American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare
Season 6 Episode 6 “Chapter 6”
Directed by Angela Bassett
Written by Ned Martel
Created by Brad Falchuk & Ryan Murphy
Starring Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, Wes Bentley, Chaz Bono, Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe, Cuba Gooding Jr.
FX Network
Air date: Wednesday, October 19, 2016, 10pm

Spoilers for American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare…

Throughout the first half of season 6 of American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare, we followed the Millers, Matt (Andre Holland) and Shelby (Lily Rabe) telling the cameras their story. Their colonial home in North Carolina was haunted by the first settlers of the Roanoke colony, led by The Butcher, Thomasin White (Kathy Bates). Thomasin, with the help of a witch (Lady Gaga) slaughtered her entire clan and family and have been returning from the dead every blood moon to rid people from their ancestral land. The series, done with “dramatic re-enactments” showed the Miller’s struggle to survive with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Sarah Paulson acting as the Millers.

More below.

After 5 episodes of taut tension and typically eerie creepiness, the creators of American Horror Story are completely switching gears. Rarely, if ever, has a show ended its main story arc at the midway point of a season, and veered in a new direction. But then again, there has rarely, if ever, been a show like American Horror Story. We learn that “My Roanoke Nightmare” was the “hit show of 2015,” even surpassing The Walking Dead. The networks demanded a follow up and showrunner Sidney (Cheyenne Jackson) has it: “Return to Roanoke: Three Days in Hell.” The show will be a Big Brother meets Roanoke clash, where the actors from the re-enactments and the real people themselves, spend three days over a blood moon locked in the house, which he bought from Matt Miller for “fifty cents on the dollar.”

With cameras rolling all the time, we watch Sydney and his team ready the house and round up the cast. Shelby Miller wanted nothing to do with it, until we find out about her affair… with the actor who played her husband! We meet Agnes (Bates), who threw herself into the role of The Butcher a tad too much and went schizo, being locked up for 6 months in a mental health facility. When Sydney surprises her with a restraining order, things don’t go well. Lee (Adina Porter) is signing on to clear her name from charges she actually murdered Mason, her ex husband. The actress who played her (Angela Bassett) is now a raging alcoholic.

Of course, before the crew even shows up weird sh*t starts happening on set. Bloody pig remains were the precursor. An accidental chainsaw decapitation is shocking. But when Sydney’s Producer Diana storms away, videoing everything as she drives off, and PIG MAN attacks her, we know what we’re in for and it’s not good. We find out her body was never found, and the phone footage was found months later.

The actors playing Shelby (Paulson) and Edward Mott (Evan Peters), met on set and are now married. They return to the house, first arrivals of the second season cast. They are Audrey and Rory. Right before the whole cast gets there, Agnes attacks. We find out that Agnes stalked and attacked Audrey because she won the Saturn Award for her role on the show. Sydney supplies them camera-only phones and we are off. As soon as Matt shows up, he and Shelby fight and the cast revels in the silliness. That will end soon. We find the over the three days of shooting, EVERY participant in the series died under “mysterious circumstances”… except for one.

The second half of season 6 is the found footage remains of what was left. Before the first night ends, the bloody “MURDER” has returned to the walls, the word now complete with the final “R”. You gotta hand it to Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy. It takes some chutzpah to completely flip the script midseason, but again, AHS is consistently been the ballsiest show on television for years. I LOVE the new direction, and now the question is, who survives and what will be left of them? I think the obvious pick is either Shelby or Matt dying to let the other live, but as I said nothing is ever obvious on AHS. This is the show that put Anne Frank in the Asylum, killed Twisty in the first half of Freakshow, and cast Lady Gaga as sexually crazed vampire in Hotel. I’d love the lone survivor to be Lee or even Agnes, maybe getting a reprieve from The Butcher for her devoted portrayal.

Either way, kudos to the cast and crew for reinventing themselves in midstream, and making things better.

American Horror Story: Roanoke returns next Wednesday at 10:00pm ET only on FX.

Video

Chapter 6 | Season 6 Episode 6 Trailer | American Horror Story: Roanoke

The FX limited series, American Horror Story, returns for a sixth installment.