‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ episode 4 review: The truth behind the Lost Colony
For much of the past week or so, we’ve wondered a simple question when it comes to “American Horror Story: Roanoke“: What in the world is going on? It felt in some ways as though this show, which started with some sort of humble beginnings, was going fully off the deep end and on a trip to Crazytown.
Don’t get us wrong: “Chapter 4” on Wednesday night was still crazy. Luckily, it at least it made more sense than it once did. Basically, this was the story of reanimated corpses showing up around the Blood Moon, which stemmed in part back from the days of the Lost Colony. Apparently, the Ryan Murphy version of this tale is that Kathy Bates’ Butcher was born out of this time, a woman desperate to preserve her version of the future so much that she was willing to resort to her own means of destruction to do so. First, she made human sacrifices. Then, in a true “that escalated quickly” moment, she murdered everyone in the colony and cursed them to live out their days here.
This brings us back to the present, where Shelby and Matt are still living out their Roanoke Nightmare, and that’s without even mentioning Witch-Lady (Lady Gaga) and her evil dealings in all of this. Let’s dive into that, shall we?
Through another flashback sequence, which oddly came right in the middle of another sex scene with Matt, we learned that the Witch was almost burned as one after first arriving to America. Yet, that didn’t happen, and she became a powerful entity in her own right responsible for her own massacre. Had a little more time been spent on it, odds are that we would have cared a little more. The truth is, as soon as we dived further in here the attention instead refocused on the Butcher and her army of dead people approaching the house and yammering on about her land. She brutally attacked Cricket, and then gave us one of the nastiest sequences we’ve ever seen on the show. From there, she left a message: Matt and Shelby were the next targets.
Overall, we’d classify this as … entertaining? Well, it was despite how gruesome it was at times, and while Gaga’s character doesn’t 100% fit, we do appreciate the nods to the Mott family from “American Horror Story: Freak Show” and the way a few things tied together tonight. Grade: B.
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