TV Review: American Horror Story My Roanoke Nightmare (Season 6, Episode 3)

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

EPISODE: CHAPTER 3

THE SCOOP: Lee and the Millers continue to search for Flora, bringing in outside help in the form of an eccentric medium who may or may not have a history with Roanoke himself.

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

THE SKINNY:  And the third frame has fallen! Just as the once-thought bonnet, identified as Flora's yellow hoodie, did from the tree to start Chapter 3 of American Horror Story My Roanoke Nightmare. A sweeping daylight search conducted to find Lee's missing little girl follows suit, with police involved, as well as the Millers. They happen upon a severed pigs head and feet attached to Flora's broken baby doll toy, which leads them to a decrepit old barn deep in the woods. Flies buzz, severed heads refrigerate, and worse yet, a pair of filth-caked redneck boys are found suckling at the teat of a large pig. Foul! Back from the title card we find the cops hauling in the "pig-boys" and surmising they were simply left to their own devices by their negligent Polk parents. But after hearing the boys furiously shout "Croatoan" repeatedly, the Millers and the rest soon learn its an admonition worth heeding. Mason shows up in an outrage over Flora's disappearance, blaming Lee for hiding their daughter on purpose in order to skirt joint custody. But when they all get a call from the cops in the middle of the night claiming they found a body, it isn't Flora's, but someone else strung up, splayed out from limb to limb and charred to a smoldering crisp. Nope, it was Mason!

Thing is, Lee had motive. If Mason had been going to the police in the middle of the night, it seems reasonable that Matt and Shelby assume, at least in part, that Lee went haywire and whacked her ex hubby. But we know something far more supernatural is at work. Don't we? Throwing the scent is the arrival of Cricket, an eccentric child-finding expert, a psychic of sorts (the small dude from SKI PATROL yo!), who vows to find Flora like he's done so often in the past. The Millers agree, and soon ol Cricket and his nasty bowl-cut are assuring Lee and others that Flora is still alive and well, keeping company with the undead Priscilla…a girl stuck in purgatory since the 1500s. Matt's a skeptic, Shelby and Lee are open to the ideas. A seance is soon conducted, blood is sacrificed by Cricket, and suddenly appearing (to Cricket only) is The Butcher (Kathy Bates), a cleaver-wielding psychotic who has been haunting the house for centuries, vowing to stack the bodies of intruders and trespassers as high as a cord of firewood. A crescendo follows, windows shatter, and there's nothing for the Millers to do but believe Cricket is telling the truth. "Croatoan", Cricket screams, the others demanding to know what the hell it means.

But all Cricket can assure them of is that Flora is in possession of evil spirits haunting the house. Matt still thinks he's a charlatan, ultimately kicking him out. But as he leaves, he whispers something to Lee which raises our suspicion if no one else's. Is Lee even more troubled than we think? Has she a history with Cricket we don't know of? Well, it turns out Lee had another daughter years ago, Emily, when she was 17, that went missing one day when Lee left her in the car at a grocery store. She never came back. Cricket was assigned to the case back then, telling Lee that her daughter Emily was abducted by the Lost Colony of Roanoke, an ancient spook story known well in North Carolina. Flashbacks gives us period-piece glimpses of Wes Bentley, as well as his mother, The Butcher aka Thomasin. The Butcher was saved in the woods one night by a mysterious being, fiendishly fed a human heart, and ever since, has taken reign as the gate-keeper of Roanoke. Gnarly shit! Thomasin comes back to find her son, and soon gorily flays two peasants – throat slashing and scalping them to death. Cricket later takes the Millers into the woods and speaks to Thomasin on their behalf, and before you know it, Matt wonders off…only to be found by Shelby manically f*cking a strange woman to a crowd of redneck onlookers. What…The…F*ck?!  

As you can see, a ton unfolded this week during Chapter 3. One one hand, I dug how much info was dolled out, and how it was done in a way that totally keeps the mystery of it all intact. And honestly, this was by far the most brutally violent episode yet. Bates went Psycho! Always a good attribute to lean on. For me, where this episode veered a bit from the first two episodes, was how convoluted most of the stuff with Cricket came off as. First off, his wildly colorful and oddly humorous nature is far more in lockstep with seasons past. The camp and kitsch I found so refreshingly absent in Season 6 to start reared its head a bit with Cricket. Thankfully, again, it was the little guy from SKI PATROL, so a lot can be forgiven here. Also, the way he can communicate with The Butcher, while Lee and the Millers can't see her, that struck me as a bit false given all we've seen so far. It sort of breaks the otherwise realistic verite tone the first two chapters adhered to. Not a deal breaker, but a striking differentiation nonetheless.

Speaking of, my favorite part of the frame was when we were taking to a different time period, back to the 1500s, where The Butcher is born and wreaks grisly lethality upon a pair of underlings. Bates in MISERY, Annie Wilkes shit, was all I could think about.  A think a felt a giggle. It'll be interesting to see where her character goes, how much more backstory and period affectation will take hold, and what part her son (Bentley) will play moving forward. As for the Millers, why they haven't just moved out of the house yet, aside from mere hubris, is a reasonable question at this point. And now that they're intent on staying put, how will they put an end to the torment? Will Cricket return? Will other outside forces be brought in? Or can they summon the strength themselves?

KILL OF THE WEEK: Since it was a character we knew for a least two weeks, Mason getting burnt to an ashy cinder was pretty messed up. The iconography…strung up like a totem for worship. Too creepy!

BLOOD & GORE:

• A severed pigs head, feet
• A charred and desiccated body
• Drops of sacrificial blood let from finger tip
• A ripped out human heart ravenously eaten
• A back-head scalping, blood exploding
• A throat slashing, blood gushing
• Gory pig entrails over the grass

MOST BIZARRE SCENE: Has to be that deadpan shot of Matt, in the throes of possession, as he pumped away inside that mystery redneck woman, his glasses steamed up, while others looked on agog. WTF was that?

WTF CHARACTER MOMENT: Relating to the above, why the hell would Shelby, in a fit of jealous rage, call the cops on Lee just to get back at Matt for f*cking that goat-woman in the woods? Real mature Shel, real mature!