# American Horror Story --- WTF??? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 6, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752 "2011-10-06T03:19:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/121 "2011-11-03T19:37:03Z")
I’m late to the party having watched the first four episodes over the last few days. I didn’t see last night’s yet but nobody has posted about it yet. I should probably wait before I post these questions but I’ll just not come back here until after I see ep. 5 … 1. Is the maid the only ghost who we’ve seen age? 2. Do we know that the husband only sees the maid as a young hotty? Since he passes out and has issues of his own maybe he hust hallucinates her that way some times. 3. Since the burned guy has been seen away from the house doesn’t that make him living. 4. I had the same question as the one posed above about Tate’s parents being on the phone if he is a ghost ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2011, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/122 "2011-11-03T19:55:34Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > 1. Is the maid the only ghost who we’ve seen age? As far as I can think of, yes. > [@](#): > > 1. Do we know that the husband only sees the maid as a young hotty? Since he passes out and has issues of his own maybe he hust hallucinates her that way some times. He apparently really believes she’s a young hottie. So did a detective. If she ever appeared as the older version to Ben, he’d have a huge reaction. > [@](#): > > 1. Since the burned guy has been seen away from the house doesn’t that make him living. Pretty darn sure, yes. > [@](#): > > 1. I had the same question as the one posed above about Tate’s parents being on the phone if he is a ghost This is answered pretty well by ep 5. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/123 "2011-11-05T01:48:07Z")
> [@Meltdown](#): > > I seem to remember a scene in one of the first two episodes where Ben was talking to one of Tate’s “parents” on the phone, explaining that he could no longer treat him. Of course, we only heard his half of the conversation. I remember that as him trying but having no luck getting in touch with Ben’s parents. He explained that he couldn’t continue treatment in an attempt to cut through red tape. I remember at the time thinking it was a pretty jarring scene, basically telegraphing that something was off about Tate. ---
**Author:** ![Sherry\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@Sherry\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherry_R)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/124 "2011-11-05T04:19:22Z")
I’m new here,but I am wondering if its possible that the twins are Constance’s children? Pretty sure she said she has 4 children. so , that would be Tate and Abigail and 2 more ? ---
**Author:** ![Lucretia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/13edae/32.png) [@Lucretia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucretia)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/125 "2011-11-05T05:19:12Z")
Right now, I’m just watching for the demon-baby birth scene. Oh, how I hope there’s a demon-baby birth scene. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/126 "2011-11-05T08:13:13Z")
Watched the first four episodes over the last couple of days. My main thought: Make sure the place is insured to the max, hire Larry (Burnface) to burn it to the ground, have him send the courts a video saying “Yep, sure did; I wanted to finish what I started cause I set it on fire once before, and I’ve got terminal brain cancer you know”, and give him a big enough bonus from the insurance that he can get his pictures and study at the Actor’s Studio for his remaining weeks if he wants to, then move. Build Murder House Starbucks on its remains. Problem solved, series resolved. Why the hell did they re-enact Sal Mineo’s death, I wonder? I’m assuming he’s on the Death Tour but he has nothing to do with the place, it’s not even exactly certain what happened in his murder, and it was kind of out of place for the series. Unless… is he going to start dropping in too just for no apparent reason? Maybe as a trio of girlfriends with Nicole Simpson and Phil Hartman’s wife? ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/127 "2011-11-05T13:23:06Z")
> [@Sherry\_R](#): > > I’m new here,but I am wondering if its possible that the twins are Constance’s children? Pretty sure she said she has 4 children. so , that would be Tate and Abigail and 2 more ? No, she said all her children except Tate had Down’s syndrome. ---
**Author:** ![ShelliBean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@ShelliBean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShelliBean)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/128 "2011-11-05T15:06:58Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > . My main thought: Make sure the place is insured to the max, hire Larry (Burnface) to burn it to the ground, have him send the courts a video saying “Yep, sure did; I wanted to finish what I started cause I set it on fire once before, and I’ve got terminal brain cancer you know”, and give him a big enough bonus from the insurance that he can get his pictures and study at the Actor’s Studio for his remaining weeks if he wants to, then move. Build Murder House Starbucks on its remains. Problem solved, series resolved. You bite your tongue! I love that house so hard I want to marry it and have little house babies and I will not see it burned to the ground! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/129 "2011-11-06T06:50:12Z")
> [@ShelliBean](#): > > You bite your tongue! I love that house so hard I want to marry it and have little house babies and I will not see it burned to the ground! 🙂 But would you _live in it_? ---
**Author:** ![ShelliBean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@ShelliBean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShelliBean)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/130 "2011-11-07T03:50:49Z")
Only for a little while… And then for eternity. ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/131 "2011-11-07T19:19:59Z")
Episode 5 (Halloween pt 2) was pretty darn good. I did miss the maid, but overall I had barely a quibble. Pretty soon, one of the “protagonists” is going to have to figure out that they are in a supernatural horror story, so we can dispense with the cutesy double-meaning scenes. One wonders why Ben left the house, since Vivian is the one who doesn’t want to live there. She could have left for her apartment and left Ben there to sell the place. (No one seems to have taken Violet’s ultimatum very seriously anyway.) Tate makes way more sense as a ghost than he did as a real teenager, though one wonders how an underage kid enrolls in therapy without at least a note from his parents. Who’s paying the bill? If security-guard-dude-from-V doesn’t start putting the moves on now-single Vivian, I’ll be very surprised. He seems to put on the sexy voice anytime he talks to her. And at least we know he’s not a ghost after seeing ghost-mistress disappear from his minimal security rent-a-cop car. (no barrier between the front and back seats? And you’d put a psycho glass-shard wielding intruder behind you as you drive?) ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/132 "2011-11-07T20:25:04Z")
