Kirsty Capes reviews the fifth episode of American Horror Story season 6…
As the nightmare continues, American Horror Story’s sixth anthology instalment comes to its midseason point as tensions reach new heights. Shelby and Matt have recovered Flora, finally, from the clutches of the Croatoan colony, but that doesn’t mean the danger is over, as we find out in episode 5.
Frances Conroy is back as the matriarch of a cannibalistic hill billy family, called the Polks, who Matt, Shelby and Flora find themselves in the clutches of, and Evan Peters FINALLY makes his entrance as a sixteenth century nobleman who originally built the Roanoke house, and became the first victim of the Butcher and her colony. Peters plays a hoity-toity art collector with a snobbish English accent and a powdered wig, and although his sexuality is not integral to the plot, for some reason the audience is treated to an unnecessarily long scene of him in the bath with his servant lover. AHS has a habit of doing this – including overt sexualisation to add another facet to the gore and horror where none is needed. Sex is not synonymous with horror, and this is a mistake Murphy and Falchuk often make.
Some interesting additions to this episode, and an added layer of intrigue to the epistolary format, is the cameo of renowned American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in the talking heads portion of My Roanoke Nightmare. Real-life Shelby (Lily Rabe) also indicates at the end of the episode that the Roanoke horror is over, that the family has escaped, but of course we all know that we are only in fact half-way through the season, meaning that there’s plenty more to the nightmare than the family think. I’m looking forward to a big plot twist next week, and hopefully the doing away of the tiresome show-within-a-show format in favour of something much more exciting. My Roanoke Nightmare is still not living up to previous seasons of AHS, in my opinion, and I have a feeling episode 6 is going to be a make or break moment for the season. Let’s wait and see…
Kirsty Capes
Originally published October 13, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
