“Life is too short for so much sorrow.” – Nora
This week on American Horror Story, Violet finally came to her senses and sends Tate away. Unfortunately it was a little too late as Tate’s presence caused her own suicide a few weeks back and the death of her mother during this episode.
Something that I did realize in past episodes, which became more prevalent to me in this episode, was how most of the dead people associated with the house were waiting for a baby while they were living. Nora Montgomery’s child was kidnapped and returned to her dead and mutilated, Hayden was pregnant earlier in the season and Chad and Patrick, well, mainly Chad wanted to have children. Now, with the birth of Vivien and Ben’s twins eminent they are all insisting that the babies will be theirs. While Nora thought that she was first in line to get one of the babies since Tate essentially impregnated Vivien for her, those plans go awry when Tate admits to Nora that he cannot take one of the babies since he is now in love with Violet.
When Violet walks in on Chad and Patrick decorating the nursery she immediately views them as the enemy that must be banished from the house. She contacts Constance who brings over Billie Dean and she tells her how she can go about it. She is also aware that Violet is dead, something that Constance is not aware of. Violet does as Billie Dean tells her but Chad remains. He tells her that people are always coming up with chants and rituals to remove the dead but they never work. He then proceeds to tell her the truth behind Tate. How Tate was the one who killed him and Patrick and that he was the one who raped her mother. Immediately she views Tate in a different light and realizes that he is the enemy and probably has been all along.
Meanwhile, Vivien and Ben return from the psychiatric hospital that Vivien has been staying at for the past few weeks against the orders of her doctor. He believes she will need an emergency C-section as the growth of one of the twins is rapid while the other one continues to get weaker. Vivien goes into labor while sitting in the car waiting for Ben to return with Violet. While she doesn’t want to go into the house she isn’t able to put up much of a fight when Constance appears out of nowhere and drags her in. Vivien is essentially trapped in the house to give birth. The power goes off and Ben isn’t able to get a signal on his cell phone or a dial tone on the house phone. Out of nowhere Dr. Montgomery appears along with two of the murdered nurses who lived in the house to assist in the delivery.
The first twin is born stillborn and the second twin proves difficult for Vivien to deliver and it ultimately kills her. Before dying though Violet comes to her and tells her that it’s okay for her to let go. Afterwards Violet goes to Tate and confronts him on what she learned from Chad and tells him to go away. In a touching moment Vivien appears and comforts Violet and Violet apologizes to her for her losing her baby and Vivien tells her that she didn’t lose her baby that she still has her. It takes death to bring mother and daughter back together.
So I wonder now that Vivien and Violet are both dead where does that leave Ben? Will he kill himself so that he can live eternity with the family that he has been desperately trying to keep together? Or, will he try to take custody of Constance’s grandchild, who we didn’t get a glimpse of in this episode, but, something tells me will have some sort of deformity being that the child isn’t all together human. Lots of questions that will hopefully somehow have answers in next week’s season finale. If not, thankfully there will be a Season Two.
Some stats and info about American Horror Story, “Birth”
TV SHOW – American Horror Story
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 11
AIRED ON – December 14th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Hulu/Netflix
GENRE – Horror, Drama
CREATED BY – Brad Falchuk, Ryan Murphy, Halley Feiffer
CAST – Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Denis O’Hare, Lily Rabe, Kathy Bates, Frances Conroy, Emma Roberts, Jessica Lange, Billie Lourd, Leslie Grossman, Angela Bassett, Cheyenne Jackson,
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.