When last we left our haunted characters, they had all (well…most of them) escaped from the horror house in Roanoke and seemed to be safe and sound. Well, physically at least.

With 5 episodes left, where could they possibly go? Hang on, this gets twisty.

A title card is onscreen, detailing how popular the “My Roanoke Nightmare” reality show had become (23 million viewers!).

TV producer and unsympathetic jerkface Sidney James (Cheyenne Jackson) walks into a meeting (followed by his always-recording crew) and lays out his plan: a sequel. It totally makes sense, they have millions of followers on Facebook and Twitter, they were selling millions of dollars of advertising per show.  He wants to get everybody back into the house, reenactors and real people both. He’ll have cameras everywhere, recording everything.  It’ll be another smashing success! Sidney owns the house now, bought it for cheap from Matt and Shelby after the first show. They can do anything they want with the property now.

Except Shelby doesn’t want anything to do with this new show. She’s out.

Sidney interviews Shelby anyway, and, after manipulating her by fake-concerning empathy about her separation from Matt, and also her affair with Dominic Banks, the actor who played Matt in the first show.  CUT TO: Divulge Online clip of Shelby and Dominic out in public together.  Back in the interview, Shelby looks shocked. “I can’t do this.” she says. Sidney motions for the cameras to stop recording. They don’t.

While they take a “break” from the interview, she reveals that she will go back to the house, but only to see Matt again and maybe repair their relationship. Naturally, Sidney is ecstatic.  But she says she will only go back if Dominic is not there. She can’t do that to Matt. He assures her that Dominic is out. And as soon as he gets into the production van, he is assured that casting just closed on Dominic for the show. He’s in. “Beautiful,” he grins.

Two weeks before the blood moon, and there are crews all over the Roanoke house, installing cameras, lights, and other ghostly special effects for the guests to experience. A tech pushes a  few buttons and the faucet turns on, the sink shoots crap all over, the drawers and cabinets fly open, and a huge fireball explodes out of the oven. A little overkill, no? Sidney is over the moon with glee. His associate Diana Cross (Shannon Lucio) expresses some concern about all the “gimmicky pop-up scares.” He assures her that he just wants to get at the truth, and these are ways of getting the people to react.

While they’re arguing over the placement of the production trailers, an assistant runs over. “You gotta see this.” They run to where she indicates and–there are eight or so fetal pigs on the ground, all lined up in a circle.  Was it the hillbillies? But nobody’s seen them for months. “Well, if it wasn’t the Polks, then who the f*** was it?” Diana asks. They all stare pensively.

At The Oaks (Furnished Apartments) Sidney is interviewing Agnes Mary Winstead, who played the part of The Butcher in the reenactments. He is, at first, charming her, ingratiating himself into her acting process and seems genuinely interested in her experiences. She talks about what a privilege it was to portray her, “the role of a lifetime.” Then Sidney drops the other shoe: “Let’s talk about Hollywood.” CUT TO: Tourist phone video of a deranged Agnes, dressed as The Butcher, wildly swinging a cleaver in front of the Chinese Theatre and screaming for people to “GET OFF MAH LUND!!”

Well.  Six months in a mental health facility after being charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and she’s all better now, right? Right? I mean, her meds are completely regulated. She’s fine!  Sidney has one more ace up his sleeve. She is not going to be in the sequel and he has, in fact, taken out a restraining order on her. As the interview lights click off around her, she intones, “But you need me! You can’t do Roanoke without The Butcher!”

As they leave her apartment, she runs after them, now sounding like The Butcher: “Vile! Wretched!” He tells Diana not to turn around as they leave. “Do you really think a restraining order’s going to keep her away?” she asks. “God, I hope not,” he says.

Meanwhile, Lee is being interviewed by E! News and says she’s fine with doing the sequel. Some people think she should stand trial for the murder of her ex-husband Mason, and she just wants a chance to clear her name. CUT TO: Sidney and his team discussing Lee’s contract: are they exposing themselves to a lawsuit if she kills someone (again)? He is assured their contract is ironclad. No liability.  However, the actress who played Lee in the reenactments, Monet Tumusiime, has been in and out of rehab, and they could be liable if the production company “knowingly” provides alcohol to her.  The key word here is “knowingly.”

Diana’s phone rings.  Uh oh. There’s a major problem on set. They rush to the house to find an ambulance and a white sheet-covered body being wheeled into it. Video cam shot from earlier shows one of the workers using a chainsaw in the background. It suddenly jumps up and imbeds itself into his neck, chewing away at him for a few seconds until he falls to the ground. Dead.

Naturally, since the guests are arriving in just a few hours, Sidney makes the decision to continue with the camera installations and other prep work. It’s almost time to start the show, after all. Diana is totally upset with him, and he says she’s overreacting. She’s done, and jumps into her car, tires skidding and spewing dirt at Sidney’s face as she races off.

