THE FOLLOWING STORY IS INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS.

THE STORY MAY CONTAIN DISTURBING IMAGES.

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

And that’s how we open each episode of AHS: My Roanoke Nightmare. It still takes me a few moments to acclimate myself to this season. Gone are the flashy camera moves and fisheye lenses, replaced by flat lighting and and a sturdy, stationary camera that captures confessionals from those involved. It looks so much like a reality show, it’s fascinating, and a little creepy.

Just like a reality show, we are treated to a quick montage of clips from the episode we are about to watch, whetting our appetite and making sure we don’t click to other channels.

Picking up right from the previous chapter, Shelby is running in the woods, scared to death by what she sees: a scalped, bloodied man, someone getting a pig tail hammered into their backside, and Kathy Bates.  Bates’ character seems to be the leader of this group gathered around a fire, punishing someone for thievery (and recalling the Pig Man story from season 1).  She runs away after being spotted and, just as she reaches the road, she faints in front of an oncoming car.

She wakes up in the hospital with her husband at her side. He says they should leave the house, but she actually refuses. She thinks it must be the “mountain men,” still trying to scare them away, and she won’t back down.

Lee’s ex-husband brings their daughter, Lee, to stay for a bit (even though weird things are happening? Conveeeenient).  Lee goes to make her some lunch and when she comes back, Flora is gone. She finds her off in another room, talking to herself. Or was it her new invisible friend, Priscilla?

In the middle of the night, Matt and Shelby are woken up by noises again, including the squealing of a pig.  They go out to the woods, and Shelby is determined to get to the bottom of things.  They get lost and separated from each other pretty quickly, and spend a few minutes yelling out each other’s name in frustration. When they finally find each other again, they meet up in front of a burning altar or some kind, made up like a Blair Witch scarecrow (hello again!) with a severed pig’s head stuck on top.  In a fit of anger, Matt knocks the altar down.

Later, the cops agree to leave a man posted on guard in the driveway, and also to have a talk with those “Polk boys.” Matt and Shelby are not impressed.

Even later, Matt is woken up by the telephone ringing. He answers it and hears a mysterious voice, even though the phone has been unplugged. He hears more voices coming from the dining and walks in to find a hospital bed there, holding an elderly lady. There is a nurse at her side. The nurse gets angry at the elderly woman, and is joined by another nurse who admonishes the patient, “You’ve been warned…” and shoots her in the head.  And the nurses just laugh and laugh and laugh.

Matt turns and gets (wakes up) the cop in the driveway, and screams at him about intruders and murders. The cop comes in and finds…nothing out of the ordinary.

Lee’s ex-husband Mason comes to pick their daughter up, but Flora has disappeared. She appears to be playing hide-and-seek with them. They find her in a littleHarry-Potter cubby hole, talking to…nobody.  Well, she says she was talking to Priscilla, “the little girl with the funny clothes.”  She was going to offer Priscilla her doll as a trade so she wouldn’t kill them all.

Well, Mason is having none of this stuff. He drags his little girl out to the car and speeds off. And Lee starts drinking.

Matt puts Lee to bed to try to get her to sleep it off, when Shelby calls from the living room. She’s staring out the window and matt walks up to her, then does a doubletake. “Do you see her?” Shelby asks. There is someone, a kind of blurry someone, standing out in their yard, staring back at them.

When they go out to the yard to check it out, they find no person. But they do find a covered root cellar of some kind.  Will they investigate?

Meanwhile, Lee is in bed being watched over by the two murderous nurses. She startles herself awake. The room is empty. She walks out into the hallway and sees a vision of many severed piggie tails, nailed to the wall, bloodily wagging back and forth. The Pic Man appears and scares her, and then…nothing. The hallway is clean and empty.

Matt and Shelby naturally head down into the root cellar. It looks like someone had been living down there, but it’s not clear how long ago…or for how long a stay.  They find a video camera down there and, naturally, play the tape. There is a frantic man, talking to the camera, ranting about evil entities in the house who want to kill him, which is why he’s living in the root cellar away from the building.

And then there’s a whole lotta pipe-laying exposition about the two nurses, who are actually sisters, and how they opened a hospice care in the building, but really just killed elderly people whose first initials spell out “MURDER” in order to…become immortal? And gain their souls? And stuff? Oooookay.  Matt recognizes something from his dream, runs into the dining room, and rips off the wallpaper, strip by strip. He uncovers an M painted on the bare wall underneath. Then a U and an R. D. E.  It’s missing just one last letter.

For some reason, the guy on the tape decides to go back into the house to confront the spirit and…uh, it does not end very well for him. Suddenly, in the present day house, there is a big thump, and Matt and Shelby run into the hallway to investigate. A door slowly opens and, embedded into the door, is a bloody meat cleaver.

They try to get the bank to take back the house, but that’s a dead end (heh).

While they discuss what they’re going to do, Lee shows up with Flora in the car. She kidnapped her own daughter.

While Flora does her homework in the other room, Matt gives Lee a piece of his mind about what she’s done. This is not going to make the custody judge happy. Shelby walks in, talking on the phone. To Mason. She smooths things over and gets him to calm down and, more importantly, not call the cops on Lee.

While the adults are having this conversation, Flora is in the other room doing her homework. Alone.  She hears laughter and looks out the window. A young girl is out there, beckoning to her.  Flora smiles at her friend.

And that’s the last we see of Flora.  Lee comes into the room and Flora is gone.

They search the house, they search the ward, they search the woods. Nothing. No sign of her.

Except her bright yellow hoodie hanging from the top of the tallest tree.

And so ends the second episode of My Roanoke Nightmare. This season has such a different look and feel to it, I can understand why some people are feeling ambivalent about the chapters so far. I, for one, am really interested in what happens in the future chapters. There’s rumor of a huge twist coming soon, and if that’s true, they have really hidden it well. I got no clue about what could possibly happen next week.

See you then!