor cellar where Elias Cunningham once lived.
He ventures down the stairs but doesn’t find Elias and instead stumbles upon Lady Gaga’s character ready to collect her debt. Matt tries to resist but quickly falls under her spell as the two begin having sex in the middle of the room. It’s there where Matt finds out where this creature came from.
It turns out, Gaga was an English girl during the time of the ancient Druids but after she stowed away on as ship to the new world and disaster happened, the crew blamed her for their troubles and decided to burn her at the stake as witch. Gaga didn’t die but instead killed everybody in the camp and was reborn as some kind of spirit that has haunted these woods ever since.
Matt is so entranced by Gaga that he would have easily gotten lost in her forever until he heard screams from outside as Shelby shouts for help. Matt wakes up from his sexual slumber and stumbles outside to find “The Butcher” and her clan bearing down on the house.
Matt rejoins his wife and that’s where they see “The Butcher” put a knife to Flora’s throat with every intention to kill her. Out of nowhere, Priscilla intervenes and Flora is able to escape and return back to her family. Sadly that wasn’t the only bargaining chip they had because “The Butcher” had also captured Cricket Marlowe and it seems he would be the one to get sacrificed on this night.
Cricket is cut open and disemboweled right in front of a horrified Matt and Shelby and once the poor guy was finally dead, “The Butcher” looked right back at the people inside the house and that gaze could only mean one thing — ‘we’re next’.
‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ returns with a brand new episode next Wednesday night at 10pm ET on FX.
