"Return to Murder House" – American Horror Story S08E06 Review

First of all, a bit of news for my many loyal followers *his voice heavy with that which men call sarcasm*. I thought that I'd be taking a break from reviewing American Horror Story because Channel Zero was starting up. And, silly me, I thought that it would be on Wednesdays like the last run. But... it isn't. Syfy is doing some kind of six-day marathon starting October 27. I guess that they're trying to do a run-up to Halloween.

So the good news is that I'll still be able to review AHS for the last four episodes of the season. Yay! But if you can fit it into your schedule, I'd check out Channel Zero. It's a lot weirder than AHS, if that's possible. None of the standalone six-episode seasons are related (yet), but you can tell why Syfy greenlit it after AHS proved to be a success. You can almost hear the Syfy execs thinking, "Hey, AHS is a hit. And this guy wants to do a horror series where each season is a standalone. We've got some money so let's throw it his way!"

That raises the question of if I'll be able to review every episode/night of Channel Zero, six nights in a row. It's not like the other networks are going to cooperate with Syfy and preempt everything. Oh well, that's a bridge to cross when the time comes.

Oh, and if you're DVRing the show, remember to check your Onepasses. If your DVR is like mine, since they change the name every year with the new subtitle, old OnePasses won't pick up the new season.

But enough about other shows. "Return" is the long-awaited sequel to season one of AHS, where the show caught on, made big (or bigger) stars of Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, Evan Peters, Taissa Famiga, Frances Conroy, and Jessica Lange, and let Murphy & Falchuk indulge their social and political views. Not to mention making FX money hand over fist. It ties into season 8, "Apocalypse" because the baby that was born when Rubber Man (Tate Langdon, sort of) raped Vivien Harmon grew up to become the Antichrist, Michael Langdon.

So since the Apocalypse has hit, the witches from Season 3, "Coven" have shown up. And AHS has gone into flashback mode. In tonight's flashback, Cordelia sends Madison and Behold to investigate the Murder House where Michael was conceived. So basically we get a lot of flashbacks within the flashback.

For those who have forgotten season 1, the Harmons died and are trapped in the house, all of the 36 spirits that died there are trapped in the house because it's built on the mouth to Hell. This includes husband Ben, wife Vivien, daughter Violet, maid Moira, neighbor Constance (more on how she ended up there), three of Constance's children including Tate, a Black Dahlia victim or two, and lots of other spirits. Billie Dean Howard, the "medium to the stars" isn't dead but she is hanging around the place. Apparently to provide Sarah Paulson something to do when she wasn't directing the episode.

Madison and Behold quickly create a spell that lets them interact with the house's spirits. Vivien isn't talking to Ben, Violet isn't talking to Tate, Ben is providing psychiatric counseling to Tate, Constance is forcing Moira to continue acting as her maid. Nobody is talking to Madison and Behold about Michael, but Constance says they will if they get rid of Moira.

Fortunately, Moira wants to be released. Behold digs up her bones and Moira thanks them for their help. They put the bones in a grave next to Moira's mother, Molly. In a touching moment, mother and daughter spirits meet. Moira admits she took her mother off of the respirator, and her mother thanks her because she was in constant pain. They wander off to the afterlife together.

Constance then starts her tale. She took the baby Michael outside of the house to become the mother she always dreamed of, and screwed up with her four biological children. But Michael went from killing small animals to killing sitters and priests, and aged ten years over night. Constance eventually realized she was just a pawn rather than a mother, went to the house, killed herself, and became a spirit there as well.

This prompts Ben to start talking for some reason. He explains when Michael came there looking for Constance, Michael took him under his wing and tried to be a father to him. But Tate called Michael a monster, and Michael killed two new house-owners and incinerated their spirits. Ben realized he couldn't redeem Michael.

Then Vivien shows up and she starts talking, after she hears Ben's story and they have a rapprochement of sorts. Vivien explains there are signs of evil surrounding Michael, including three black-robed Priests of Satan: Miriam (Kathy Bates), Anton LaVey (Carlo Rota), and a third unnamed woman (Naomi Grossman). They kill a girl and give her heart to Michael who cheerfully eats it and his shadow sprouts demonic wings. The followers say that Michael is bonded with his true father.

Vivien tries to kill Michael but he burns her. This doesn't destroy her spirit for some reason, and Vivien reveals Tate saved her. Behold and Madison have what they need, but Madison finds Violet crying over Tate because she thinks he's a monster. Madison explains the house's evil got into Tate and left him to go into Michael. She blows some dust into Violet's eyes, which is a spell to open her eyes. Violet realizes Tate is now good, runs to him, and as Madison and Behold drive off they see the happy teenage couple standing in the window holding each other.

So "Return" wraps up the various loose ends from season 1 and has a lot of happy endings. Violet and Tate are back together, which I guess was a fanfic thing with a lot of fans. Ben and Vivien are back together. Moira has gone on to her just reward. Constance is trapped in the house but seems happy to be with three of her "real" children, including the previous Rose. Tate and Violet are back together.

