American Horror Story Blog: You're on the Murder House Tour!

Welcome back to the American Horror Story blog!

Here are my impressions of the second episode:

We have proof that all is not right with Tate; Constance can still do a little something-something while retaining an air of utter creepiness; Ben is still a lying bastard; Addie isn't all bad; it's a really, really bad idea to live in a murder house; it's an even worse idea to go in the basement of that house!

We're in 1968, and it looks like the house may have been a sorority house? I don't know. There's a matronly woman in a white nurse uniform. Three bitchy girls leave for a party, tease the "good" girl, leaving her to answer the door for a stranger who claims to be injured.

"I'm hurt and I need some help," he says. Ruh-oh.

He's lying (duh) and he smashes a bowl into Maria's (the good girl) head, does something to the nurse and then orders Maria to strip and put on the nurse's uniform. We hear the sound of a switch blade opening and now Maria is trussed up on the couch, saying a prayer (I'm not Catholic so I don't know which one it is). Bad man seems to walk away and Maria gets stabbed in the back. Repeatedly.

Back to 2011.

Ben is in session with Tate and he is describing, in detail, his fantasy of having sex with Violet, says he jerks off to make his bloody fantasies go away. Session terminates abruptly when Tate reveals that he knows about the student in Boston.

Oh, snap! Ben's student squeeze (Peyton) is calling because she's pregnant.

(Side note: I hate the opening credits. I think we're supposed to hate them.)

Kids are skateboarding in an empty pool and Violet is having a chat with Mean Girl who is having (well-deserved) nightmares. She wants Violet to admit that what attacked her wasn't human, says she now believes in the devil because she looked in his eyes.

Is Tate really standing at the foot of Violet's bed? The house alarm goes off and Ben dashes down the stairs. The front door is open. Now the basement door swings and creaks. It's only Addie, whom Ben escorts out through the walk out basement door.

Vivien is nervous because she's not sick this pregnancy. Ben kisses away her fears. Oh, Ben. If you only knew.

Now he's counseling a new patient, Bianca, who dreams of getting cut in half by a stalled elevator that suddenly starts working again. She asks what it's like living in the murder house? The house is on the murder house tour. Ben thinks she found him through the Screen Actors Guild insurance list. Oh, she did, but it's still cool that it's the murder house.

She decides to take a tour of the house instead of leaving while Ben is on the with Tate's mom telling her he can't treat Tate any longer. Knowing what we know at the end of the episode, this scene really makes me scratch my head.

Now we're in Constance's kitchen (looks like a set from a bad 60s sitcom) and Addie is asking why she isn't like normal kids. Constance asks Addie to spit in her cupcake mix after she adds ipecac syrup. Constance tells Addie people can't taste the syrup, but it will cause them to throw up or even have severe internal bleeding. Wow. She really is a dandy neighbor and/or in the running for Mother of the Year. Oh, Addie, you're so much more "normal" than you think!

Ben runs and has flashbacks to when Vivien found him in bed with Peyton. Larry Harvey (half-face man) finds Ben in a tunnel and Ben blurts out his situation with the student squeeze. Larry warns him that the house will know and use it against him. Of course, Ben thinks this is crap, but he still lies to Vivien and says a former patient tried to commit suicide so he has to go to Boston.

"You're a good man," Viv tells him. The viewing audience does a massive eye roll.

Constance brings over two, giant chocolate cupcakes for Violet and says she can smell Vivien's baby.

*Shiver* The creep factor just went up by a factor of 10.

Pheromones is the reason Constance tells her. Vivien takes the bait and asks if Constance can smell anything else about the baby. Crazy Connie admits if she'd known about Addie before birth she would have rid herself of the baby, and even after, she thought about leaving the girl in the cold.

"But, a mother never abandons her child," she says. And then we learn that she actually has four children, all but one with Down's. "Your baby is fine."

Vivien comes very close to eating some of one of the cupcakes, but Constance stops her just in time. Moira comes in to clean up and she and Constance share some snark. Ben and Vivien look confused and Ben even more so when Moira changes to the young hottie we met during the premiere episode.

"Is everyone crazy?" Ben asks after Constance leaves. Um, yes, Ben. They are. They really, really are, and you're about to join the same club.

Vivien tries to tell Violet she's pregnant, but Violet already knows because Vivien stopped drinking wine and has gained weight in her face. Then Violet gets really mean and tell Viv that the baby won't keep her and Ben together and oh, yeah, daughter thinks Mom is weak. All this after Viv brings Violet one of the delicious-looking cupcakes from Constance. Luckily, Violet opens her closet (?) door and puts the plate on the floor, cupcake intact. No violent puking for Violet.

