A.H.S.: Apocalypses Return to Murder House Was Shameless Fan Service Done Right

This post contains spoilers for American Horror Story: Apocalypse, Episode 6, “Return to Murder House.”

Has any episode in TV history worked harder to satisfy fans every whim than American Horror Story: Apocalypses “Return to Murder House”? Either way, Wednesdays installment surely ranks in the Hall of Fame. The long-awaited installment delivered not only the inspired, if brief, returns of Jessica Lange, Connie Britton, and Dylan McDermott, but also offered satisfying conclusions for multiple story threads that have been dangling for seven years, ever since Murder House ended. The only hitch: Zachary Quinto and Teddy Sears did not return to play bickering Chad and Patrick.

The premise of the episode was deceptively simple: Madison (Emma Roberts) and Chablis (Billy Porter) bought the Murder House to investigate Michael Langdons past, and spent most of it interrogating the ghosts lurking inside. The Cliff Notes version goes something like this: Michael was a terror from the time he was a toddler, killing animals and, eventually, people. Even his presumed father, serial killer and rapist Tate Langdon (Evan Peters) claims that he could not have produced such a monstrous heir as Michael. Still, Constance (Lange), convinced she was destined to be a mother to all the worlds monsters, tried her best to raise Michael. She eventually realized that he was a lost cause—and so she killed herself to spend eternity with the ghosts of her children.

Ben Harmon (McDermott), a therapist, tried to set Michael on a better path as well, but like Constance, he gave up. As Vivien Harmon (Britton) told Madison and Chablis, Michael was beyond help; he is the Antichrist. Eventually, three members of the Church of Satan, including Kathy Batess Ms. Mead, arrived, performing a dark ceremony in which they ripped a kidnapped girls heart out while she was still alive. Michael, of course, ate the heart—and that, it seems, is how he ended up living with Ms. Mead.

As juicy as all of these reveals were, it was the order and manner of Madison and Chabliss discoveries that made the episode so rewarding. Sarah Paulson directed it, and although its packed with information—she shot 72 scenes in total—the episode never lost its sense of pace and tension. Its hard to imagine a greater moment than Jessica Lange introducing herself by saying, from the top of a staircase, “Im Constance Langdon, and this is my fucking house!” But the most satisfying moments this week were actually gentler.

A highlight, for instance, was Moiras escape from the Murder House to reunite with her mother. Madison, apparently softened by a quick stay in hell, was the one who dug up Moiras bones and buried them in her mothers grave so that the two could reunite and find peace—plus, it didnt hurt that Constance said she would only tell the witches about Michael if they got her nemesis out of the house. Either way, Moiras happy ending was a satisfying conclusion for a character who has been stuck in an undeserved purgatory for decades.

And then there were Tate and Violet. Since the Murder House and Coven crossover was announced, one prevailing question has been how, exactly, the series would handle Tate Langdon—a school-shooter character who, given all of the mass shootings in recent years, might not seem as sympathetic as he once did. Tates position within Murder House as the romantic hero did not help things. This weeks installment did some work to assuage any guilt fans might feel about rooting for Tate and Violet: Madison told Violet that the houses evil is what infected Tate and made him do all kinds of horrible things. The evil left with Michael, she said, leaving only the good Tate. (Vivien also said that Michael is a product of the darkness in the house.) All of this paved the way for the teenage lovers to reconcile, but it also felt a little forced.

And while most lingering mysteries surrounding both Michael and the Murder House were answered this week, a few threads are still dangling. The first is Madisons connection to both the Murder House and Nora and Charles Montgomery. When Paulsons medium character, Billie Dean Howard, showed up at the Murder House to greet Madison and Chablis, she indicated that Madison is related to the couple that first owned the Murder House—but the connection was left otherwise unexplained. It also might have been nice to hear a little more about Constances mysterious fourth child, who until this week had never been seen—a little girl with blonde hair and no eyes.

And then theres the mother of all mysteries: will Vivien and Ben Harmon ever reunite, or is Ben cursed to “tearjerk” while staring out a window for the rest of eternity? For the sake of everyone involved, were really praying for a happy ending.

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