American Horror Story: Piggy Piggy

On this week’s installment of The Jessica Lange Method of Scenery Chewing and Scaring Your Co-Stars, Professor Lange was uncharacteristically subdued. No threatening to break anyone’s goddamn arm; no scenes where her tears literally leap off her face like they’re committing suicide, no young male lovers to seduce while locking her daughter in a closet full of mirrors. No, it was all tea, cigarettes and revelations this time around.

Please expect these reviews to be as jumpy as the show is, by the way. If they can’t manage linear narrative, why the hell should we try to make our sentences flow into each other? JUMP CUT! FETUS IN A JAR!

We think we’re going to keep doing that.

So, mysterious smoking medium lady shows up suddenly in Constance’s kitchen, all arched eyebrows and knowing looks. There’s obviously a plan afoot here and we have no idea what it is, although it would make the most sense that Constance is somehow using the Harmons to get Tate to cross over to the other side. Then again, she tried to get Addie’s spirit tied to the house, so maybe she likes having her children next door for all eternity.

CLOSEUP OF AN EYEBALL!

Meanwhile, Moira and Constance are quite the little quilting bee of concern over Vivian’s pregnancy, aren’t they? What expectant mother hasn’t found herself wishing for a plate of raw animal organs to tuck into?  And ladies, it’s right around your second trimester that you all go crazy for raw brains swimming in blood, amirite? Viv certainly looked blissful eating that thing, didn’t she? We love that this family constantly has these ultra-bizarre moments (like, say, joyfully eating a brain without a second thought) and then they just shrug them off. Then again, Viv shrugged off the former ultrasound tech who now apparently lives in a church and thinks her baby has hooves, so we’ve established that she has an amazing capacity to not examine her surroundings or think about her life too much.

FLICKERING BARE LIGHTBULB!

So we’ve established that Constance, and possibly Moira, have some sort of plan for Viv’s pregnancy. We’ve established that her baby probably has hooves. We’re thinking that the baby is somehow the key to releasing all the spirits from the house, although we have no idea why that is. First, we’d have to come up with a theory as to what or who the rubber man is and frankly, we’re not willing to invest that much brain energy into guessing games and theorizing. The point is, the baby has hooves and Vivian has a taste for bloody offal, which has been cultivated by Moira and Constance.

SHADOWY STAIRCASE!

Poor Violet. Not only does she have to come to terms with the fact that the only person who cares about her is

a) dead; and

b) crazy

but she has to deal with the fact that both her parents are self-absorbed jackasses. She managed a loud, screaming suicide attempt and no one else in the house seemed to notice or care. Well, no one living, that is. Apparently Viv couldn’t hear the screams over her chewing and Ben couldn’t hear them over his hard work of being the worst therapist in the history of therapy. At some point, it’s going to become a bit hard for the police to ignore the string of dead bodies and missing people that all seem to lead right back to his office.

Still, a fun, engrossing episode, so long as you remember to go into it with the realization that no one in this universe acts like anyone you know.

KNIFE! CANDLE! DARKENED HALLWAY!

• American Horror Story
• Reviews
• TV Reviews