Last week, Chaz & Bros kidnapped Flora and then abandoned two filthy kidlets in a barn to feed from a Mama sow’s teats. OR, Dark Evil Forces took Flora, and Chaz & Bros were raising two filthy kidlets who they abandoned so they could jerk off to Matt fucking Woodland Gaga. It’s a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure season.
This week, Lee gets the week off to cool her heels in the pokey after Stupid Shelby turned her in to the cops for either kidnapping Flora (Story Version #3!) or for burning Daddy Mason on a Blair Witch Cross. And now that we know Lee has previously lost another child, we can all agree that anyone close to Lee has no chance in life.
As we return to the Haunted House of Ham, Shelby is freaking out on Matt, not just for fucking a Woodland Witch while they were looking for Flora, but because he had agreed that Lee could burn their house down to appease Butcher Bates. Matt is freaking out right back, because his sister is in jail for kidnapping and/or murder, and because he has a slight memory gap which could indeed contain the fucking of a Woodland Witch.
Dude, not even DiCaprio would have fucked that Woodland Witch
Finally Matt breaks down in tears, so he wins. Real Shelby says she knows what she saw is real, but she could see in Matt’s eyes that “he wasn’t culpable”. Free Pass for Matt!
Shelby goes to the bathroom for a shower after all that woods searching, but when she opens the shower curtain, PIGGY MAN is there with a knife and tries to stab her. Lots of running and screaming ensue. And squealing. Finally Piggy Man gets brought down by Crazy Doctor Elias Cunningham! But Piggy Man gets back up… So Doc Cunningham throws out his arms and yells “CROATOAN!” And Piggy Man just disappears.
Real Shelby explains that she thought Doc Cunningham was crazy when she saw him on video, but he’s even more crazy in person. This from a woman who has witnessed human sacrifice by a ghostly 250 year old Butcher AND just battled a vanishing Piggy Man five minutes earlier.
Doc Cunningham explains two things. One, that Croatoan is a word of Black Magic. And two, that he owned the Haunted House of Ham for years until he couldn’t pay the tax bill, and that’s when it went up for auction. He survived the Butcher by living away from the property, but every other previous owner has disappeared. He says he is important for Matt and Shelby’s survival. At this, Matt decides to throw him out of the house.
Doc Cunningham has done nothing but save them from a murderous Piggy Man and then introduce himself as the previous owner of the house, but for some reason now Matt wants to throw him out(?). I mean, Matt was willing to follow a bleached blonde leprechaun into the woods at night several times – hunting for dangerous demons even – but having Doc Cunningham save their lives and then point that out is too much for Matt.
Shelby wants to hear more, so Doc Cunningham brings out all his historical notes on the house’s paranormal activity. He assures them he’s going to publish a book about it one day. He tells the story of the Chen family who owned the house in the 70s. Piggy Man knocked the daughter down the stairs, so the family started praying to their ancestors. But the ancestor ghosts weren’t strong enough to battle Butcher Bates, who came and axed them all to death. No one ever saw the Chen family again, so they are listed as “Missing”. There were also three hunters who blew each other’s heads off in the living room. And then the Killer Nurse Sisters. Butcher Bates had the ghost town folk pull the arms off one of the nurses, in a totally not-scientifically-possible way, and then butchered the head off the other. The nurses are listed as “Missing” as well, along with every other owner listed back to 1792. So how does Doc Cunningham know that Butcher Bates got to them, if they all just disappeared?
The ghosts told him themselves. When he was in the woods, they would come to him and whisper their stories in his ear. Okay, NOW is the time when you should throw the Doc out.
Anyway, all these people disappeared during the same time of year. The lunar cycle of the “Dying Grass Moon” in October. Keep in mind that Halloween is coming up, and whether there was such a thing as Halloween in the 1700s or not, it’s Ryan Murphy’s favorite day. “Word on the street” is that episode 6 is when things are going to get good on AHS this season, and that also corresponds with Halloween. So keep a look out for dying grass in your yard, and a blood moon in the sky, and dead pigs on your porch. Cuz it might mean Butcher Bates is on her way.