Yeah, we’re just now getting to Episode 5 here because I’ve been glued to the TV watching the REAL American Horror Story, our presidential race. Ryan Murphy should take some notes. Actually, scratch that, I don’t need the nightmares that would come from Murphy’s take on these election characters.
Last week, a bunch of stuff happened, I guess: there was blood, there was guts, and a few characters got killed off. Now we can afford to pay Evan Peters… Let’s go!
We open this episode with actual American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in a talking head.
Actual Real Person
She’s going to try to convince us that the Haunted House of Ham has one of the most interesting stories in American homes. She’s here to tell us the back story of the house, and so we learn that it was built by Edward Phillipe Mott, who bought the whole lot in an auction. Edward came from family money, and had extreme social anxiety, so he wanted to build his house away from people and parties, where he could be alone with his art collection. Well, his art collection and his luscious manservant Guinness. He also left his wife and child back in Philadelphia, but we’ll find out what happened to them later. He has his servants construct a large underground space so he can save his precious art if kidnappers come.
“What color is your cock-head?”
Anyway, the land was already haunted by this time so there were various strange incidences such as worker injuries, squealing ghost pigs, and ghostly people running through the halls.
We watch Edward and Guinness making out in a bathtub set in front of the fireplace, and Edward babbles on about how he loves his art even more than he loves Guinness. This is all just a setup so Murphy has a reason to make Evan Peters say “But first, we rouge each other’s nipples.” Okay, we’re so shocked, Murphy, happy now?
“And later I talk about Guinness’s velvet tongue and purple cock-head.“
We’ve already seen Guinness working on an almost finished portrait of Edward, and we’ve been told that Edward liked to rearrange his art from room to room, but now Kearns Goodwin tells us “Edward wasn’t there two days before things started getting extremely weird.” [*sighhhhh* *drinks*] Edward wakes up in the middle of the night after hearing a crash, and finds all his artwork disheveled and destroyed. He rounds up all the fifty-some servants (nice job getting “away from people”) to yell and scream and abuse until he gets a confession. He doesn’t believe the story about some strange woman in the house, so he locks them all up in the outside cellar where Doc Elias later lived. He has Guinness chain up the cellar door until one of them confesses, which, well it’s kind of hard to be heard confessing when you’re chained in a cellar, but okay. Guinness gets all judgey-eyed at Edward who throws another goddamn tantrum about being the boss of everyone.
So Edward goes back to bed, but he’s woken up by the Pitchfork & Torches Crew of ghosts, headed by Butcher Bates. She wants to consecrate her land with Edward’s blood, which they do by driving a stake through him and then burning him alive.
Owie.
Guinness rode away on a horse, the only living witness, but since no fire or body was found, the black man got the blame for murdering his master. Guinness also didn’t bother telling anyone about the locked-up servants, so their bones were found years later.
Why wasn’t the cellar haunted when Elias lived there then??
So the house remained in the Mott trust for a century, with madness always running through the family. The line ended when the last Mott died in scandal in 1952 in South Florida. Let’s all think back to AHS Carnival, when Momma Mott and Dandy were terrorizing Jupiter, Florida along with Twisty the Clown. Evan Peters does a great job at portraying Dandy’s tantrum throwing ancestor. Anyway, the house was bought and sold a few times, but no one stayed long. Doris Kearns Goodwin declines to say if she thinks it’s haunted, but no fucking way she’s going to spend the night in it.
So we fast forward a couple hundred years to hear Matt finally calling 911. Not because the Pitchfork & Torches mob was disemboweling Cricket on their lawn, but because now they’re after Matt and Shelby. Actually Butcher Bates & Crew are doing nothing but building a bonfire outside and yelling threats. I hope Cricket haunts the fuck out of your entire family, Matt.
So Bates and Son are all Hear Ye, Hear Ye, You shalt allow us to slit your throats according to the orders of the Ancient Gods of the Woodland Gaga Witch or something.
Merciless Reckoning etc., etc.
Matt has some nonsense plan to escape by just leaving through the front door, but as they head down the stairs a new ghost, who appears to be an adolescent Trainspotting baby, grabs Flora. The ghost then scuttles off like a spider. Meanwhile, Pitchfork & Torches Crew are setting fire to everything outside. Inside, Piggy-Man and the Three Hunters appear, and Trainspotting spider ghost scuttles up the wall.