In the latest ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ recap, the big twist is revealed with a re-enactment becoming reality TV…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
For the past few weeks, ‘American Horror Story’ creator Ryan Murphy has been teasing a major twist coming to the latest installment ‘Roanoke’ during the sixth episode.
It was finally revealed in the new episode — ‘Chapter 6’ — and it turns out what a lot of people predicted eventually came true. ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ shifted from a “re-enactment” of true-life events into a brand new “reality” show.
It seems ‘My Roanoke Nightmare’ was a smash hit with ratings that blew away the NFL and even ‘The Walking Dead’ that after the first season came to a close, the audience only clamored for more.
That means executive producer Sydney Aaron James (played by Cheyenne Jackson) has to up the ante and he has a great idea for a sequel. It will be called ‘Return to Roanoke: Three Days in Hell’ as he reunites the cast from the show along with the people who actually lived through this nightmare and they will live inside this haunted house in middle of nowhere North Carolina during the crest of the blood moon.
It’s such a genius idea that he’s given the green light immediately and then Sydney’s only job is getting the cast and the survivors on board to return to the house.
It turns out he purchased the haunted hell hole from Matt and Shelby Miller for half of what it was worth so they could film the show there and now he has the perfect set up to get everybody back inside during the time of year when crazy shit is supposed to go down.
It seems a lot has happened to the people involved with ‘My Roanoke Nightmare’ since the show finished filming but eventually Sydney got everybody (minus one) back to the house to shoot the sequel.
And when it was all over, only one person survived.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ titled ‘Chapter 6’…
Return to Roanoke
Once Sydney gets approval to shoot the sequel from the network, he’s off and running to make sure his cast is ready to return to Roanoke. From there, Sydney shoots a number of vignettes with the people involved with the original series — from the survivors in the Miller family to the actors who portrayed them on the show.
Shelby Miller relocated back to California with her husband Matt after the events took place in Roanoke, but they hit a rocky patch in their relationship and got separated. To add onto her misery, Shelby has been tormented since the show ended with people leaving hatchets in her front door and all other manner of spooky things being done to her after the series became a hit. During their time away from each other, Shelby ended up having an ill-fated weekend affair with Dominic Banks — the actor who played Matt on the show (Cuba Gooding Jr.). Between their earlier problems and the affair with the actor, Matt wanted nothing more to do with Shelby and they’ve remained apart ever since. Shelby has no real desire to do the sequel, much less return to that house, but she knows Matt will be there and that might be her one chance to get him back. She will sign on under one agreement — that Dominic isn’t part of the show.
Sydney agrees before inking Dominic to a deal to have him appear on the sequel because what sells reality shows — drama!
Meanwhile, Matt’s sister Lee has signed onto do the sequel for only one reason — she wants to clear her name after American convicted her in the court of public opinion for killing her ex-husband Mason. Thanks to the way she was portrayed and the story was told, Lee has faced criticism and accusations from all sides and her former mother-in-law is currently attempting to sue for custody of her daughter Flora. Lee just wants the chance to set the record straight.
As for the actors involved with the show — Agnes Mary Winstead (Kathy Bates) got so involved in her portrayal of ‘The Butcher’ that she actually ended up in a mental institution after she dressed up in her outfit and went around Hollywood Boulevard threatening people with a cleaver. Agnes was so unbalanced that she stole props from the set and still doesn’t seem all the way right in the head after becoming obsessed with ‘The Butcher’. So when Sydney goes to film her, he’s not offering an invitation to join the show but instead a restraining order to keep her away. Of course, Agnes doesn’t take this news very well and it’s not long before she comes back to haunt the producer who wouldn’t let her return for the sequel.
Then there’s Audrey Tindall (Sarah Paulson) and Rory Monahan (Evan Peters), who met on set and ended up getting married after the show was over. Audrey is a proper British actress while Rory is an upstart ginger with a flare for the dramatic.
And finally there’s Monet (played by Angela Bassett, who also directed tonight’s episode) and she’s a real life alcoholic who has been in and out of rehab for months since the show finished filming. It seems for liability purposes, somebody from the cast could murder another person and there would be no harm done, but the producers cannot willingly hand Monet alcohol or they will get in serious trouble. So rather than just hand her the bottle, the producers flood the house with enough bottles that there’s very little chance she won’t find a way to have a drink.
