“I’m not giving up on this family.” – Ben
This was by far my least favorite episode of American Horror Story thus far. I just felt that it didn’t have any continuity and was all over the place; and considering that this is already a show that has storylines coming at you from all angles, that’s saying a lot.
The first part of the Halloween episode ended with quite a bit of suspense. Violet was in the house alone with Larry knocking on the door and the gimp-suited man had appeared behind her. And in the next scene Ben and Vivien returned home to an empty house with a ringing alarm system and Hayden knocking on the door. You really thought that something exciting was about to happen. No such luck. It turns out that Violet had gone to hang out with Tate.
Hayden returns with the sole purpose of having Ben admit to Vivien about his visits to Boston and her pregnancy. Ben, still not fully understanding the power the house and the land surrounding it has, believes that Larry and Hayden are somehow in cahoots together to extort money from him. Really? Doesn’t he remember that he’s living in the murder house and it somehow got that name for a reason? After Hayden taunts Vivien and drives her to a frenzy believing that she’s in the house Ben searches for her and finds her in the basement.
Larry comes to her rescue and ties Ben up down there. Mrs. Montgomery comes out of nowhere and unties him and tells him that he needs to save the baby. That reminds me, I am still wondering what it was that the technician saw on Vivien’s sonogram last week that made her faint. I guess we will have to wait another week to find that out. When Ben finally makes his way upstairs Hayden is just about to attack Vivien following a cat and mouse game Hayden played with her throughout the house. He’s able to calm her down by admitting to Vivien that he did continue an affair with Hayden after he told her that it ended which resulted in a pregnancy. Needless to say Vivien is not forgiving and Ben leaves the following morning.
Things with Tate’s storyline continue to get weirder and weirder. It turns out that he is Constance’s son. I am guessing he’s the perfect son that she mentioned a few episodes back. We learn this when Constance tells Violet about Adelaide’s death and how she doesn’t want Tate to know this because it would destroy him. So where exactly does Tate live? And for that matter is he alive? In the beginning of the episode when he was talking about high school to Violet it sounds like he was in high school some years back, yet, he looks around the same age as Violet. But, while at the beach a group of high school kids show up and they all appear to have been the victims of brutal crimes. They basically torment Tate and he ultimately runs away from them and back to the beach where he and Violet first encountered them. They want Tate to admit what he did to them but he can’t bring himself to do so. We then get flashbacks of him dressed up in disguise pointing a gun at someone. It turns out that the violent actions he spoke with Ben about during one of his first sessions with him was in fact real and not just a dreamlike he said it was. One of the girls tells him that she should be 34. So, what happened to Tate and why is it that they don’t know that he could possibly be dead also?
I guess my issue with the episode was that I forgot the important theme of Halloween… the dead walk freely. Hence why we saw Mrs. Montgomery untie Ben, why Hayden returned and the high school students tormented Tate. Oh, like I said though, by the end of the episode Hayden was gone once again. After being detained by one of the security officers from the Harmon’s security company she somehow disappears from the back of the car after they pull into the precinct. You can’t very well send a dead person to jail. I wonder if we will be seeing her again though, then again, she did accomplish what she set out to do. Destroy what was left of Ben’s family life.
Maybe this episode would have had more of an impact if FX had decided to air it as a two-hour special as opposed to two separate episodes a week apart. Hopefully things get back on track next week.
Some stats and info about American Horror Story, “Halloween Pt. II”
TV SHOW – American Horror Story
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 5
AIRED ON – November 2nd, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Hulu/FX
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.