AMERICAN HORROR STORY RECAP: HOW DEEP IS YOUR SWIMMING POOL?
By Julieanne Smolinski
New York Magazine
Nov 17 2011
1994 was apparently a big year for murder in the American Horror Story
universe. Most of us remember it as the year that Taco Bell cruelly
discontinued “Extreme Nachos” and that the Eagles got back together,
which I guess is enough to push anybody over the edge.
This episode’s cold-murder-open is set in the same fateful year that
Tate decided to dress up like Anthony Bourdain and massacre a bunch
of teenager archetypes. In this flashback, Jessica Lange is back in
her reverse aging makeup, which apparently is really doing it for ~E
an as-of-yet unburned Larry!
They apparently had “a thing,” which she’s trying to leverage to get
him to murder someone. Obviously. Constance is worried that someone
is going to take her son away for neglect and tells Larry to do
what’s he’s gotta do. Larry goes up to the attic of murder house to
play with her secret son Beau, a friendly mutant who sort of looks
like Mask aggressively ate a grape jelly sandwich. Wait, did I say
“play with”? I meant “kill with a pillow.” Aaaaand titles!
Back in the present, Viv and Ben are visiting the world’s most chipper
OB-GYN. “Every pregnant woman worries they’ve got a little devil in
them!” she jokes. Ha-ha, okay, Patch Addams! Have fun learning to eat
with hooks after you try to put your hand in there. Turns out, Viv
is having twins! Yes! Great! More work for the Sprouse twins, I hope.
Back at murder HQ, Realtor Marcy is giving her typically sensitive
tour of the house to potential buyer Mr. Eskandarian. “Everything
was meticulously restored by the previous homos, I mean homeowners,”
Marcy actually says. Later, she remarks totally apropos of nothing,
“Queer eye.” My goodness, writer-of-this-episode Brad Falchuk! I mean,
I know: I also made the mistake of giving the HRC my phone number when
I donated $15, but this is not the way to get them to quit calling
during dinner.
Despite looking like a gay Bronson Pinchot character himself, Mr.
Eskandarian is way heterosexual for Moira, who appears young and hot
to him. Moira can tell right away that he’s just the guy to disinter
her dead body and immediately starts making sexy double entendres about
swimming pools. Her: “How deep would you make it?” Him: “Very deep.” I
wish this weird metaphor would have gone on for longer! “Mmmm. Would
you fill it with ~E chemicals?” “Until it was pH balanced, baby, ungh.”
Eskandarian asks Marcy what’s wrong with the place. You half expect
her to go, “Well, it might not be gaudy enough for an Armenian,” but
goofy Viv goes and tells him about the murders. He doesn’t seem put
off, though, and juuuust misses the the next looky-lou. It’s Larry,
just as burnt as we remember him and here to eat all of the Harmons’
snacks. “This crudite is making my mouth dry,” he complains. “I’m
going to have a little glass of Chardonnay.” CHAD??? IS THAT YOU????
At this point, Marcy very sensibly pulls out a gun. What a good way to
sell the house, Marce! Way better than the old “baking banana bread”
trick. Although, I guess Chekhov never said anything about the banana
bread popping up in act three. She gets in a great racist non sequitur
before re-holstering and giving him the grand tour of the pansies,
I mean screamers, I mean queens, I mean black people, I mean house.
When Viv finally gets the place to herself, she uses the opportunity
to light some candles and masturbate to a Nina Simone song. Well,
thanks a lot, American Horror Story! Now men know this is something
that we all do. She’s mentally Rolodexing through the spank bank,
like you do (hi, Morris Chestnut!), but the gimp ghost keeps popping
in and wrecking her fantasizing. Isn’t that the worst, ladies???
Side note here: This is the only time we see Morris Chestnut in this
episode. I would love to see the call sheet for this. “Morris, we
need you on set for approximately three thrusts and a little light
hand sucking. Enjoy the residuals!”
Meanwhile, Violet is cutting herself when Tate pops up. To get her to
see how gross she’s being, he, uh, licks her blood. She promises him
she’ll quit cutting herself, which, PHEW, thank you, conscientious
dead boyfriend. I will watch a thousand gooey attic mutants take
a thousand final mouth breaths, but show people cutting themselves
and I’m simultaneously horrified and compelled to volunteer with a
youth group.
Then Tate asks her if she believes in ghosts, which is just like the
time in Can’t Hardly Wait when Seth Green asked his girlfriend if she
believed in tiny redheaded people. Violet’s like, Uhhh let’s change
the subject. Vy is suddenly starting to realize that if she moves,
she will lose her ghost boyfriend/logical excuse for pretending like
Clinton is president, and goes about trying to convince her divorcing
parents to stay in the house by impishly hinting at suicide. At last,
a compelling reason for the Harmons to stay! Good job, Falchuk. Go
ahead and drop the mike.
