There’s nothing to fear except fear itself.
We finally got (final) confirmation this week that Tate is in fact dead. He’s basically sitting in limbo right now before crossing over to the other side, which may prove difficult for him since he and Violet have seem to develop an unhealthy dependency on one another. He does save her from committing suicide this week because she’s so tormented over her feelings for Tate and who he really is. So, what led to his demise? In a flashback at the beginning of the episode Tate murdered some of his fellow high school students for no apparent reason. These are the same students who were tormenting him on the Halloween episodes from the past two weeks. When the cops arrive at his home to arrest him he attempts to grab a gun and they shoot him. We haven’t learned though what drove him to do it and who knows if we ever will.
Guest star Eric Stonestreet (better known as Cameron from Modern Family) played Derek, a patient of Ben’s who has an abnormal fear of urban legends. He can deal with most anything but he can’t bear to look in a mirror for fear of what he may say and what may come of it. The one legend that keeps him the most crippled with fear is “Here piggy piggy pig.” Ben attempts to help him overcome this fear in the bathroom of his house but before he can say the phrase three times he is compelled to move the shower curtain from the bathtub and there appears the dead body of the nurse that was killed in the house many years before. Of course when Ben comes rushing in he cannot see anything.
By the end of the episode he overcomes his fear with detrimental results. He looks in the mirror and says the phrase and unfortunately his house is being burglarized and one of the burglars was hiding behind the shower curtain and assumed Derek was calling him a pig and shoots him. Talk about irony! I must say Stonestreet’s performance was probably one of the best things about this episode. His character was a far cry from his usual Cameron on Modern Family. Great actor!
While American Horror Story is filled with characters that are hard to root for or who have any redeeming qualities I must say that Ben and Vivien are on the top of that list. I wish the writers would portray Vivien a little bit stronger. While she is angry at Ben for his infidelity I honestly believe it won’t be too long before she welcomes him back in their home. She’s already relented a bit and allowed him to continue to see his patients in the house. And then she trusts Constance and her recommendations for food she should eat while she’s pregnant. Constance brings her pig offal and describes the benefits of it like if it was the most normal thing in the world. Before leaving she instructs Moira to cook it up as she did for her once before. Now, I can’t remember, but, did Vivien know that Moira once worked for Constance as well? She did make a face but didn’t say anything about it. Moira cooks the meat, but, leaves the pancreas uncooked as it’s best eaten raw. Yuck!
Later in the episode Constance brings her a raw organic brain that Moira has lovely plated for her. Vivien devours it and appears to look as though she wishes there were more. Seriously, how naive is Vivien? Constance is creepy. Why does she trust her so easily? Oh, and Vivien is finally able to track down the technician, Angela, who fainted during her ultrasound. She meets her at a church, Angela’s choice, and Angela tells her that she’s carrying “The Beast”, that she saw hooves. I can’t wait to hear the amniocentesis results.
As for Ben, he appears to be just as spineless as Vivien. While I am sure he does care for his family he just continues to make bad decisions. It’s evident from his sessions with Derek that he’s dealing with a lot of emotions that he conveys towards his patients, giving them the advice that he himself should follow. At this point the only character I can somewhat root for his Violet. One thing that I found disturbing during this episode was how all of the Harmon’s are in the house yet they seem to be living three completely different lives. At no point in the episode do we ever see interaction between Vivien and Violet. Violet attempts to commit suicide and it’s Tate who drags her to the bathroom to save her life. No one hears any of this happening. Very weird.
Some stats and info about American Horror Story, “Piggy Piggy”
TV SHOW – American Horror Story
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 6
AIRED ON – November 9th, 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.