‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ episode 5 preview: Waiting on the twist

If you remember back to an Entertainment Weekly cover story earlier this fall, one of the big takeaways from executive producer Ryan Murphy’s comments was that the upcoming fifth episode of “American Horror Story: Roanoke” was going to be a pivotal turning point in the show. This is where there would be an enormous twist, which would set up the second half of the season in unexpected fashion.

The question that we have going into next week’s “Chapter 5” is whether this is something that happens during the episode, or will be set up either in the closing seconds or the start of episode 6. Either way, this is not an episode to miss.

Promo – The one that aired tonight following “Chapter 4” offered little in the way of specifics, other than reminding us that Matt and Shelby’s house is now completely under siege by the Butcher and her undead army, despite to protect what is theirs and effectively do her bidding. It could be pretty gruesome stuff given what happened to Cricket.

One of the more interesting theories out there is that every episode of this show so far is meant to be a tribute-of-sorts to a corresponding season of the show. There was a mention of Dandy Mott’s ancestors from “American Horror Story: Freak Show” in here, so that does make a trifle of sense. You could argue that the “Hotel” reference in this promo mostly stems from the whole notion of the place “coming to life,” something that could be said about the Hotel Cortez with its creepy rooms and ghosts stirring up trouble among the place.

Of course, if “Roanoke” really wants to mimic “Hotel” next week they’ll make the episode a good 90 minutes long and confusing as heck in the process.

For more on “Roanoke,” head over here to read our review for Wednesday’s episode. Meanwhile, sign up over here to score some other TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: FX.)