> [@gonzoron](#): > > Episode 5 (Halloween pt 2) was pretty darn good. I did miss the maid, but overall I had barely a quibble. Pretty soon, one of the “protagonists” is going to have to figure out that they are in a supernatural horror story, so we can dispense with the cutesy double-meaning scenes. Looks like the daughter is pretty close to figuring it out. It depends on how old that picture of Tate and Addy was supposed to be i guess. The dead teenager stuff was creepy as hell. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/133 "2011-11-07T21:10:40Z")
> [@gonzoron](#): > > Tate makes way more sense as a ghost than he did as a real teenager, though one wonders how an underage kid enrolls in therapy without at least a note from his parents. Who’s paying the bill? I’m curious about all of that as well. It’s possible I wasn’t paying much attention in earlier episodes, but is Tate’s presence in therapy explained? To heck with a note, I just can’t imagine a therapist taking on a highly troubled teenaged client without meeting the primary caregiver. Particularly if he’ll be paying out of pocket! My first thought was that Constance arranged everything, but if so she’s gone to a lot of trouble to hide that fact. Of course, Ben’s whole situation just seems silly to me. A (1) psychiatrist (2) doing (primarily?) talk therapy (3) from his house (4) while taking troubled/dangerous patients, and who (5) accepts insurance (6) without at least some rudimentary clerical staff? Who (7) lets a patient — for all outside observers can tell — seriously physically harm herself while in his office, and then (8) lets her walk off with nary an attempt to obtain medical attention? Concerning those last two, I would be very surprised to find that California law wouldn’t be rather _unhappy_ with him. > [@DigitalC](#): > > Looks like the daughter is pretty close to figuring it out. I suspect that’ll happen next episode. Either Constance will tell her, which I think they’re leading up to, or she’ll look up the school shooting. I’m curious what exactly Tate _knows_. He seemed aware that he’s a ghost, making out-of-house engagements for Halloween, and at the very least he’s in on the house’s secrets. But he doesn’t remember the circumstances of his death? How will he react when he does? (Speculation: presumably, if the shooting ended in his death [as seems probable], then he isn’t buried on-site; so coming to terms his past may set him free; and then Constance would be left completely alone.) ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/134 "2011-11-07T21:16:24Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > I’m curious what exactly Tate _knows_. He seemed aware that he’s a ghost, making out-of-house engagements for Halloween, and at the very least he’s in on the house’s secrets. But he doesn’t remember the circumstances of his death? How will he react when he does? (Speculation: presumably, if the shooting ended in his death [as seems probable], then he isn’t buried on-site; so coming to terms his past may set him free; and then Constance would be left completely alone.) I was wondering what Tate knows too. Anyway, with the shooting, it’s entirely possible he went home right after the school shooting and then shot himself. Or, given that a lot of his fucked-upness probably comes from the bad juju of the house, he killed himself right on the haunted house property, without understanding what drove him. If he shot himself, though, he would have some sort of horrific wound like the other ghosts, wouldn’t he? ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/135 "2011-11-07T21:26:02Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > But he doesn’t remember the circumstances of his death? How will he react when he does? (Speculation: presumably, if the shooting ended in his death [as seems probable], then he isn’t buried on-site; so coming to terms his past may set him free; and then Constance would be left completely alone.) Tate has complained of hearing voices, of needing the doctor to help him stop the voices in his head. Maybe he is schizophrenic? And I’m guessing he either offed himself on site, or Constance dragged him over as she did Addy. I’m still sad that Addy is gone, I liked both her performance and the character’s place in the show. Jessica Lange really seemed to work well with her. I’m really surprised at how involved in this story I am; so many of the plot devices are trite, and a couple of the actors significantly outshine the others. But McDermont’s Halloween performance was less wooden, and Britton’s character is finally sympathetic. I mean, poor Viv… who wants to incubate a demon? ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/136 "2011-11-07T21:36:19Z")
> [@Troppus](#): > > Tate has complained of hearing voices, of needing the doctor to help him stop the voices in his head. Maybe he is schizophrenic? And I’m guessing he either offed himself on site, or Constance dragged him over as she did Addy. That would explain why he’s haunting the place. But (if I may be forgiven for seeking consistency in a trippy horror story), the business with the maid seems to establish that the corpse being off-site is necessary, though insufficient, for the ghost to move on. With something as high profile as a school shooting it’s likely that Constance would’ve been forced into a conventional funeral for Tate, removing at least one barrier from his eventual shuffling off. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/137 "2011-11-07T21:50:17Z")
It doesn’t seem like any of the other ghosts would be buried on-site though, certainly not the gay couple at least. I liked that some of the ghosts are not outright evil. The gay guy is bitchy at worst and he did save the house, while the 1920’s lady is actually helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/138 "2011-11-07T21:56:54Z")
I’m just hoping all the ghosts will form together to have a huge musical number. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/139 "2011-11-09T15:26:26Z")
Just saw the Halloween conclusion and scenes for tonight’s episode. Help me understand the “rules” of the walking dead … It must depend on where you die … since Jessica Lange drug Addy back onto the property. It seems to depend on where your buried too. Are the only dead buried there the maid and Haydon…does that impact whether the clean up with age or appear with their wounds?? Who can walk where on Halloween? All the dead were just coming back to the property the next morning. Haydon appeared to the security guard in the car the next morning. Dif issue… I’m still trying to figure put how hubby can see the hot maid and think his wife sees the same thing and think that she would accept the way the maid dresses in front of her filandering husband. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752/140 "2011-11-09T15:27:54Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > No, she said all her children except Tate had Down’s syndrome. Did she say that specifically or just that they were all a little off except for Tate. Those twins look a bit off to me! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-horror-story-wtf/598752.md?page=8)