Mr. Eskandarian comes back for more sexy pool talk with Moira. “I’ve
always heard that Persians have big thick cocks, something a girl can
gnaw on,” she purrs. Persian? Gnaw??? Man, if blow jobs were houses,
Moira would be Marcy.
Cut to: FRANCES CONROY DABBING HER MOUTH. Oh my GOD. Ugh, this is just
awful! Like, Internet video of Angela Lansbury putting lotion on her
legs awful! Like, Frances Conroy blowing a swarthy young man awful!
NO. NOPE. More teen cutting I guess, please!
On his way out, Eskandarian tells Ben about his plans to raze the
place. Of course, this means he has to go see Larry for a little
gazebo chat. Turns out, Larry never killed his family, which is nice.
We also learn that he is still kind of a jerk and drinks Nescafe.
Decaf drinkers, right? Who gets them? Not me!
Anyhow, Larry wants the house so badddddd! Why, you ask? Flashback to:
Larry breaking the news to his wife, Lorraine, that he’s leaving her
for Constance. He tells her to take the kids, pack up, and move “to
Ohio.” NOT OHIO! Turns out, Lorraine would literally rather be ON FIRE.
So, Larry wants to be back at the house so Constance will take him
back? Sorry, dude ~E Constance has a type and it’s young and beefy and
unburnt. Ben for some reason has grown a pair. He tells Larry to stay
away from his house, grunts, “Game over,” and puts a cigarette out
on Larry’s carpet. Well, look who’s the Don Draper of minor property
damage all of the sudden!
Meanwhile, Marcy and Viv are on the murder tour, where Joe from Ellen
again tells the story about Dr. Charles and Nora Montgomery, the
basement abortionists. In flashback, we learn that kooky Dr. Charles
reanimated their slain baby, Thaddeus, out of old hookers and pig
parts, prompting Nora to promptly murder suicide all three of them.
For the record, Matt Ross and Lily Rabe: Great job, awesome flashback.
Constance and Larry meet in the basement of murder house, where she
makes fun of his grody Big League Chew face. He warns her about the
Armenian’s sinister Armenian plans to raze the place, which gets
her attention.
Back home, Violet is exploring the attic, you know, for fun. Man,
I love Violet, but I can’t even go down the basement after I watch
Aliens because there’s probably an alien down there, and I don’t even
have a ghost boyfriend! STOP POKING AROUND! Clearly, she runs into both
Langdon boys. Tate and Beau apparently are cool, because he’s like,
“Stop scaring her!” and Beau’s like “Rarrrrf, sorry.” Tate explains
that the house is full of dead people whom Violet can now see, and
that they go away if you ask them to. Huh? Wait, really?
Well, that was unusually forthcoming of you, American Horror Story.
Then, because it’s been six minutes since we made fun of gay mincing,
she and Tate find a back issue of Honcho and he does a funny lisp. Ho
ho ho. They also find a box of Montgomery family photos and the
Montgomery family gun. One of the Murdered Nurses shows up and Vy
gets to try out her neat new “go away!” trick.
Constance goes to see Eskandarian to do her one-woman Los Angeles
Conservancy routine and ask him to spare Murder House. He says ~W
READY!? ~W “There are three reasons I deal with women: sex, money,
and making me sandwiches.” I KNOW! She tells him that someday,
somebody’s going to build on top of him, too. What kind of small,
octagonal structure, I wonder!?
Ben, AMA therapist of the century, uses a session with Tate to ask
him to spill about Violet. Constance, an equally great parent, swings
by to say hi to her ghost sons, who are sulky and grunty respectively.
On the way out, Constance swings by to dash the Moiras’ hope of a
swimming pool. Finding out a guy is not building you a swimming pool
after you’ve already blown him: always devastating. Of course, this
means a trip to the basement for Eskandarian, where Moira BITES HIS
WANG OFF (can’t say she didn’t warn you/us, oh God) and Larry puts
a bag over his head. Constance reminds him to finish the murdering
off site, because she doesn’t want an Armenian haunting the house. I
bet Moira is understandably relieved. From what I can tell, all of
my bad hookups were murdered where I like to have brunch.
When we leave Murder House, Viv and Vy are having a nice
mother-daughter chat about boys. Violet, apparently not a big Van Halen
fan, wants to know how you know when it’s love. “You’ll do anything
for the other person,” says Viv, not at all portending something
grisly. Vy shows Viv one of the attic photos, and she recognizes Nora
Montgomery as the woman who dropped by only to rudely criticize her
microwave and dissolve.
So now TWO of the Harmons know ghosts are real. What does this mean
for next week, I wonder?! Will Viv and Violet bond over the fact that
they’ve both made out with dead guys? Will Marcy come back because she
forgot to say something awful about Asians or veterans? Does the “go
away!” trick work on basement aliens? I don’t know about you guys, but
I love this show as though it were the deformed attic monster I asked
my disfigured boyfriend to lust-murder. Let’s all tune in next week.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
