I feel like I say this every week (except for maybe one – I’m talking to you, Black Dahlia!), but last night’s American Horror Story outdid itself in the crazy department yet again. A few spoilery thoughts below – but if you want to relive every screaming, gooey moment, be sure to check out my full contraction-by-contraction recap over at AfterElton.
HERE BE SPOILERS
So Vivien is toast. Am I the only one who held a shred of hope that at the very least she would be the last to die, if not escape entirely? I guess they’re saving Ben for last so that he can feel the full consequence of his shittery.
When I spoke with Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk back in September, Murphy said that they were very keen on making a horror show for women. At the time I thought that this meant “a horror show that women can enjoy”, but I think he actually meant “the most horrifying thing a woman could ever imagine”.
Think about it – the poor lady had a miscarriage and her douchebag husband cheated on her. Then he moved her ass across the country to escape his own guilt (and then WENT BACK TO SEE HIS MISTRESS), where she was raped, terrorized by home invaders and all kinds of other loonies (dead and alive), impregnated by a demon, driven crazy by vengeful spirits, and locked in an institution for telling the truth. The very day she gets out, she endures a terrible double birth, her babies are stolen from her, and she dies realizing that her daughter is also dead. She’s now stuck in a house with all of the people who fucked her over forever.
Okay, either this is setting things up for some serious payback next season, or this show is even darker than I’d expected.
I have to say I cringed in the first few moments with all the Connie reciting bible verses and Tate’s also being homophobic, and, before last night, I would have said they’d gone too far in killing two of the show’s central characters, but I loved this episode.
It’s interesting that Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk said this is a horror story for women, because, until Vivien’s death, I wouldn’t have said so. But now I get it. Connie’s “then make it safe” says to me she knew Vivien would die in childbirth and would clean house, figuratively speaking. Vivien’s the hero of the story and next season should be really good, now that she doesn’t have to deal with her clueless husband, a bad pregnancy, and being the only sane person in the house. My money’s on a major showdown with Hayden, for starters.
Oh, and by the way, I thought the horrible labor she was in and the comparably light and fluffy labor in a pretty room when she had Violet was a nice touch. Her screaming made me glad I never had kids.
While I agree that the husband hasn’t been a paragon of virtue and value, to make it seem like he’s the only douchebag in the relationship isn’t a balanced look out.
Vivian, as we have learned was in the husband’s roll as someone cheating with a married man before they met and got married. She fully knew well what she was doing.
Before we learned this, I wondered, why was she staying in a relationship she couldn’t get past. At first I thought it was going to be the typical view of a women that stays in a broke relationship, always claiming she is the one trying, but in fact, never letting the past go.
When it was told she and been in one, it made much more sense. And in fact, Vivian seems to partially taking it out on Ben. I’m sure when she was the other women, she was convinced that the husband she was cheating with would leave his wife for her. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended the same way, with her trying to contact the husband even though it was over.
In some ways, Vivian is a hypocrite. She’s been there, but she’s not willing to be understanding.
There’s more then enough blame on both sides.
Well, nobody’s perfect, of course – and Vivien has admitted openly that she once was in Hayden’s shoes and learned that those things don’t work out. I didn’t get the impression that she actually broke up anyone’s marriage in the process, though – and I do think that there’s a difference between being a cheating spouse and “the other woman” who is involved with a married man but isn’t breaking any marriage vows of her own. But in the case of this relationship I’m holding Ben over the fire for repeatedly breaking his vows and lying (repeatedly, remember – after he promised not to lie anymore). I really don’t think Vivien is at fault.
No, it’s not Vivien’s fault Ben breaks his promise. But being the other person and not the married person in such a situation doesn’t make that person any less responsible.
It doesn’t matter if the marriage broke up or not when Vivien was the other women. But I’m sure that when Vivien was the other women, she encouraged the other man to repeatedly break his vows to the other wife. Which is worse, the person who breaks the vow, or the person who encourages them to break the vow?
They are both equally worse, in my view.
Ben was shitty, no doubt. But also, Vivien for the most part, refused to forgive, even when she said she was trying. To dump it all on the man, is so unfair.
Because I see Vivien’s unforgiving nature coming more from her guilt over having done the exact same thing Ben did. I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually blames herself for it happening, as some sort of “payback” for her affair.
I agree that this show gets crazier and creepier every week. It is NOT at all predictable. I want to get a good look at the babies. Especially the one who lived. I’ve had it with Constance. She needs to get it in the end. And it’s a perverse idea that the baby has to die in order to be with Vivian. I’m thinking that Ben and the baby may be the only two survivors of this season. Is there going to be a Season Two? I can’t imagine what’s left to take into a new season.
Season two? A new family or people move in of course.
I don’t know about there being “big payback” next season. Connie Britton has only signed on for season one of AHS.
http://www.tvline.com/2011/12/american-horror-story-connie-britton-season-1-episode-11/
TVLINE | Will Ghost Vivien be sticking around for Season 2?
We’ll see. It was always my understanding that I was going to do one season, but it’s all up in the air. Who knows?
It has been renewed for a 2nd season.
I have been wondering lately if they would continue the Murder House story next season with all the new ghosts and a new family, or if they would move too a new location and tell a different story. I think both would work, but it might be better story wise to leave this house and start a new. In my mind I picture somewhere in the South like New Orleans or Savannah.