'American Horror Story: Roanoke' Episode 5 Review
The beginning of the episode shows more history of the house's origin, as it was built by a wealthy man named Edward Phillippe Mott (Evan Peters). Mott was a man with social anxiety with a propensity for collecting art. When the spirits of Roanoke begin haunting his home and destroying his art, he blames some of his slave workers and imprisons a few of them in the root cellar in the front of the house. The Butcher and her people ultimately kill Mott.
As the ghostly mob has the house surrounded, Matt, Shelby, and Flora encounter Mott. He leads them through a tunnel in the basement away from the spirits, but leaves them in the woods. They are found by the Polk family, who are in cahoots with The Butcher. At the Polk home, Dr. Cunningham is discovered to still be alive, but badly mutilated. He has his head smashed in with a hammer before the Polks take the Millers back to The Butcher. Matt is able to kill one of the men and escape, but they are once again found and taken to The Butcher. As Flora is about to be killed, Ambrose has had enough of the bloodshed and grabs Thomasin and throws the two of them into the fire, enabling the Millers to escape.
This episode left me very confused as to where the season will be going, as the "main villain" seems to be defeated and the Millers are now back in California. I feel like the addition of Evan Peters' character was purely thrown in to help them escape and was a waste. With the setting shifting to Los Angeles, it makes no sense in terms of the Roanoke storyline. I'm sure it will shift back to Roanoke, but I think the storytelling was a bit sloppy. The whole plot of The Butcher and the spirits seems to be wrapped up after only 5 episodes and I don't know where the rest of the season will go.
My rating: 7 out of 10
