American Horror Story: Roanoke “Chapter 7” 

Well that escalated quickly! American Horror Story: Roanoke offered up an installment that was brilliantly tense and the scares never let up. “Chapter 7” was thrilling and terrifying from start to finish.

Despite only meeting him in the previous episode, we said goodbye to Sidney, the douchebag producer. He and the rest of the production team were murdered by Agnes, who seemed to relish losing herself in her “role” as The Butcher.

Kathy Bates was phenomenal. Watching Agnes struggle to maintain her sense of self as she hid in the cellar was interesting to watch. She seamlessly transitioned back and forth between her Butcher accent and her normal speaking voice as she wrestled with her newfound murderous ways.

Back at the house, no one could find Rory, even though Matt, Shelby, and Lee knew enough from their previous experiences to assume he was probably dead. Audrey seemed rather delusional when she came across a giant puddle of blood and figured Rory left for his audition in Los Angeles, and the blood was staged by Sidney.

After hitting on Shelby, Dominic told the camera in the confessional that Sidney hired him to come to the house in order to play the bad guy and cause trouble for Matt and Shelby. He had no guilt about his part. After all, ratings are what is most important.

Agnes managed to sneak inside and corner Shelby in her bedroom. Despite being struck with the cleaver, Shelby still held onto her camera so the world could see Agnes kill her. Luckily, Dominic intervened and saved Shelby’s life. Just as confusing as how she got in the house, I have no clue how Agnes got out of the bedroom.

Why everyone didn’t leave as group is beyond me, but characters in horror stories rarely ever make sound decisions. Anyway, Audrey, Monet, and Lee decided to head to the production trailer to get help after finding the phone lines cut.

In order not to be seen, they took the underground route where they seemed to run into the real ghost of Edward Mott. Except this version did not seem nearly as talkative or humorous as how he was depicted on My Roanoke Nightmare. In fact, the brief look we got of him was downright creepy.

The trio’s night was only getting started as they ran to the production trailer and found everyone dead. There were no cell phones in sight and the car was dead. Agnes appeared once more to terrorize, but Lee managed to shoot her with the gun she snuck into the house.

After fleeing the scene, the women were frightened and hiding in the woods. Of course they filmed themselves the entire time (Lee made them!), and quickly came across the Roanoke colony mob heading toward the house.

Shelby was saying her goodbyes to the camera when blood started dripping onto her face. She definitely shouldn’t have looked up because hanging there above her was Rory with his guts hanging out. If you think their night couldn’t get any worse… just wait.

Audrey, Lee, and Monet found themselves running from the real Polk family. This time, they had a taser with them. This is when we got out first glimpse of Finn Wittrock. It was very brief, but he plays the Polk boy who took the camera away from Monet.

After that we barely saw him since he was the one filming Lee as she was helplessly tied up back at the Polks’ home. I didn’t think it was possible for the real Polks to be more terrifying than their fictional counterparts, but they were frightening.

Poor Lee! The Polks quickly made a meal out of Lee’s leg. How disturbing was it to watch Mama Polk “tenderize” Lee’s leg? To make everything that much more awful, they then made Audrey and Monet sample Lee’s flesh.

Quick observation: Did Sidney somehow put cameras in the Polks’ home? If all this is found footage, that means every shot needs to come from either the handheld cameras or the mounted cameras placed by production.

While those three ladies were having the night from hell, Matt and Shelby were back at the house opening up about their marriage. While Shelby came back for Matt, he admitted that their marriage was over the second they first stepped inside the house.

Later that night, Matt seemed to be in a trance as he made his way down to the basement. Dominic managed to see and follow him. There in the basement, Matt reunited with the real Scathach (the forest witch).

Dominic quickly got Shelby and had her follow him to see for herself. Shelby thought she was helping Matt out as she got the Scathach to de-mount him and run off, but it turns out Matt has been in love with the forest witch and came back to the house for her. It’s unclear if this declaration with influenced via a trance or if it was the truth, but we’ll probably never know now that Shelby bashed Matt’s head in.

I was completely surprised by Shelby killing Matt! This development came out of nowhere, but I buy her sudden fit of rage. Lily Rabe was terrific playing Shelby’s stunned reaction to her own actions. Of course Dominic tried to tell her she should turn herself in since there were cameras everywhere, but that would have to wait.

Agnes, who managed to survive being shot, was in front of the house. Her reign of terror met a pathetic and swift end when she came face to face with the mob and the real ghost of The Butcher. The Butcher was not fond of the deranged actress who took up her persona. With a final weak attempt at pleasing her idol, Agnes found her head cut down the middle with The Butcher’s cleaver.

• Body count: Sidney, members of the crew, Rory, Agnes, and Matt.
• Who’s left standing: Shelby, Audrey, Monet, Dominic, and Lee.

Check out a sneak peek of the next installment titled “Chapter 8.”

American Horror Story airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on FX.