Diana turns on her phone camera (dash cam?) as she drives away, to record the events right now as they happened as evidence of Sidney’s spiraling out of control. She knows that there is some freaky stuff going on at that house and she refuses to be a part of it anymore. She also doesn’t want to die.  She suddenly stops her car, staring at the road. She turns her camera around and shows us: Priscilla, standing on a hillside. Diana smartly says, “I have no intention of finding out who that is,” and she puts her car into gear, and starts driving away again.

SUDDENLY, PigMan jumps up from the backseat and attacks her. The car crashes and rolls over and over. CUT TO: Black. A title card explains that Diana’s footage was found three months later by police, but her body has never been recovered.

So, guests have arrived and Audrey Tindal, the British actress who played Shelby, is making her first “confessional” to the camera, talking about her previous adventures here, where she met her new (much younger) husband, Rory Monahan, the actor who played the original builder of the house, Edward Phillipe Mott. We see very tastefully romantic soft-focus clips (courtesy of Wedding Keepsakes) of their outdoor wedding, with the ceremony presided over by Brian Wells (hello again, Chaz Bono) the actor who played one of the Polk family. It’s sweet and lovely.

Back at the house, Rory gets a call from his agent: they want him to fly back to L.A. for a screen test to be in a new project with Brad Pitt. Audrey reminds him that he’s contracted to stay at the house for the next three days. He scoffs at her. As they walk around the house, a shadow passes by one of the windows. He sees it, she doesn’t. They creep closer and–SMASH–somebody (was it Agnes? Looked like her) breaks the window, startling them both.

Sidney shows up with some more guests, and goes outside to look for Agnes. Audrey confesses that Agnes went mental on her for winning a Saturn award that Agnes thought she should win. We get to listen to a 911 call Audrey frantically made as Agnes tried to break into her house.  She does not want to be here, and certainly does not want to deal with that woman again. Shelby tries to compliment the couple (hinting at Audrey’s elder status), but bungles it awkwardly. And then Matt and Lee show up. Matt and Shelby stare at each other.  Tension.

Sidney confiscates all their phones and gives them…phones (well, just the camera function is working on them), so that they all can get footage for the production and be a part of it (and so that AHS can still get nice cutaway shots within the parameters of the story they’re telling, hehehe).  Sidney hands out some sleeping arrangements, Lee with Monet, and Matt with Shelby. Matt: Uhh…that’s not gonna work.  Matt offers to sleep in the basement, Shelby asks to talk about it, and Lee goes off on her for being a weak, self-involved little girl.

Reality drama is the best drama. Audrey and Monet make faces at each other as Lee lets loose. Matt, Lee and Shelby go off to bed (albeit in different rooms) and Audrey, Monet and Rory all discuss how fake the emotions were in the previous scene. Audrey maintains it’s always better to underplay these things. They agree that the fact that those three came back to the house obviously means their story is fake. Matt overhears them. He asks when the reenactors were here filming at the house. Summer-ish, one says. Matt points outside to the growing blood moon. It’s a different time of year, kids.

Then comes the gut-punch: a title card saying that over the next three days, “every participant in the series died under mysterious circumstance. Except one.”  Wait…what?? Whoa.

Later, Audrey and Rory are in the hot tub (wait–there’s a hot tub?), Matt is in the basement, Shelby is in her bedroom, Monet is pulling out a vodka bottle from her luggage–seems like everybody is getting ready for bed. As Lee walks down a hallway, a totally burned and disfigured man (Mason?) Walks behind her and then looks directly at the camera.  Outside, Audrey decides to go in for a shower, leaving Rory all alone in the tub. Shelby sneaks past Lee and down the stairs to the basement. She tries to convince Matt to leave right now, go away with her and start over. Suddenly, there is a knock at the front door upstairs. Shelby goes upstairs to open it. Aaaand it’s Dominic.

Matt comes up stairs, sees Dominic, and immediately begins fighting him. In the hot tub, Rory hears the commotion and starts to get out. Behind him in the darkness we see a gathering of flickering torches. Audrey is upstairs finishing her shower, and she hears the door creak open. “Rory?” He’s not there, so she turns to the mirror. It’s fogged over. She wipes it away and–PigMan is in the bathroom with her.  She screams and runs downstairs, into Rory’s waiting arms.  She is hysterical, so Rory runs upstairs to find the guy. He looks under beds, in closets, etc. Nothing. He shuts the last closet–and the two murderous nurses are right there. They slit his throat, stab him repeatedly, and generally hurt his chances for being in that Brad Pitt movie.

Matt is walking around downstairs with one of those phone-cameras, just looking back at his old home. In the dining room he pans the camera up and on the wall, in bright red…liquid…is the word “MURDER.” The missing R from before has now been filled in.

All the other members are sitting around the kitchen table, complaining about Sidney pulling this stupid crap, trying to scare them, when Matt comes in slowly in, shell shocked. They all look at him. He looks back at them, then just says, “R is for Rory.”

Wow. A lot happened in this episode, laying groundwork for what will (hopefully) be an amazing climax. Only one person will survive? One “Final Girl” (or Boy) to tell the tale when all is said and done?  I can’t help but think of the tagline from Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Who will survive and what will be left of them?

Only 4 more episodes to find out! See you next time.