'American Horror Story' recap: Murder House Confidential

Prior to the last temptation of Ben Harmon, the beleaguered doctor received some pride piercing news. According to the OBGYN, Vivien’s twins were something of a medical miracle-anomaly… because each of them had different fathers. One of them was Ben. The other? TBD. Ben – not yet up to speed on last week’s Rubber Man revelation – assumed it was Luke. Baffled and betrayed, Ben visited Vivien at the mental hospital. He found her asleep (or so he thought) and bound to her bed in her gloomy-austere rubber-less room/cell, and he took advantage of her vulnerable condition to vent his spleen on her. It was the Ben Harmon version of Christ descending into the Inferno and harrowing the damned souls trapped there, and if that analogy is wildly inappropriate and totally wrong, well, so was his speech:

“I know what you’re thinking. Thank God he’s here. Thank God he can see what they’re doing to me and how wrong it is. Thank God he’s a shrink so he can get me out of here. You’re right. You’re in hell here. This is no place for my wife. And I would move heaven and earth for the Vivien I thought I was married to. But you aren’t her. You’re a stranger to me. You actually pretended -- maybe even believed like a sociopath -- that you were some holy saint without sin while you s—- all over me. Our life. And our family. With your betrayal and lies. The way I feel right now, I wouldn’t lift to finger to get you out of here.”

Ben walked away. Vivien – eyes wide open – tried not to cry. I think the clinical term here is “pot calling the kettle black” -- except Vivien is bone china white innocent. I can’t wait for Ben to find out how wrong he is.

Later, Ben got drunk and summoned Luke to the house by tripping the panic button. He charged the renta-cop with conspiracy. Luke and Vivien had been diddling since the Harmons moved into The Victorian and plotting Ben’s ouster for months, hadn’t they? Luke laughed at his crazy talk. He also said he couldn’t be the father to one of Vivien’s babies. The dude shoots blanks. He and his ex-wife had tried for five years to get pregnant but couldn’t. Luke blasted Ben for his accusations, as well as Ben’s alleged love for Vivien. “You called her a whore and a liar. That was just in the last five minutes.” He wondered if Vivien was better off in the hospital. “She’s safer there.” At least, when Ben is not visiting…

With Ben now embittered toward the wife he was trying to win back, Hayden made her move. Earlier in the episode, the pretender to Vivien’s lady of the house throne tried to ingratiate herself to Ben by helping him out of a jam. Detective Jack Colquitt from the LAPD’s missing persons unit returned -- accompanied by Hayden’s sister, Marla. Colquitt knew that Hayden had been last seen at the Harmon house, and Marla – no fan of the predator professor that knocked up her sibling – seemed to think him perfectly capable of pulling a Martin Landau in Crimes and Misdemeanors and making an inconveniently obsessed mistress disappear. Like, say, in the hole where the gazebo now stands? But before the detective could dig any further, Hayden entered the room. Clearly not missing. She shooed away both the cop and her sister, then looked to Ben for affirmation. Nope. He didn’t bother to ask the questions you and I would have asked: Are you or are you not dead? (Then again, the fact that Hayden presented herself as alive and well to the authorities probably cinched it for him: She and Larry Harvey had been scamming him with that shovel-to-the-head thing.) Hayden told Ben that he had every right to be upset, and that yes, she’s been a “crazy bitch” lately, and sure, she did try to kill him and his wife, and wow, things really have gotten ugly with me lately, haven’t they? Basically, Hayden tried a strategy that never, ever works when it comes to winning back a lover: the If I Tell Him What He Wants To Hear And Sound Reasonable About It He’ll Totally Want To Keep Me move. “I don’t know if we have a future together, but I have always been there for you. I just want you to remember that,” she said. “Oh, by the way: I had the abortion. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Later, Hayden gave it one more try in the gazebo. Ben was more graceful yet clear. Vivien was the love of his life. Hayden was a mistake, one that he made during a rocky patch in his marriage. He said he had abused his authority. “But here’s the thing,” he said. “We weren’t written in the stars. We weren’t meant to be together. Not then, not now, not six months from now. I was lonely and heartbroken and I used you. It was unforgivable and I’m sorry. But no matter what happens with my wife I can’t be with you. I don’t love you, Hayden. I’m sorry. I never did.”

Now that was a good speech.

And it almost broke Hayden. Almost. “You don’t love me. Okay,” she said. “Can I have a hug?” Ah. The Goodbye Hug. It’s one of the oldest moves in the seducer’s handbook, often employed as a measure of last resort. It’s begin with a warm embrace that lingers a little longer than it should, and then, during the pull away, suddenly detours into a kiss that morphs into full-on macking and then morphs into full-on humping and culminates with a triumphant “See! I knew you couldn’t quit me!” Alas, Hayden couldn’t push Ben beyond the kiss. Defeated, Hayden tried to get one last lick by poisoning his mind with a nasty little lie – that Luke had been playing gentleman caller with Vivien while Ben had been away – but that ultimately failed to do any damage. It only goosed Ben closer to the illumination that has been long in coming.

BEN: 3 SPOOKY LITTLE GIRLS: 0

Having defeated his wilderness temptations, Ben received validation and vindication from his chief persecutor. As Moira Jr. made her way out of the house, Ben asked her about the Rubber Man mask. “Why do you care? You’re a man. Isn’t this what all men want -- the freedom to satiate their needs guilt free?” But Ben was past being tempted. “Just tell me the truth. I made a horrible mistake putting Vivien in the hospital. She was attacked by someone.” He was looking for confirmation. He got it, and more. “Congratulations, Dr. Harmon. You’re finally starting to see things as they really are,” she said. And in that moment, Ben saw Moira not as Moira Junior, but as Moira Senior. Which is to say, as Vivien sees her. It was all warm and fuzzy -- yayyy for easy-peasy, cut-and-dry redemption arcs! --  but dammit if it didn’t kill me that Ben wasn’t allowed the follow-up question. Who? Who was in the mask? Who raped my wife?! Must you really make me wait for the season finale to find out?!

NEXT: Adam and Eve, re-imagined by Constance Langdon