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AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ROANOKE Recap: Chapter 3

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ROANOKE Recap: Chapter 3

*Editor’s Note: You know the drill. This post contains spoilers for American Horror Story: Roanoke. Don’t read it if haven’t seen the episode. 

Since its premiere a few weeks back, the sixth season of American Horror Story has been making a lot of waves on the web, and for more than just the My Roanoke Nightmare reveal. See, we’re already three episodes in, and still haven’t seen series vet Evan Peters. He’s listed as one of the main characters, so something is clearly up, and the internet isn’t happy. But for the time being, we’ve been keeping up with the docudrama tale unfolding. Though a bit ridiculous for the most part, the structure is already starting to unravel. Keep on reading for our full analysis of what went down last night.

The episode kicked off immediately after the disappearance of Flora. Lee’s beside herself in grief, and is determined to find her daughter, despite the unlikely statistics. In addition to the cops being on the case, Shelby, Matt, and Lee all headed out into the woods to search for the little girl. Both Shelby and Matt mentioned the forest playing tricks on their minds. Lee seemingly had more control over herself and followed a bloody trail to a rundown farmhouse.

Once they arrived, they found a pair of filthy kids suckling from a pig. At the moment, we’re not sure what’s going on with the kids (and neither is the social worker that was brought to talk to them). Despite her struggle to pull something useful from the boys, the only English they’re able to utter is “Croatoan.” The phrase, of course, is a direct reference to the real-life disappearance of the Roanoke Colony, and the first season of the show.

American Horror Story My Roanoke Nightmare

But now that Flora has been missing for a whole 72 hours, the group left the weird pig boys to their own devices while they went home to rest. All seemed well until Lee’s ex-husband (and Flora’s father) Mason was found strapped to a sacrificial post and burnt to a crisp like previous bodies the group had found. Based on Matt’s security camera footage, it looks as though Lee might be the one responsible; she was conveniently seen leaving before his murder, and returning four hours later. It’s unclear whether she had anything to do with it, but anything is possible at this point.

The task at hand is to find Flora. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how the plot turns out), a vibrant psychic named Cricket (Leslie Jordan) claims to know where the little girl went. According to him, a young colonial girl (from another colony) named Priscilla likely led the girl away. But in order to find her, the man is asking for $25, 000. Lee, who somehow can afford to drop that serious chunk of change, struck the deal with Cricket.

But in their dealings with Cricket, they also learned more about Kathy Bates’ accent-heavy season 6 character, We quickly learned that her name is Thomasin, and that she was married to the governor of the Roanoke colony. When Thomasin’s husband was gone, a group of men (including Thomasin’s own son) took the woman out into the woods and left her to die. Just when she thought she was on the brink of leaving the world, Lady Gaga’s weird Enchantress-like character came waltzing in and offered Thomasin a beating pig’s heart and freedom from her head cage in exchange for her soul.

American Horror Story My Roanoke Nightmare

Because it was an offer she couldn’t refuse, Thomasin took the deal and cooked up some nasty plots. When she made it back to her group’s campsite, she murdered every last one of them (except for her son) with a butcher blade. From that moment on, she was known only as “The Butcher.”

At the end of the episode, Cricket took Lee, Shelby, and Matt to where Priscilla was supposedly hiding Flora. Before they could find the little girl, however, The Butcher and her goons showed up. While the ghostly settlers want everyone off their land, the other characters just want to get Flora back. In exchange for the girl, Cricket promised The Butcher and her people that they would burn down their house and ensure that nobody ever trespassed again. Shelby obviously wasn’t a big fan of this idea, and went off in search of her husband.

Before Cricket could come to an agreement with the settlers, Shelby rand off looking for her husband. When she finally found him, he was having sex with Lady Gaga’s Tree Enchantress. After seeing his dirty actions, Shelby went back to the house and called the cops on Lee. The episode ended with Lee getting in the back of a jail car, as Matt was returning from the woods with a foggy memory of what just happened.

What do you think is going on in the show? Do you hope the docudrama structure continues? Let us know in the comments below!

Images: FX

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