‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ episode 9 review: Out of the woods
Sure, we’re being somewhat ironic with this “American Horror Story: Roanoke” title, mostly because it should be “get out of the d-mn woods.” Why in the world do the people on this show think it’s a great idea to roam around at night under the specter of the Blood Moon? It’s like waving a sign that says “kill me now” across it.
To us, we suppose that the biggest problem with the ninth and penultimate episode of the season was just that Taissa Farmiga’s character of Sophie, a Millennial deciding to investigate the woods with some of her friends (one of them played by Jacob Artist). Well, that didn’t quite work out according to plan. She witnessed grave danger, death, and a suddenly-possessed version of Lee on a tear. All of a sudden, it didn’t quite matter as much that she’d killer her husband; it also turned out that she was looking for more blood.
Basically, Zombie Lee seemingly killed both Monet and Audrey, and then set her sights on Sophie with the rest of the undead army turning up. We watched someone intestines get pulled out right in front of us, so that may very well be the new started in scripted TV grossness for the month. This was basically the same sort of ridiculous Butcher craziness that we had the first time around, just in a different form with some new people.
What made this work? Really, it was the performance of Farmiga, who gave a performance that felt very much like “Scream Queens” on acid. She was really funny and biting in some moments, but then serious and terrifying the next. We’re 100% sure that fans of hers probably wanted her around longer than a mere few minutes, but that’s what you get.
The next morning, the cops FINALLY turn up. Great timing, guys! You missed everything! Then again, we guess if we were these guys, we’re not entirely sure we would want to be out there in the midst of this either. They had a pretty clear (and horrific) view of most of the violence.
So where in the world do we go from here? We have no clue, but we’re sure that somehow, we’ll be peeling back a curtain as we get closer and closer to the end. The only real question that remains is what sort of curtain we’re talking about. They did find two survivors in Audrey and Lee, but the latter was hardly of her own mind anymore. She may actually have a fate worse than death, tormented and haunted by everything painful that happened. Also, Audrey was killed seconds after she regained consciousness after she went after Lee for revenge. Therefore, our one survivor is the one person in Lee who killed before things got so terrible.
Episode Grade: B. Yes, in one way the show remains entirely ridiculous when it comes to people doing things that, in the real world, don’t make any sense at all. Then again, if you’re watching this show expecting anything that constitutes realism at all, we figure that you may have more problems than we know what to do with. It was nice to see Taissa back, though that may have been the only thing nice at all about this hour of TV.
The finale – If you’re curious, head over to this link to get some more details on what to expect! (Photo: FX.)