The opening scene of AHS: Murder House takes place in 1978--far enough back to show that the house has a long history of evil, but not nearly long enough to take us back to its nasty beginnings and leave us with plenty of intriguing questions about what the hell its deal is. This flashback also features a child version one of the characters we'll soon come to know in the present day: Adelaide.
Mini-Addy sees redheaded twins Troy and Brian (who I always think of as the Weasley Twins) entering the house and tells them they're going to die inside. She's right, and we'll quickly see she has a habit of telling people they'll die in the house. On first watching this flashback just seemed like a great creepy setup for the pilot, but rewatching shows it sets up a few important things about the timeline of the house. In 1978, the house was abandoned and in terrible condition; it must've been between owners for a while. However, we do know that Addy already has a connection with it and she and Constance, her mother who appears later in the episode's present day played with gusto by Jessica Lange, are already living in the neighborhood at this point.
From here we jump to the present. Our protagonists the Harmon family are shown in their old home. Matriarch Vivian is recovering from a late-term miscarriage and discovers that her psychiatrist husband Ben is having an affair with a student. To rekindle their marriage they pack up teenage daughter Violet and move across country and straight into the Murder House. In what initially seems like a throwaway scene they're brought in to the house for the first time by their real estate agent Marcy, but this time around the pertinent facts she shares are more evident. Marcy tells them that the previous owners, a gay couple, died in a murder-suicide in the basement--the same place we saw the Infantata kill the twins during our earlier flashback. Hmmm.
Things start to get weird after the Harmons move in--although not outright freaky just yet, for the parents at least. Vivian is repeatedly vexed by Addy breaking into the house, and Constance making very uncomfortable small talk when she comes to fetch her. She also hires maid Moira, played by Frances Conroy. Moira hints at a long history with the house, and experience with its fickle moods. Aside from an odd sense of knowing more than she lets on, Moira also as another weird characteristic: when she's viewed by Ben she's played bye the very sexy Alexandra Breckenridge, and her uniform is less Downton Abbey and more 50 Shades of Grey. She also has a scene with Constance which has one of the moments that really sucked me into the show the first time around as Constance tells her, "Don't make me kill you again."
The other semi-ambiguous character hanging around the house is Tate, Ben's first patient in his new home practice. Tate is a cute teenage boy played by Evan Peters and he meets with Ben to discuss his grisly dreams about carrying out a mass shooting at his school. He doesn't shoot people he hates, he shoots people he likes, freeing them from the misery and filth of the world. His fantasies of going through the halls of his high school stole the scene on first viewing, but he also talks about his family, calling his mother a cocksucker and saying she was having an affair with the next door neighbor, leading to his father leaving.
Outside of Ben's office, Tate manages to walk in on Violet cutting herself. The two form a friendship and Tate tells her that he was kicked out of the school she now attends. She agrees to his plan to deal with a bully who's been bothering her, luring the girl to the basement where Tate and the Infantata seem to work in tandem to scare the hell out of her and claw her face open.
Only one new friend shows up outside the immediate vicinity of the house: Larry Harvey, played by Dennis O'hare, claims to be an ex-resident who has recently been released from prison. His crime? Setting the house on fire with his wife and two daughters inside. He tries to convince Ben, already sleep walking to hang out around the gas range, to leave immediately but we all know that doesn't happen in these types of stories.
Meanwhile, back at the house, Vivian has fallen pregnant after finally having sex with Ben again, and then throwing in a bonus round using the gimp suit found in the attic upon move-in.
When you know what you're looking for, the pilot episode of the AHS: Murder House is already packed with back story and foreshadowing. There were also a few recurring motifs and themes:
Blood: The flashback is pretty bloody, between the gutted rat oozing on the stairs and the Weasley twin's grisly demise. Vivian's first scene is in her gynecologist's office; she discusses not minding her erratic periods because there's less blood, and mentions that Ben hates blood. Tate brings up blood and its magical properties during his session with Ben, brining up the idea of blood letting to purge the body. At the same time, Violet is shown cutting herself and bleeding on the white porcelain bathroom fixtures.
Fear: While Vivian restores the hellish murals in the entry way, she and Ben discuss the way that myth and legends have been created to help people deal with things they didn't understand. Vivian and Violet discuss the current poor family dynamics and Vivian says she's afraid of everything. Violet says she's not afraid of anything, but Tate's antics in the basement obviously terrify her and he's upset that her statement was not true. The Harmons already had plenty to be afraid of before they moved in the Murder House: infidelity, infertility, bullying, depression and self harm. Will the mythology that builds around the house end up alleviating their fears, or adding to them?
No comments:
Post a Comment