“American Horror Story:” Season Six Episode Eight

We begin where we left off last week, in the aftermath of Agnes’s murder and Dominic’s freak out over it. He’s very similar to Agnes in the way that both of them truly didn’t sign up for murderous ghosts, and only wanted to be on TV. Then again, I don’t think anybody would willingly sign up for a sleepover at a haunted house surrounded by hillbilly-infested woods.

The hillbilly family (the Polks) has always been just another threat to our main cast of characters, kind of like the cherry on top of the all of the hell and horror that goes along with a house full of angry dead people. Actually more like the human jerky on top, because not only are they cannibalistic hillbillies who work for blood thirsty dead colonists, they’re also still sore from Shelby and Matt’s escape from the house episodes prior. The saddest part though, is that the hillbillies can’t seem to grasp the difference between actors and real people. Too bad for Audrey, because the Polks are bitter and Shelby is already dead so the actress who plays her is the next best thing. She only gets one of her teeth ripped out, in comparison to the chunks taken off Lee’s leg and shoulder, its nothing.

Speaking of Shelby, before slitting her own throat in the bathroom of the house, she and Dominic attempted to escape the Butcher by going through the underground tunnel. Again. Sadly for them the entire Chen family was just waiting for them and god are they terrifying. Already we’ve seen one of the daughters climbing around on the ceiling looking like something from the exorcists, but an entire family of them? Nightmare fuel. Dominic is of course freaking out- no surprise there- but Shelby is surprisingly calm. Maybe it’s because she’s lived through this before or maybe it’s because she’s accepted the fact that resistance is futile. This becomes obvious when she decides to commit suicide, which by the way was probably the stupidest idea ever. Now she’ll have to roam the halls of that house for the rest of eternity with a family of Chinese demon spiders, a pig guy and god knows who else has died there and left to rot.

Back to Lee who, to everyone’s surprise, didn’t die in the previous episode. It was largely assumed that after Mama stabbed Lee in the leg in preparation to jerky it, Lee was a goner. But it turns out that the Polks like to cut them up piece by piece and keep them alive while they jerky their victim, fear and exhaustion give the jerky a delicious tang supposedly. And in one of the most uncomfortable scenes, we see Lee seduce Jether Polk (one of Mama’s sons) and thankfully before any overalls came flying off, She successfully kills him and escapes.

Lucky for Audrey, Lee helps free her after Monique escaped and said she would “come back for help”. Let’s be honest though, Monique (if she even didn’t die in the woods or the house) was not going to come back for Audrey. It would have taken two seconds to untie Audrey, but then again when you’re trapped with ghosts and hillbillies you can live with a guilty conscience as long as you get to live.

One great thing about this episode, is the way that Audrey went from constantly crying and blubbering whenever something happened to being hilarious under pressure. Audrey’s character goes from annoying British actress to a fan favorite. Iconic lines like “I paid good money for these teeth” and “do you want a joint?” made running from murderous ghosts and hillbillies hilarious. Not to mention the fact that after she sees Dominic’s prone dead body after the Pigman murders him, all she has to say is, “he was such a great scene partner, gave me so much to work with.”

Once Lee and Audrey make it back to the house to care for Lee’s wounds, they are luckily able to make it through the night. As the sun comes up Lee says that they have to go back to the Polks because they were taping them the whole time and in the wrong hands Lee murdering Jether and Audrey bashing in Mama’s head could put them in jail. The watchers know though, that the only reason Lee wants to go back for the tape is because it has Lee’s confession to murdering her ex-husband. The idea that Lee actually murdered her husband, burned his body and hung him up on a wooden platform seems really farfetched, but Lee is hell bent on going back to get the tape and eventually convinces Audrey to go with her. Decisions likes this are why at the end of the three days only one person survives.

Tune in next Wednesday at 10 p.m. to see just how Lee and/or Audrey are brutally murdered and if Monique’s dead body is rotting in the woods.