There's lot of humor in the episode, and credit to writer Crystal Liu. Behold (Billy Porter) and Madison (Emma Roberts) pose as a couple for the realtor, which provides some chuckles. Madison snarks quite a bit once they get to the house, but there's some pathos there as well as she tells Behold she doesn't want to screw up her third chance at life. She has more snarky moments after that, like telling Constance she could never love a child that wasn't beautiful. And watching Behold as he digs and sweats looking for Moira's bones. However, as Behold points out at the end, she's just a big softy. She helps send Moira onto the afterlife, and she reunited Tate and Violet. Apparently Madison doesn't make it through the Apocalypse, which is a shame if true.

Behold gets mostly reaction shots, like this one when Madison talks about "making babies". It's nice to see that he comes around to the anti-Michael side of things pretty quickly once the story is laid out for him. Among the newcomers, HITG Carlo Rota is the only one who really makes an impression as the overly-hammy Black Pope LaVey.

Of the old-timers, everyone is pretty much spot on. From Ben as the "tearjerker" (he masturbates as he looks out the window, crying), to Constance as the grand dame gone really really bad, to Moira the trapped-in-her-personal-Hell maid, they all slip easily back into their season 1 roles. Evan Peters gets to express some of Tate's anger, but that's about it. Taissa Farmiga doesn't really do anything. Ms. Farmiga has also been curiously subdued as Zoe on the "Coven" side of things. Granted, her characters have never been major players in seasons 1 and 3. But why bring her back if they're not going to do anything with her?

Ditto with Sarah Paulson, whose Billie Jean serves absolutely no purpose in the proceedings. Billie just... disappears after Constance makes her entrance and they exchange a few lines. Other than to remind people Sarah Paulson is still on the show, what was the point of having Billie Jean there?

Connie Britton comes across as curiously subdued. Like Farmiga, her attitude is she's there to get the paycheck.

Cody Fern continues to be both ominous and touching as Michael. You can see where his crappy upbringing had an impact on how he turned out. Being born the product of rape and son of Satan may not have given him a choice. But being rejected by both Constance and Michael didn't help. Kathy Bates doesn't have much to do, but at least we learn how Miriam and Michael met. And Bates makes the most of a brief scene where she abducts the girl to be sacrificed to Michael. Somehow she disappears next to the overacting-his-heart-out Rota.

So "Return" answers everyone's pressing questions about what happened to the Murder House residents. It's a great standalone episode. The season itself has kind of gone off the track. It started as an end-of-the-world scenario, but out of six episodes we've now spent three of them in... 2018 or whenever the heck it is rather than after the bombs dropped. Judging from the previews, next week will also be an extended flashback as we see more of Michael's rise to power. Sometimes it feels like we're watching an extended season 3 rather than an apocalyptic season 8. Like the creative team would rather spend their time on "Coven" than "Apocalypse".

That, and Michael's rise to power isn't that fascinating. Yes, Miriam as Michael's adoptive mother and public Satanist is entertaining. But most of this we've seen in the various Omen movies. Heck, I think I caught a line or two from the Omen movies tonight. AHS is just barely keeping their take on the Antichrist interesting. Setting it in "Coven" rather than "Apocalypse" territory isn't helping. I'd rather see Michael make good on his threat to destroy the witches, rather than watch how he came to power.

You also wonder what season 9 will be like, or if season 8 is the end of the road. Almost everyone in all the seasons are gone for good. Unless the creative team is going to do a post-apocalyptic continuing series, ignoring season 8 and doing a season in an early time period seems... weak, somehow. Making new seasons prequels, as it were, is as unsatisfying as most prequels. We know how it all ends, folks. The Hotel Cortez and its ghost residents, including Liz Taylor? Nuked. Everyone in the asylum and those who survived it? Nuked. The circus survivors who supposedly lived happily ever after? Nuked. The actors who survived the events of "Roanoke"? Nuked. Maybe "Apocalypse" doesn't take place in the same universe. But then why tie it so closely to at least seasons 1 and 3? Which are tied to other seasons. And so on, and so on?

Also, "Return" is a bit of a time-waster in the current season. Yes, it wraps up loose ends from season 1. But what about the current season? Who are the Cooperative? Where did the warlocks go? What is up with all of the stuff going on in Outpost 3 (snakes coming back to life, Gallant thinking his nana was Rubber Man and stabbing her to death, determining who is "worthy" to go to the secure outpost) when Michael comes out and says he was going to kill everyone. Michael doesn't seem to have an endgame. Or he's accomplished his endgame and now that it's over, he's got a few people left to toy with. But if he wants that, then why kill them? It was ultimately his idea to poison everyone.

Most of these questions will probably be answered. But in a ten-episode season, the creative team is spending four episodes on their version of The Omen rather than answering these questions. It's an odd allocation of resources.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?