So. This American Horror Story was an "FX special event," as season finales often are -- extra special because there was an extra 10 minutes. Let's see what unlikely American horror stories are executed to bewitch, bother and befuddle us this week on American Horror Story, Season Finale (01-12): "Afterbirth."
SPOILERS******************************************
ACT ONE
ACT ONE
Ben's looking at a tablet (computer kind, not pill or Moses kind) nine months ago in a modern apartment. Vivien comes downstairs with two suitcases and a major case of the "I'm gonna cry so don't talk to me face." She says she's taking Violet to Florida. Ben wants her to come to Los Angeles and start over. She says she has a wall (emotional kind, not structural or Pink Floyd kind). He says "look at this house," referring to the tablet. It's the scary house. She fights a little more, then presumably gives up and agrees to go with him to LA to look at the house.
Wow, this entire series almost avoided itself.
Now Ben's in the house calling for Vivien and Violet. I think this is present-day now, so they're dead. He doesn't know that yet? Oh wait, I think he does. He whispers "Where are you?" in more of a Poltergeist than practical way. The "I LOVE YOU" is back on Violet's chalkboard.
The creepy-baby-parts credits roll.
Ben asks Constance to take care of the baby. Oh wait. No. He's asking Constance NOT to take care of the baby anymore, because Vivien's sister's coming. Constance isn't into giving him up. She makes a dig about Ben not being the father and forces within his house wanting to do the child grave harm. Good point, Jess. And congrats on that Golden Globe nomination.
Why doesn't she take him to court? He's not the father and she's the grandmother. Can you prove grandmother...ship with a blood test? I bet you can. Well, nothing in this TV show is very Los Angeles, is it?
Seriously, if this is LA, he should have a restraining order against her by now, because she's scary. And she's always there. Does she have a secret room behind a bookcase in their house, or does she just hang there to talk to her dead children? How come she gets to talk to allllll the dead people? Where is her fourth kid? Why did she want the maid to stay there forever, and even make Ben build a gazebo over her bones?
I'm getting stressed out. Back to the show.
We're flashing back to when Ben called Constance to tell her he can't treat Tate anymore because he "crossed the line" with his daughter. Abigail is still alive and is drawing with crayons.
Back forward. I'm not really sure what the point of that flashback was. Constance tells Ben that Tate is long dead. Ben makes a vague threat on her life (on account of alleged family-destroying) and leaves with the baby. He also leaves a whole heap of toys just sitting there. Wasteful.
At the house, the maid and Viv are chatting about Viv's "transition." The maid tells her that people can only see her if she wants them to. Does that mean that dead people can see each other all the time? That can't be; every square inch of the Earth would be PACKED with dead people chatting about their feelings. So, it seems dead people only appear in the present to have conversations with each other and sometimes to tousle the living a bit.
Where do they go when they're not appearing? It must not be very interesting; they keep coming back like exes to a Facebook page. Move ON, dead people. If they can't move on because of the house ... how come? The house is less than 100 years old (built in the 1920s). What do the writers purport our great grandparents were up to? I mean, I know that the dentist was a murderer and the doctor was performing abortions, but neither of those make for an evil house.
Ahem. Vivien says she made Violet promise never to appear to Ben so that he will be able to leave and raise their baby away from the house. Viv and the maid talk a bit more about Ben, for whom Vivien's feelings have totally returned now that she sees him without her, and then Viv asks the maid for a cup of tea. The maid's all like "I don't take orders from ghosts, we're equal now." Vivien says "Call me Vivien." The maid's like "I'd like that" but she's probably thinking "that's what I just said I was going to do in not so many words. Are you so convinced that you're superior to me? Geez, lady. Get a clue." But she doesn't say that. She tells Vivien to "let him go." I'm not sure if she means Ben or the baby.
Ben's monologuing to the baby in the living room. The baby cries. Ben snuggles him. He stops. Ben goes to the kitchen and lays out all his personal effects, then goes to the office of broken dreams and proceeds to try to shoot himself (Viv's sister is en route, so supposedly the baby will be ok). Vivien appears to him and stops him. She forgives him for everything and tells him to make like a tree. Violet appears grumpily on the couch; apparently she's been watching this go down. She jokes that she saved him lots of money by killing herself. He plays along with the joke. Dark stuff, people.
Violet tells Ben to go. Vivien starts making out with him and then Violet and Viv both disappear. Ben goes and gets his suitcases, and then dead Kate Mara shows up on the staircase! Oh, Kate Mara. You're so pretty.
Pretty, dead Kate Mara hangs Ben by a noose from the chandelier, killing him and making it look like a suicide. Whoopsie. Best laid plans.