Ben is now in Peyton's apartment and they're each having a glass of wine talking about aborting the baby. She says she feels stupid about being a cliche and makes it clear she only needs Ben until after the procedure. Yet, when she catches him checking his phone for calls from "St. Vivien," she goes all cliche and says all she ever wanted was for him to love her. With tears. Ugh.

Now we're back in LA and the doorbell rings. Vivien goes to answer and sees through the peephole a young woman with the same kind of dripping blood the bad man from 1968 had. "I'm hurt and I need some help," she says.

Ruh-oh! Of course we're all at home shaking our heads and telling Viv not to open the door.

But the woman on the porch is insistent and tells Viv to hurry, that "he's" out there. When Vivien hesitates, the woman screams, "What kind of woman are you?" A smart one for not opening the door and going to call the police instead. We hear crazy pounding on the door, Viv can't find her phone, she runs back to the door because of the sudden silence. A shadow passes quickly behind her. There's nothing outside the door.

She yells for Violet and tells her to dial 9-1-1, to lock the door and not come out. Violet races to find her phone, but can't. The closet (?) door opens behind Violet and a masked person in black (Tate?) walks toward the unsuspecting teenager.

Vivien picks up what looks like a hella heavy candlestick and looks out the peephole again. There's an eyeball, then a person in the same kind (?) of mask as the person in Violet's room! She turns away from the door and there's the masked person, albeit a person with really blue eyes. Vivien screams.

Oh, you've got to be freaking kidding me. Bianca, Ben's actor patient and two of her crazy friends are trying to re-enact the killing from the first scene of this episode. They stroke the bowl that Franklin (bad guy had a name) used to bash Maria (they found it on eBay) and the crazy friend, Fiona, who pounded on the door is waving a knife around, saying both Violet and Vivien will be wearing uniforms, that Franklin had issues with nurses.

Supposedly Franklin was the precursor to Manson, he created the culture? Wow.

So now there's a scuffle. I'm not sure who started what, but Violet is a scrapper. She headbutts one of the crazies and runs for the kitchen. Tate is there! He tells her to get them to the basement, just do it! Vivien sees Addie behind the crazy guy and tells him someone will come to help them and they will all fry. He turns and of course Addie gone.

The two crazy chicks are in the bathroom getting Violet into the nurse's uniform. Bianca eats the cupcake (ha!) while Fiona tells Violet the costume is from a catalog, not vintage. Bianca is getting sick, though, and tells Fiona not to start without her as she runs to find another bathroom so she doesn't mess up the "staging area."

Violet's smarts kick in and she tells Fiona that they remodeled the bathroom and the real tub is in the basement. Fiona believes her after Violet offers some details of the piece as evidence, but ...

Constance is about to get her groove on with a hot young man in her bedroom. They tell each other they're beautiful (ew) and they start dancing without music, but then Addie interrupts. She tells her mom that there's a bad man next door, but Constance tells her he owns the place and there's nothing they can do about it. Addie insists and gets shut in the bad girl closet for her trouble where Mommie tells her to look at herself. Addie looks into a mirror and starts screaming.

Meanwhile, there is violent puking for Bianca. She knows something is not right, that she should go to the hospital. Somehow she makes her way to the bathroom, but the tub is full of water while the room is empty of people. Tate is behind her, swings an ax right into her gut. Three times, but he leaves her alive before doing a disappearing act. Bianca drags bloody hand prints down the hall.

Vivien is with the crazy guy and he is cutting her bindings so Viv can put on the other uniform. He gets a little more than he bargained with when she whacks him with the bowl. Again and again and again.

Fiona puts the knife to Violet's back and follows her downstairs where Tate is waiting next to a bathtub full of water. Violet gets the hell out of Dodge and Fiona sees the nurse rise out of the water. Next we see of Fiona, her throat is cut, which is how the crazy guy finds her after he wakes up. Of course, he ends up the same way, but first ...

Vivien and Violet go running, screaming out of the house, yelling for someone to help and call the police. Constance's boy toy is sleeping (we hope and not maybe dead) while she has the post-coital glow of satisfaction (bigger ew). She can't ignore the screams from outside, goes to the window and watches Viv and Violet run past her house.

Back in Boston, Peyton is called in for her procedure, Ben's phone buzzes and holy crap! Ben goes running out ... and next we know, we're in the basement once more.

Moira and Tate are looking at the bodies on the floor and who walks in? Crazy Connie.

"Jesus H. Christ," she whispers. "Was this your handiwork?"

Tate answers no and Moira says it was "them." Also, Tate says they'll have to get rid of the bodies if they want Ben to keep treating him. Constance says to get shovels and bleach.

Cops get the story from Vivien and Ben and say the attackers were obsessed with grisly murders. Gee, ya think? Ben tells Viv he's home now, but she says, oh, no, you're not. We're selling this house.

So, what did you think of the second episode? Let's talk about it!