Welcome back! The masterminds behind American Horror Story have kept us guessing on the Season 6 theme right up until the premiere, and I'm excited to say they are tackling Roanoke with this new chapter. The Lost Colony, as it is known, is introduced to us in present day AND in documentary style. That's right - we have actors doing "reenactments" of other actors who are giving interviews for what seems to be a documentary. This is going to make blogging complicated, but I'm digging the new format. What does this premiere hour have in store for us? Here we go...
As Time Began To Blur
We begin with Lily Rabe and Andre Holland as Shelby and Matt Miller, a married couple in the midst of an interview regarding their time living in Roanoke. This looks like it could be an episode of Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel. As they tell their story, we cut away to Sarah Paulson and Juice Cuba Gooding Jr. as the actors "playing" Shelby and Matt in this documentary. Neat huh?

Going into the reenactment sequence now we see Shelby and Matt leaving Los Angeles behind to head to the east coast. Matt believes they will be safer moving close to where he grew up and where members of his family still live. They arrive in Roanoke and go for a picnic in the woods...how they chose that particular spot to picnic, I don't know. Maybe they pulled over on a whim? Maybe Matt's family lives in walking distance? Maybe this is the local picnic area that's not really a picnic area? Not sure. They just happen to stumble across an old farmhouse, built in 1792, that is up for auction. The Millers go into a bidding war between a group of guys that could have stumbled out of the saloon from Paint Your Wagon and win the house for a bargain price of $40,000. Wait. What? A giant farmhouse and many acres of surrounding land is worth that only amount? No one is alarmed by this? Nice job guys. You just traded gang violence for paranormal pandemonium.
Across This New Divide
Matt feels right at home in their new (old) house though Shelby feels danger almost immediately. They decide to break in their bedroom though and while they are getting it on, an awful sound startles them from outside. It kind of sounds like a pig being squeezed. Matt throws on some pants (not sure that I've ever seen a 'reenactment' with nudity before) and heads outside. Their trash had been...well...trashed and a trash can is launched from the fog over Matt's head. He assumes there are some locals that do not approve of the Millers as an interracial couple. Yes Matt. The hillbillies destroyed your smallish trash can because you're black. Oy.

Shelby cooks herself some alone time dinner and drinks some alone time wine. Even though there are strange noises throughout the house, she goes ahead and has an alone time dip in the hot tub...where a hand grabs her face and holds her under water. Shelby doesn't drown but she's scared out of her mind. Matt rushes home to find the police at his house, but they are not much help. Seems Shelby told them her attackers were wearing old costumes and carrying pitchforks and torches and the cops think she's nuts.
Connect The Space Between
Matt has to get back on the road and he's worried about his wife and her pitchfork attackers and teeth storm. He sets up security cameras around the perimeter of the house and asks his sister, Lee, to stay with Shelby while he is gone. In the interview world Lee is played by Adina Porter, more famously known as Tara's crazy ass mama on True Blood. In the reenactment she is played by badass Angela Bassett. Lee has her own problems though. She's a former police officer...former because she had an addiction to painkillers that cost her a promising career, as well as her marriage and any potential custody of her daughter. Shelby and Lee don't really get along but they kind of need each other's company at the moment. Lee asks Shelby to lay off the wine while she is still struggling with sobriety, so Lee is definitely surprised when she wakes up that night to a squealing pig sound and a bottle of wine just outside her bedroom door. She thinks Shelby is messing with her and they argue....

Matt has rushed home (again) and he still thinks the rednecks are just trying to scare them away. Shelby tells him the rednecks can have the house and gets in her car and drives away...because driving away in the middle of the night by yourself when people with torches and pitchforks have been roaming around is the smart choice. Shelby reaches for her cell phone when Matt calls her and drives right into a woman standing in the middle of the foggy road. This woman is in colonial garb and she stands up and walks into the forest. Shelby, currently being Stupid Shelby, follows her yelling "I need to get you to a hospital!" To Stupid Shelby's surprise (but no one else's) the road behind her disappears and she is lost in the woods. The episode ends with a terrified Stupid Shelby finding a tree filled with stick dolls...and a group of people with torches. Oh and then there's the guy missing the top part of his head! What?!?!?!
I was definitely sucked in by this episode and loooooved the whole actors playing actors thing. I have SO many questions after the first hour of Season 6 though. Do the hillbillies know exactly what is in the woods? Why did they want the house so bad? What the hell happened in the house to make it sell for only $40k? Why were the Millers not concerned with that? What's the deal with the pig face thing from the video? What do the stick dolls mean? How far away is the local craft store? Why is that dude missing part of his head? And WHY am I having a hard time moving past Cuba Gooding Jr. and Sarah Paulson as O.J. and Marcia Clark? Ryan Murphy is playing mind games with me by having these two play soul mates mere months after The People v. O.J. Simpson. Regardless, I can't wait to see what Chapter 2 holds next week. We're off to a great start!
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