As you may already know from my recent tweets and Facebook posts, I am obsessed with the FX show, American Horror Story. It's morbid, it's spooky, it's dramatic, it's well-written, the actors are amazing, and after every episode I'm left with something to chew over, a snack to quell my nerves overworked in anticipation, until the next Wednesday night.
Warning: Spoilers ahead. If you aren't watching the show, I highly recommend that you catch up on it with On Demand or by watching online, particularly if you're a horror fan. Man, I love this show so friggin much. Not only is it creepy with the ghosts and monsters, but it also serves to show the very real horrors we hear about on the news and face every day in this country.
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Last Wednesday's episode, titled "Piggy Piggy," was especially good because of the disparate emotions it managed to conjure, within myself and other fans. We got to see the dark side of Tate (the lonely ghost who befriends Violet, the daughter of the family living in the Murder House) in the opening scene, where we found that he really did commit the horrific school-shooting back in 1994. We already knew that this scene was imminent, after his victims (whom he did not recognize) came to haunt him while on his date with Violet in "Halloween Part 2," but watching it happen and seeing Tate as the shooter solidified that it wasn't a case of mistaken identity (or was it? like The Shining, the property is very powerful).
The scene, while disturbing, was important to the plot and to the character development of Tate. It also acted as a striking contrast to the more tender moments with Violet later on in the episode. In the beginning of the series, we're not too sure about Tate. He seems like he has issues and the way he talks about Violet to her father is cringe-inducing. But then he saves the lives of Violet and her mother, Vivien, (in the "Home Invasion" episode), and later saves Violet's life again in "Piggy Piggy," after her attempted suicide.
"Piggy Piggy" was a very pivotal episode and we are left with many questions. Had the first scene of the Columbine-inspired library shooting not been shown, we would have even more questions about what is going on in this show. We know that Tate did it, with or without help. And it tears us up inside because we have seen him in a caring and unselfish light in other scenes. The writers know what they're doing in creating this conflict of expectations and emotions with the audience. We don't want to believe that he acted alone-- we want to believe that the evilness of the house made him do it. And this, along with Tate and Violet's heartbreaking Romeo-and-Juliet relationship, is why I (and many others) will continue to tune in.
I'm bringing all of this up not only because the episode moved me (I've been playing the Tate/Violet scenes in my head repeatedly since Wednesday night), but because of a comment (well, actually a few comments) I left on a review (if that's what you want to call it) of "Piggy Piggy" by Richard Lawson (former Gawker writer and Real Housewives enthusiast) on The Atlantic Wire.
Lawson didn't like the opening scene of the episode, saying it was unnecessary and sensationalized the Columbine massacre for entertainment purposes. It was too close to the truth for him, which makes no sense. If he's seen any of the other episodes he would realize that much in the plot is borrowed from true crime stories-- Tate's character is even named after the victim of the Manson killings, Sharon Tate. I strongly disagree that the opening scene of "Piggy Piggy" in any way glamorized the killings-- for one, it was acted in almost complete silence, the only part spoken by Tate a whistle (borrowed from the film, Twisted Nerve).
So I left a comment telling Lawson that I thought the scene was not insensitive to the touchy subject, that it was integral to understanding the background of the story, and that just because something is raw and difficult to talk about doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. Additionally, I left a comment expressing that "Lawson should stick to writing typo-laden Real Housewives recaps." Of course I was joking, but it elicited a response from the writer, in the form of a tweet:
The comment in question can be found here, and here's a screen cap:
/ end Lawson nonsense.
What did you think of last week's episode? I have to say that I haven't cried that much during a TV show since a particularly touching moment between Oscar the Grouch and Slimey on Sesame Street. When Tate was screeching and dragging Violet into the bathtub to revive her, I really lost it. He loves and really cares about her, and she's in love with a ghost. It's all so tragically beautiful.
What do you think of the show?
It's crazy how hard I'm fan-girling over this series and I'm going a little nuts because I want to gush over it out loud, but I have to gush over it through the FX fan forums because none of my friends are as obsessed as I am.
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