Mix it all together and you’ve got a very interesting reality show but it turns out Sydney’s plan isn’t just some sort of half-assed reunion — because of course he doesn’t believe the house was haunted in the first place — but he hopes to get Lee’s confession on film that she killed her ex-husband.
Cheap Thrills
Before the cast can arrive at the house, Sydney has to get the place ready and that means installing cameras anywhere and everywhere to make sure all the footage is captured. He’s also got an effects guy on the job to place some cheap scares throughout the house like an exploding sink and windows that shatter into a million pieces just like the night Cricket Marlowe performed a séance to summon The Butcher into the house. Sydney’s co-producer doesn’t like the theatrics, especially considering what Matt and Shelby Miller really endured while living here, but he believes this is the best possible way for the sequel to pay off with the ratings.
Meanwhile, Sydney is quick to dismiss the strange things happening at the house including a ring of bloody, fetal pigs being arranged just outside the house and he doesn’t even blink when a crew member suddenly takes a chainsaw and lops off his own head.
Sydney is full speed ahead for this sequel no matter what. His co-producer Diana just can’t sign on to be a part of this show any longer and so she quits on the spot and drives away in a hurry.
Diana records her thoughts on a camera inside her car when she spots something rather creepy on the drive out away from the house. It’s a person dressed in old Colonial clothing standing on a hill but Diana isn’t about to stop and find out what is going on and she keeps driving. Sadly, Diana didn’t spot the Pig Man hiding in her backseat as he springs up and the car crashes as the camera catches the last few bloody moments.
“Footage from Diana Cross’s camera was found three months later by police officers. Her body has not been found”
Because Diana had quit and left the set, Sydney never bothered to wonder why she disappeared and a couple of days later, the cast arrived as ‘Return to Roanoke’ got underway.
The Blood Moon
As the cast arrives and starts to move into the house for the next three days it doesn’t take long for old grudges and scary situations to emerge.
Audrey and Rory are the first to arrive and they find a shadowy figure lurking outside one of the windows while looking around the house. Rory moves in for a closer look as the window shatters and he spots Agnes standing outside with her cleaver. Sydney arrives and promises that if Agnes shows up again, she will be arrested and removed from the set.
Shelby clearly wants time alone with Matt, but he’s not having it. Meanwhile, Lee is irate with Shelby over her original accusations about Mason’s death, which have turned her into a murder suspect. The actors from the show seem to get along well enough but the conflicts run deep everywhere else.
Audrey and Rory decide to have some sexy time in the hot tub while Monet finds that bottle the producers so hoped she’d discover. Shelby sneaks into the basement to have some one-on-one time with Matt but he’s not worried about rekindling their romance as much as he’s convinced that they’re not going to make it out of this house alive this time.
Upstairs, Lee and Monet get into an argument after the actress tells her real life counterpart that she is a murderer. Lee might want to watch out because during one walk down a hallway, we spot the charred remains of her ex-husband Mason, who is lurking around the house as a ghost now that he’s been killed on the property.
After their hot tub adventure, Audrey goes upstairs to take a shower, but when she gets out and clears the fog from the mirror, she spots the Pig Man standing in the room behind her. Audrey freaks out and runs downstairs as the rest of the cast comes to console her. In a rage, Rory runs back upstairs to find out who was trying to scare his wife.
Things don’t get much better downstairs either when Dominic Banks shows up and immediately gets into a fist-fight with Matt.
Rory continues to search for answers upstairs and he soon finds them but it’s not exactly what he was looking for. The Jane sister — the murderous nurses who once inhabited the house — show up and stab him to death. Moments later, Matt walks into the main dining room and finds the infamous MURDE on the wall has finally been finished. The Jane sisters completed their masterpiece and now MURDER is scrawled on the wall forever.
A morbid Matt, who already warned everybody in the house that the blood moon would bring about some serious shit, immediately utters that Rory was the ‘R’ the Jane sisters needed to finish spelling MURDER.
The remaining found footage was cobbled together to create the series that we will now see unfold for the final four episodes of the season. Welcome back to Roanoke and welcome back to your worst nightmare.
‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ returns next Wednesday night at 10pm ET on FX with a brand new episode.