The baby cries.
ACT TWO
The realtor is showing her racist side to a new couple as she shows them the house. She's also carrying Viv's dog, who we haven't seen for awhile. I'm starting to wonder what her role in all this is. She's basically feeding the house. Is she the most evil of them all? Did she make a deal with the devil?
The Ramos couple has a son Violet's age. Love interest? Perhaps. His name is Gabe and he has a skateboard.
The realtor tells the Ramosi that the previous owners died in a tragically romantic way; she died in childbirth and he hung himself from grief. Doesn't that tie things in a nice little bow? She says she adopted the dog. Are the writers just tying up a loose end here because they forgot about the dog? Maybe. Or maybe something cool will happen two seasons from now. Who knows?
Gabe goes skateboarding. The dead redhead twins throw stuff under his wheels and he falls hard. Violet is watching him. The realtor says "gringos" to the Spanish couple. They still buy the house.
ACT THREE
Constance is back at her house talking with two detectives about having found Ben Harmon, hanging. There's a great flashback to the moment where she finds him and smokes a cigarette, calling him stupid a bunch of times. Then she goes to get the baby and finds an empty carrier; the baby must have been stolen by Pretty Dead Kate Mara.
Vivien welcomes Ben to the other side, along with Violet. Group hug!
We see that Violet's body is rotting in the basement. Constance presumably steps right over her to find PDKM rocking the baby. Have we discussed the fact that PDKM is unusually crazy? That is clearly not her baby, but she thinks it is. Guess you can't be that pretty without being a little nuts, no offense PDKM.
Some dude slits PDKM's already-dead throat, which I guess startles her a bit, and he grabs the baby to give to Constance. Maybe that's child #4. Or am I supposed to know who that is and I forgot?
Constance tells the police/detectives that Violet stole the baby and ran away, and that she prays for them. I did a triple take on the girl detective, thinking she was Jessica Alba. She's not. They leave. Constance goes and takes the baby out of her closet, where she was hiding him.
She picks him up and says "Who's my good little angel?" over and over, which sounds like benign baby talk but seems extra foreboding when you type it out. And when you say it. I just said it to my cat and felt weird about it.
Violet's playing Gabe's music in his new, her old, room. He comes in and is all like "What's this random girl with pretty hair doing in my room?" She criticizes his taste in music. The "I LOVE YOU" is no longer on the chalkboard. Violet's lines have clearly been looped in after shooting, probably to balance them with the music level, but geez, she slurs like crazy and having her reiterate lines she clearly slurred at the shoot makes it extra annoying. Okay, theater major rant over. Tate appears in the doorway and sees Violet chatting up the new kid. He looks all shocked and devastated. The music swells.
The Ramosi are unpacking. They talk about the realtor, who's name is Marcie. Exposing her name so openly makes me think her part's going to get bigger. (That's what she said.) They start making sweet sweet love on the kitchen counter while the Harmons (Ben and Viv) watch creepily. They talk about having another baby. The Harmons decide they can't let the nice Ramosi have a baby in the evil house. The maid appears over the writhing bodies and gives a speech about being on the "good" side of the spirits in the house; among those who don't want to see more suffering. I guess this means she'll help get the Ramosi out of there.
ACT FOUR
The Ramosi are sleeping. Mr. Ramos hears something and gets up to investigate and WOW does he work out! Sorry. Someone in a black bodysuit like Tate's starts getting frisky with Mrs. Ramos. Tate appears to Gabe and says a bunch of cryptic stuff (at least it would seem cryptic if you were Gabe). Mrs. Ramos notices that the black body suit dude isn't her husband. (It's Ben, we'd know those baby blues anywhere!) She screams. Gabe hears it and calls to her. Mr. Ramos turns on the stove and starts to burn his hand in a trance. Etc, etc. The Ramosi get terrorized. Mena Suvari is there and everything. It's not particularly difficult for the dead to terrorize the living. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. Oh yeah, this isn't real life.
What I AM surprised about is Tate's participation. He's not on the evil side, apparently -- and much to my surprise. Perhaps he just wants to be on whatever side Violet's on.
The Harmons kill each other a bunch of times, but they're already dead, so it's ok, except for that they're doing it in front of the Ramosi, who are hella scared.
Oh. Now Tate's got a knife to Gabe's throat, claiming that Violet needs a boyfriend or something. She manipulates him into letting Gabe go. She kisses him and vanishes. Like mother like daughter. Gabe escapes.
The Harmons, Violet included, watch the Ramosi drive away and make a sort-of-oath to keep any nice people from staying in the house. Fade to black. FALSE ENDING!
