'American Horror Story' recap: Sympathy For The Devil. Or Not.

Ben wanted to know if Derek had tried looking into the mirror and saying the curse to summon the monster. “No,” he said, “but there’s something inside of me that’s afraid that I might.  And it scares the hell out of me.” By “hell,” what Derek really meant was his humanity, his masculinity, certainly his self-confidence. He had become a binge-eating shut-in incapable of asking a woman out, incapable of looking at himself in the mirror. Ben Harmon was determined to fix him. He seemed literally mesmerized by Derek’s tale. Or maybe by just Derek himself. Ben had been beaten up by Vivien’s deconstruction. Especially, I think, that part about finding him “disappointing as a man.” Ben saw himself in Derek, and he was moved. Helping Derek change the way he saw the world and change the way he thought about himself offered Ben some catharsis, maybe even some hope.

Throughout this sequence, American Horror Story gave us a couple upward-titling shots that framed Ben and Derek against the backdrop of a painting high on the wall. The image: Birds. Which reminded me of Tate. They can fly away when things get too crazy. It also reminded me of the Fork-tailed Flycatcher. A kingbird; the Tyrannus savanna – a tyrant flycatcher. A lord of flies. In the novel Lord of the Flies, the castaway boys live in fear of a legend, a mythic monster evil they call The Beast. They sacrifice a pig and create a totem out of its head to appease The Beast. (“The Lord of the Flies” – the English translation of Beelzebub.) There’s also a character named Piggy – a pudgy, socially awkward egghead who clings to social conventions and a clinical, scientific worldview. SPOILER ALERT: The Beast is bulls—t, man is the cause of all evil, not Satan, and Piggy gets killed. Or so the Internet tells me tonight. (Somehow, I graduated school -- and watched all of Lost -- without ever reading this book.) But it seems to me that Golding's novel and "Piggy, Piggy" share common values, including a sober regard for human goodness and belief that man, not some supernatural agency, is the author of evil. From the book: "There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast. . . . Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! . . . You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are the way they are?” 

Ben tried to help Derek with some "face your fear" therapy. He put Derek in the upstairs bathroom of Murder House, turned off the lights, and asked him to look in the mirror and say the “piggy pig pig” incantation. Derek bravely did as he was told. Piggyman never showed up -- but Nurse Gladys did. After all, this was the bathroom where Franklin drowned her back in ’68. Derek freaked. So much for that approach. Still, Derek kept trying, motivated by the potential for romance with a coworker in accounting. He didn't want to bring her home and have to explain why all his mirrors were covered up. Ben cracked the whip and told him to get over it, already. "Think of it as a psychological law of physics," he said. "The more you think it, the more power you give it." He promised Derek that the moment he gave up his stinkin' thinkin', "you'll be free."

Derek’s story came to an end in his own bathroom. We watched him look into the mirror and say the “piggy pig pig” curse. No Piggyman. No Nurse Gladys. No devils. In his final moments, Derek realized that Ben Harmon was right (for a change!), that he had been living in fear of a beast that didn’t exist, that he had foolishly ceded control of his life to an unclean thought. Derek sighed with relief. He was finally free from the crazy. Free as a bird...

And then a robber hiding in his shower opened the curtain and shot him between the eyes because he thought Derek was making fun of him for being fat.

Sometimes, s—t just happens.

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EPILOGUE: BLEACH

In Constance’s kitchen, Addy’s grieving mother and Billie Dean Howard were finishing dinner when the catty hostess busted her Craigslist medium for wearing cheap fingernail polish. “Don’t take it out on me just because your dead daughter is mad at you,” Billie said. Constance was stung. Why would she ever say something like that? “Because you’re capable of handling the truth,” Billie replied. “The dead can hold a grudge better than most Scorpios.” Constance – flustered – took her meaning to be that Adelaide was mad at her beauty-obsessed mother who used to call her “mongoloid” and  “monster.” Constance wanted to talk to Addy, to tell her that she missed her, that she was her reason for living. Billie relayed Addy’s reaction: “She says you should have told her that she was alive.” Still, the medium said, “Talk to her. She’s here.”

At this point, I wasn’t yet convinced that Billie Dean wasn’t a charlatan. I also wasn’t convinced that Constance wasn't just keeping the woman around so she could tell her things she wanted to hear. What she certainly needed at that moment was to hear that her daughter could forgive her. “Baby, I am so sorry,” Constance said. She explained that she felt overwhelmed, especially when Addy’s was younger. She called herself a “single parent” (where was Papa Langdon?), and said it wasn’t easy. She told Addy she was proud of her and admired her for what she had overcome in her life. “And I think you are beautiful, Addy,” she said, “I think you are the most beautiful girl I have ever met.”

Billie was moved enough by Constance to wipe away a tear. She also told Constance the words Constance most needed to hear: “She says ‘Thank you,’ and that she knows, and that where she is now, on the other side, she’s a pretty girl at last.” Constance and Billie laughed. It was all so warm and fuzzy, and it was tempting to dismiss it all as faked and phony… until Billie Dean revealed that Addy – who apparently had been fed a lot of white-washy lies about Tate -- had lost all sympathy for her devilish brother in the afterlife. “She also wants you to know that she’s grateful that you didn't get her to the lawn at the old house. She doesn’t want to be with Tate. She’s afraid of him, now that she knows the truth.”

Constance went pale as a ghost, and she remembered.

1994.

Sirens are wailing, and so is Constance. She wants to talk to Tate, as if that might make a difference, but it’s too late. The boy who loved Cobain has his finger pointed at his head. The SWAT cops have their guns trained on his heart. He makes the Ka-powwww sound. His eyes beam hypnotic. But this is a top-notch batch of LAPD. They don't flinch. Tate looks at them blankly. Was he trying to Jedi mind trick them? Did he think he could? Is he disappointed that he failed? It’s hard to know. He drops his hands and reaches for the gun under his pillow. He’s spurting blood from the torrent of bullets puncturing his torso before he can even raised his weapon. He gets his suicide by cop, though maybe not in the way he wanted or expected.

A police officer rushes to him and kneels and with heartbroken eyes and a stunned tone asks him the only question that matters. “Why did you do it?” Tate moves his mouth, but only a death rattle comes out. Gone. Except he's not.

Sorry, Addy. To borrow a line from The Librarian: Now you know what heroes look like.

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Your turn to oink away. “Piggy, Piggy” – what did you think?

For Ryan Murphy's exclusive take on the episode, click here.

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