TV Review: American Horror Story: Roanoke (Season 6, Episode 8)

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

EPISODE: CHAPTER 8

THE SCOOP: As Lee, Audrey and Monet deal with the sick and savage Polk clan, Matt and Shelby hole up in the house and fend off Pig Man and the Butcher's block.

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

THE SKINNY: With a lot of grisly and gruesome cleanup after three primary players were dispatched last week – Matt, Agnes and Sidney – Chapter 8 of American Horror Story: Roanoke (suddenly truncated from My Roanoke Nightmare) instantly brings us back to that frightfully fateful night with the real Butcher and her minions cordoning off the house. Dom and Shelby try for an escape through the familiar rum-running cellar, only to find the ghastly Chen apparitions closing in on them. Doubling back and traversing through the charnel house of evil interlopers, Pig Man appears, accosts the two in the kitchen before Shelby bonks the f*cker on the head with a butcher knife. The pair juke the Chens and do wisest in a horror flick, go upstairs to seek refuge. Once there, Shelby laments killing the one man she truly ever loved, and in a fit of futility, slashes her own throat on the bathroom floor. Dom makes a last ditch effort to save her, but not in time. Only concerned for a promised spin-off show, Dom is left to his own devices to survive the household horrors.

Poor Lee has a chunk of her thigh gouged out, and perhaps worse, has to listen to the Polks speak of Depression era cannibalism their family resorted to back in 1929, feeding off hobos and assuming control of the land. Sick folk. Hell, I think the demented hayseed matriarch went for a randy reach around on her own son Jether. He cauterizes Lee's leg wound and cuts off her ear, Mr. Blond style, and explains how the Pig Man came about. Something about an uncle taking pigs to the Chicago fair back in the day. Before long Jether has Lee snorting backwoods carpet-meth, which she resigns to despite being an addict knowing she's soon to be flayed bit by bit and served as Polk family stew. Pretty f*cking tasty, no?! Not as delectable as old Jether – jagged-toothed and boil-faced – making an advance on Lee after she uses his camera to confess to her daughter Flora that she indeed killed her husband Mason. I have a feeling she's telling the truth and not merely protecting her daughter from knowing about the twisted Polk folk. She feigns sexual interest in Jether, puts the sucker in a choke hold and jousts a blade in his neck before making an escape of her own.

Strand three of Chapter 8 gives us Audrey and Monet also held captive by the other filthy Polk wackos. The two girls simply claim they are just TV actors hired to play a part, but the hopped-up rednecks are only intent on plucking out their teeth with rusty pliers (to make teeth rain as in the show they too saw on the tube). Monet gets out, sneaks into the woods where the two other male Polks giggle as they hunt her in the night and film it with their flip-phones.  Audrey spouts insolent sass at Mama Polk, who in turn lops her ear off just as she instructed Jether to do Lee. Speaking of Lee, she cuts Audrey loose, who in turn bludgeons mama many times over in the face with a large hammer. Too bad the carnage, like most of it this episode, was either filmed from far away or left off-screen entirely. Lee and Audrey make it back to the house, discover all the brutal deaths, and tend to their wounds. Not buying Dom's story about how Matt and Shelby died, Lee locks him out of the bedroom to be flayed and gored by Pig Man. Dude gets his throat viciously ripped wit a machete, blood paints the walls. Opting to go back to the Polk farm to retrieve their tapped murders, Lee and Audrey end the episode by finding Dylan (Wes Bentley, who played the Butcher's son) adorned in Pig Man garb. A mere survival tactic from an actor? We shall see.

Because really, and then there were three! Only Lee, Audrey and Monet (four if now counting Dylan) are left alive. Three will die, as we were told, with the how and why set to unfold in the next two chapters. As for this episode, in terms of abject blood, gore and guts and overall mayhem…this one took an obvious step backwards from previous two pinnacle chapters in 6 and 7. Not only was there less bloodshed, it was of the awfully tame variety, framed out of focus, or from a corner, or not onscreen at all. Also, it seems pretty clear that most of the supernatural happenings depicted in the TV show My Roanoke Nightmare can, in reality, be traced back to the Polks. The totems, the pranks, the Pig Man, etc. Only the Chen ghosts and the real Butcher appearing seem to be unconnected. Which I'm actually okay with, as the show is trying to at least ground the action in a small semblance of reality. I too quite dug Adina Porter's performance as Lee once again, as here she's given a sizeable lot to chew on (literally, her own leg) and show what a gifted actor she is. She's been a real revelation in season 6 so far. You think she's the lone survivor of the four? If not, who will it be?

KILL OF THE WEEK: Since it happened so suddenly, I'd say Shelby taking her own life in guilt for what she did to her husband was the kill that stood out most. Undeterred, she straight swiped a blade across her throat and bled out all over the bathroom tile. Not for the faint!

BLOOD & GORE:

• Lee gets stabbed in the thigh, little gore
• Dom smashes his hand in a door jamb, blood leaks
• Shelby slashes her own throat, a smear of thick blood wipes horizontally
• Audrey slams Mama Polks face with a hammer, little gore seen
• Dom gets carved with a machete, his throat ultimately slashed with blood coating the walls

WTF CHARACTER MOMENT: Why the hell would Dom make it look so easily like he killed Shelby? Dude, at least drop the knife and maybe leave the room. Or better yet take the knife with you and cut Pig Man into some goddamn slabs of bacon already. Sheesh!

MOST BIZARRE SCENE: Oh most definitely the scene with Jether and Lee. Too creepy. Statically shot from high corner angle, seeing those two commingle – sexually, violently, verbally – made me want to take two showers and run through a car wash immediately after. Matter of fact, excuse me…