ACT FIVE
Marcie puts "REDUCED" over the For Sale sign by the house and tries to shoo away the Ghost Tour or whatever it is.
Ben is sweeping, because actors need things to do with their hands, and Tate comes in. He wants to talk. Ben calls him a monster and a psychopath. Then Ben denounces therapy as a sham: "Week after week, month after month, year after year we collect checks, but deep down, we know it doesn't work." Tate manipulates him into relative submission despite being a known psychopath with a pathetic "But can you just ... hang out with me sometimes?" Ben is a fool. That was a pretty good scene, though -- if a little heavy-handed. Good writing.
Vivien is playing cello, which seems a far more likely ghost activity than sweeping. She hears a baby crying and heads down to the basement.
She finds the 1920s doctor's wife Nora Montgomery, exhausted and condescending. Nora is rocking Viv's baby #2 -- the one who didn't make it. WHOA. We just had a major eureeka moment.
Viv says she thought the baby didn't make it. Nora says "barely," and notes that he made just one little cry and then passed on. Did American Horror Story just address abortion law? Yes. Yes they did. Apparently, you only get to be a ghost if you lived, and you only live if you're born. Fair enough.
Anyway, this baby is the one that was fathered by Ben. Nora calls him a weakling, but claims ownership. Viv offers to help quiet him down. She picks him up and sings to him. He stops crying. Nora goes to take a rest and leaves the baby with Vivien, just "for the night." On her way out, she says she's not sure she has the patience to be a mother. Vivien, who clearly does, walks through the house with her baby. She finds the maid in the kitchen who is cleaning because she has nothing else to do.
Viv lets the maid hold the baby. The maid says "I would have been a good mother if I hadn't been such a little tramp." HAHAHAHAhahahaha. Vivien makes her his godmother.
Now there's a Christmas tree. Ben, Violet and the maid are decorating. Viv comes in with the baby. Ben says he didn't think it was possible, but he's happy. Violet smiles. Then she notices Tate and PDKM watching from the other room. They're broody and scary. Tate says he'll wait forever for Violet.
"THREE YEARS LATER" - aka Act ... Six? Thanks for these extra special extra 10 minutes, FX.
JESSICA LANGE IS GETTING HER HAIR DONE. Are the writers reading my blog? Or am I just a genius? OR BOLTH?
Constance tells the hairdresser she had a baby; or adopted a baby whose parents were distant cousins who died. She calls him "Michael" and gets her hair awesome-ized. Finally, an explanation. Thanks, American Horror Story. Merry Christmas.
Constance gives a very long, crazy "I was destined to be somebody" speech in the mirror, ending with the notion that her son needs a strong mother, and that everything that happened to her was preparation for her to guide him wisely through life. Actually, I'm going to go ahead and transcribe this bad boy. It's so theatrical. Actors wishing to use this as a monologue: you're welcome.
"May I confide something? Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I was destined for great things. I was going to be somebody; a person of significance -- a star of the silver screen, I once thought, but my dreams became nightmares. Instead of laurels; funeral wreaths. Instead of glory; bitter disappointment, cruel afflictions. Now I understand: tragedy was preparing me for something greater. Every loss that came before was a lesson. I was being prepared. Now, I know for what: this child; a remarkable boy destined for greatness, in need of a remarkable mother -- someone forged in the fires of adversity who can guide him with wisdom, with firmness, with love."
Dang. That's some Turgenev stuff. Or at least Sam Shepard. Haha, theater joke! Oh -- they broke up. Two years ago. That must be why they sold that gorgeous house in Stillwater, MN. Sorry, Ms. Lange, I meant no ill will.
Ahem. Constance arrives home. The fridge is open. There's blood on it. She puts the milk in it anyway, but definitely looks perturbed. The cookie jar is on the floor. She calls for Flora, presumably the nanny. She's on the floor of Michael's room, dead. Michael is giggling in the rocking chair, which is smeared with blood. There's blood on his face. Constance kneels in front of him and says "Now, what am I gonna do with you?" She gives him a long, admiring look.
And that is the real end.
So here's what we know: The house has been around since the 1920s, and anyone who dies there stays there -- with the exception of if their bones are removed, which is a difficult-to-explain loophole the maid seems to have been interested in back in gazebo-building time. The Harmons are all dead now. Constance is alive. She has four children and is now raising a fifth, who is her grandson (Michael is the son of dead-Tate and live-Vivien, who is now dead-Vivien). Tate is waiting for Violet's forgiveness. PDKM wants revenge or the baby or something; but probably really just wants Ben. Michael is supernatural and evil.
That was fun! Am I missing any important facts? Leave 'em in the comments.
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