'American Horror Story' recap: The Murder House Rules

HOW TO BUILD A GRIM GROTTO. Ben went for a run. He always runs when his guilt and damnation flares anew.  Catching up to him, as always, was Larry Harvey, the scorched face man who burned his family to death because the devil house made him do it. An odd couple, Ben and Larry, and so it was funny when Larry – apparently pursuing his dream of being on the stage -- asked Ben to rehearse a scene from Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. “You can be Oscar,” offered Larry, looking funny and freaky as he tried to keep pace with speed-walking Ben. On his shoulder like a fluttering devil, Larry filled Ben’s ear with anxiety. He knew he hadn’t neutralized Hayden last week. He knew that Hayden was threatening his second chance life anew. He told Ben: You have to take care of business. Oh, and Larry also asked him for 1000 bucks for “headshots.” He meant photographs, but soon it would mean something different. Ben tried to blow him off. “Come near me again and there’s going to be a problem. Do you understand?!” Larry smiled a screwtape smile. “Oh, I understand.” FUN FACT! "Larry Harvey" must owe his name to the same Larry Harvey who co-created Burning Man, the annual counter-culture confab in the California desert that concludes with a burning of a giant wooden effigy, an image that always reminds me of The Wicker Man, a horror movie about a man who gets tricked into participating in a religious ritual involving human sacrifice. What exactly is Larry's master plan for Ben?

Back at Murder House, Ben searched for his missing tape recorder while drinking Moira-brewed coffee. Ben got woozy again... and suddenly he was in his backyard. Digging. And there was Constance. Black sunglasses. Smoking. She told him the previous owners had soaked the soil with pesticides, tainting the Earth. Best not to dig too deep, she said. Better to leave it alone and cover it up with… something. “You know,” she said, “I see a brick patio with a gazebo under the shade of this pepper tree, with a Long Island ice tea in your hand while reclining on chaise lounge, with the sound of cicadas in your ears.” She looked up to the window and saw Moira Sr. looking down, eyes full of worry. “Sheer heaven,” Constance said. Did Constance – who, like Larry, is constantly gardening her own mysterious plot – plant the seed of what was to come in the soggy oil of Ben’s druggy brain? Did she get the idea from the house's windows?

Exit Constance. Re-enter Detective John Colquitt. Sally Freeman was no longer missing. She was also in a coma. Drug overdose. Found on her person: Ben’s tape recorder. Ben listened to his session with Selfless Sally during the “missing time” of his first hallucination. The Most Boring Woman In Los Angeles railed at The Worst Psychiatrist In Los Angeles for falling asleep on her. “You are worse than my husband!” she cried, her lifeless drone finally broken with sharp emotion. “I am paying you to help me through this crisis! The least you can do is pretend to be interested! I’m in pain! I’m in pain! What do I have to do to get your attention! Kill myself?!” Sally grabbed a letter opener and slit her arms. That shocked the shrink awake. “I got a rise! Now I know what I have to do!” Colquitt clicked off the tape recorder. Ben was dismayed. He also didn’t remember any of it. But how was that possible? The answer came when he got the call from Dr. Hall. She said his blood was gunky with old school laudanum. Just like the stuff the Montgomerys used during their basement abortions. Dr. Hall said that doctors stopped using it as a general anesthesia in 1934 because of a side effect: “Extreme retrograde memory loss.”

Ben became convinced that Moira had been poisoning him. "Prove it," she dared. (What do you think? Guilty or innocent?) Then Hayden McClane invaded anew. She was furious with Ben for standing her up at Norm’s. She wanted to speak with Vivien. She wanted to tell her everything. She made it clear that Ben was going to take care of her and the little life growing inside her. She used a word for her baby that Nora the Abortionist used: “You have obligations!” Ben managed to calm her down by saying/lying that he was willing to play it her way...  just as long as they talked about it first. Away from the house. At a restaurant. As they were leaving, Hayden smacked her lips at the prospect of eating something very big and juicy… and that’s when Larry Harvey whacked Hayden upside the noggin with a shovel. “Still moving,” Larry noted. He finished the job with two more swings. Nice headshots, Larry.

NEXT: What Lies Beneath

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