By: Esmeralda Gonzalez
Just a couple months ago the first promos for American Horror Story season six began releasing to the public. Many viewers of the show were left scratching their heads in confusion when trying to decipher the meanings to each clue. There were a wide range of theories about what the theme could have been about such as the Manson family, a group of serial killers luring people to their homes while others moved more towards a more historical topic. Now that we know that the season’s theme is based on the mysterious Roanoke Colony, where all the inhabitants died mysteriously from supposed cannibalism, the focus now turns to how good of a first impression the season premiere left on the viewers. Also, a warning to anyone who hasn’t watched and plans to watch the season premiere, there WILL be SPOILERS from this point on, not much but enough to give away key points of the episode.
In the first few minutes of the episode, the premiere reveals to take the form of a show within a show style for this particular season. It has the first group of actors in a room explaining their “true” story while another group of look alike actors are portraying the story as usual.
Initially, the episode showed similarities with the first season, Murder House; an interracial couple, played by Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr., buys a new sketchy house that has a lot of unknown history and of course, the strange occurrences begin to happen. About 20 minutes into the episode, while the wife, Shelby was alone in the house, it begins to rain actual human teeth. After this, she notices people in her home out of the corner of her eyes and eventually gets assaulted and almost drowned by these old fashioned intruders. While the ghostly intruders actually begin to add to the developing plot as potential main antagonists, the random falling teeth seemed a little out of place. The creators were probably using this to depict the wife’s slow fall into insanity but they could have done it a way that truly correlates to the antagonists of the season.
Some possible culprits to these occurrences were probably the hillbillies the couple came across when buying the house. Both characters begin to blame the strangers when something occurred in their home but we as the audience know that their circumstances are far too paranormal for a group of normal southerners to pull off.
Towards the middle end of the episode the first evident sign of character development begins to take place when the husband, Matt, asks his sister, an ex police officer, to accompany his wife in their new home in case anything else
occurs. We get a background into the ex police officers violent past and learn that she doesn’t particularly like Matt’s wife. During her stay they argue and eventually realize that they are not alone in the house. After a few minutes of carefully maneuvering to the basement they come face to face with a tape playing on an old TV that shows a pig man-like creature in the woods. Again, this seems a little out of place but this early on in the season, they probably have something planned for that specific occurrence.
In the very end of the episode, Shelby wanders off into the woods during one of her panicked episodes. She begins to follow a woman she previously hit on the road to check if she was alright but eventually loses track of her and desperately tries to find her way out of the woods. We see a bunch of stick dolls hanging from the branches as previously seen inside the house after the basement situation. The episode ends with Shelby mortified as a man with his head cracked wide open runs towards her leaving the audience shocked at the fact that the show already put one of their main characters in danger. This, of course, left a cliff hanger so viewers would want to tune in for the next episode and finally figure out Shelby’s fate.
While the ending did tie up the episode well, it still seemed a bit out of place considering the theme of colonial times, it gave off a more Blair Witch type of vibe. It also leaves us with many questions as well such as if it was a good idea for American Horror Story to choose this historic theme? Will they be able to pull off a solid season based on the Roanoke Colony without going to far off the actual topic? The only way to find out is to continue watching and see where it all leads.
