TV Review: American Horror Story My Roanoke Nightmare (Season 6, Episode 5)

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

EPISODE: CHAPTER 5

THE SCOOP: The original owner of the Roanoke home, Edward Mott, is introduced. Meanwhile, the Millers finally attempt a daring escape off the premises for good!

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW. IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE, STOP READING HERE!

THE SKINNY: Alrighty fools and ghouls, into the heart of October we go! The fifth chapter of American Horror Story Roanoke was certainly up to the season, as the episode jumped off with more maddening Miller mayhem. More like a look back to how it became, as the veracity of the faux-doc show tried to bolster itself with the inclusion of real life historian Doris Goodwin Kearns, as she takes us back to the haunts of the Roanoke abode in 1789. We meet Edward Mott (Evan Peters), a powder-faced, wig-wearing dandy who fled his hometown in order to escape his homosexual persecution and live with his enslaved lover high and happily. Thing is, one night someone (or thing) broke into the house and defiled one of Mott's paintings. Hysterical, he locks all of his servants in an underground root cellar. Then, our Scottish butcher Thomasin shows up during a blood moon, disclaims Mott shall pay for his intrusion, and soon a giant sharpened wooden pole is driven through Mott's back, exiting his sternum, a fountain of gore leaking under. Then the dude is shoved in a roaring fire and burned alive. Back to Kerwin, who explains the Mott's sold off the house in full by 1952 and exhorts to never stay in the damn place during a full moon!

Back from break we find Matt and Shelby in similar circumstances. A blood moon has risen, Thomasin and her son have been summoned outside their window, pitchforks and torches in tow. They plan to make a daring escape, with Flora alongside, but are sideswiped by the ghost of the Chen daughter…J-horror style. Then the Pig-men appear, as well as the three mutilated hunters. It seems, at the behest of Thomasin, all ghostly manifestations of the previous homeowners are to round-up the Millers and serve them up on the Butcher's block. Not so fast though. Old Mott materializes and leads the three living humans through a secret passage and out into the woods, away from the scent of the others. Just as they think they're safe…BLAMMM…whacked upside the head with two-by-fours. By whom? Those filthy back-woodsmen the Polks. They have Cunningham splayed out as a gory mess on a work-bench, saying they found him that way. The doc implores them to get the hell out before mama Thomasin returns. Then these cannibalistic sickos hammer Elias' face to a mangled pulp. Worse, they swear by the Butcher not let the Millers go free!

Meanwhile, Lee is stuck in an interrogation room professing her innocence. She did not killer her ex-hubby, but convincing the cops isn't so easy. After being released, she books straight to the house to get Flora, which Matt has informed her is there via text. Matt and Shelby ride in the back of a pickup, the former gets hold of a shotgun and blasts the driver in the dome-piece, gore paints the wind-screen. They grab Flora and make a break for it into the woods. Of course, the Polks catch up and shovel Shelby's ankle into a nasty flesh-wound and take Flora right back to the Butcher. They do, and just as the Butcher prepare to consecrate the land with the girl's fresh blood, shockingly, her son Ambrose (Bentley) knocks her upside the head and drags her into a fire. Lee shows up and crashes into the Pig-man advancing toward Flora, and Mott cuts the Millers loose. All pile into the car and peel the f*ck out of dodge. They land at a motel, clean up, and as we leave, ready to head back to L.A. for good. Will they make it? Perhaps, but something tells me it's going to take a HELL of a long time. 

Okay now, so I must say, after a few weeks of grousing about flashbacks and flash forwards, I really thought this episode did a wonderful job of putting all the pieces together toward one cogent, creepy, ultra-bloody whole. Instead of going back and forth, here the two timelines converge in the present, with the Millers interacting with the ghastly and ghoulish past tenants of the land of the Lost Colony. From there all we cut to his the docu-footage of Matt, Lee and Shelby. And while I still don't love all the past-period costuming and accents as it plays toward the verite stylings of the series framing device this year, at least this episode felt like one smooth and easily digestible piece of highly gory entertainment. And it flew by, which is always a good sign things are moving fast and seamlessly. I do wonder moving forward how, if at all, the Millers will ever return to the house, and if they indeed make it back to LA as soon as next week. My guess it'll take much longer, another five weeks perhaps, before they make it out to tell the tale. Then, who'll assume the duties of primary foe? Is the Butcher really dead? If so, who assumes her role? Ambrose? Seems unlikely. What is certain, this reinvented season still feels like one of the better ones in the entire AHS canon. And now that we're halfway through My Roanoke Nightmare, we must ask, are you sleeping well yet?

KILL OF THE WEEK: Depending on whether Thomasin is really dead, it'd have to be her. She's too big a character to dismiss. That said, they way Mott was gruesomely impaled in that opener was tits!

BLOOD & GORE:

• A giant wooden stake driven through Mott's back, a grue-geyser spouts
• Cunningham's gorily excised arm, bloody wounds all over his body
• Cunningham's face gets smashed into jello by a hammer
• A head blown off with a shotgun, blood paints the windshield of a truck, a foul stumo remains
• Shelby's ankle gets cut into a grisly red wound
• In a dream, Shelby gets brained with a cleaver

WTF CHARACTER MOMENT: Not for nothing, but I did kind of shout out "What the…" when Ambrose turned on his mama and cold-cocked in the chin before dragging her into the blaze. A wise move, but surprising nonetheless!

MOST BIZARRE SCENE: I'd say the most bizarre scene this time out was when The Millers and Flora tried to escape their house, only to run into every ghastly incarnation of previous owners…all out to kill them or at least capture them and serve them to the Butcher. A creepy convergence of all!