American Horror Story Murder House premiered in 2011, a time I refuse to accept was ten years ago. I don’t even know how I found out about the show, but the girl down my dorm hall who had black hair and a lot of tattoos suggested we watch it so I said okay.
Alas, I loved it.
Murder House starts off with two ugly ass ginger kids beating the shit out of an old house. Some girl outside says “you’re going to die in there” and shit, she’s right! They do!
Apparently no one has learned yet not to go into basements where doors mysteriously open on their own!
There’s some weird shit in this basement, like a frog and a baby leg in a jar of floating material. Watching it in 2021, I’m still spooked by the creaky steps and cement basement, Troy struggling with his throat slit, the other brother screaming as something comes at him from out of the shadows. You’re like “oh shit, this show means business” then Connie Britton comes on the screen and you’re like “fuck, they got CONNIE BRITTON? Alright. I’m in.”
We learn Connie Britton’s pregnant but she’s having difficulty with the pregnancy. I stop paying attention for a bit because my steak is done but all we need to know is she needs hormones or something.
She gets home and there’s scraping noises and she’s like okay well fuck! Someone is in my house! ENTER: Piece of shit husband played by Denis O’ Hare. He’s cheating on her with who I can only assume is a blonde and Connie accidentally slices him with a knife. The credit scene plays and it’s all those nasty baby heads I’m not going to look at while I’m eating my steak.
PLUG: My steak is really fucking good. I’m a good ass cook.
Ben, the dad, is trying to fix his family by moving them all to L.A. while wearing a Gray Fedora. Wow. A Sign of the Times. I’m hoping he dies first due to his horrible fashion sense and the fact he cHEATED ON CONNIE BRITTON. They show up to the house— him, Connie Britton, and their daughter Violet (Tarissa Farmiga) — and take a lil’ tour of it. Ben, toxic masculine breadwinner that he is, brings up that VIV cooks and HE works!!!!!!! Do they have a study he can see patients in??? He’s trying to administrate some therapy to some clients even tho he can’t even fucking work on fixing himself.
Look within, you home-wrecking whore!
The dog starts BORKING at the basement and I immediately whip out google to see if the dog dies. Answer? Shockingly no!!! Violet goes and checks out the basement while Viv and Ben learn the last couple did a lil’ murder-suicide before this family moved in which is why this house is cheaper. Violet is like ooooo… sexy… I’m a mysterious goth tumblr girl I love suicide we’ll take it :’)
Quirky girl is Quirky!!!!!!
Heartwarming moment between Ben and Viv in their bedroom where he says we deserve some good after all the shit we’ve been through <3 Excuse me, YOU cheated??? The shit WE’VE been through? They’re trying to show that this couple needs some mending but I’m not rooting for Ben at all. What is UP with Connie Britton being cheated on? The same thing happened in White Lotus. Who the FUCK would cheat on Connie Britton?
You’re in the essence of a GOD you idiots.
Meanwhile, Violet is having a hard time fitting in at school. Some girl caught her smoking and, in a moment that goes 0 to 100, tries to force Violet to eat the cigarette. In response, she spits in her face which is so fucking dope. There’s a slow motion scene of Violet smoking with her giant Forever 21 hat on to make kids remember smoking is cool and to make people on Tumblr go crazy over needing to layer a t shirt over long sleeves. Seriously, the amount of times I saw this gif of Violet walking in slow motion smoking because she’s so over it on Tumblr was insane. Ryan Murphy made this show for sad girls online and no one else.
Connie Britton is re-doing the wall when the little girl comes in to casually tell her she’s going to die in her new house. Some neighbors bring over brownies but this girl brings over trauma and her mom, Jessica Lange, who takes zero time putting Connie Britton in her place. Jessica says that her daughter, who she keeps referring to as a “mongoloid” HUGE YIKES, has always had a butt up her ass about this house and I’m sort of confused, since the Ginger kids looked like they were from the 70’s. Is Jessica and her daughter immortal? I’d believe Jessica Lange was immortal. She’s like a sexier version of my mom.
I don’t care how that comes across. I stand by it.
Viv (Connie, sorry for the inconsistency) finds the attic and there’s a full leather suit suspended from the ceiling. I had a little heart palpitation I was stressed out. But who cares about this tRaUmA because we’re about to meet the guy every girl my age was obsessed with:
TATE LANGDON
Tate, played by Evan Peters, is a school shooter. Why we were all obsessed with him, who knows, but I will give you a little pop quiz history on me as a person that might shed some light on this. The first short story I ever wrote in college, I made myself the protagonist and I was FOR SOME INSANE REASON a school shooter. I thought this was so subversive. I was like “they never thought the homecoming queen could do it” because I thought I was soooo edgy. Truly, the beginning of every person’s career artistically should be universally ignored, in my humble opinion. We can’t all be Brett Easton Ellis, making bank on our first book at 19. We also don’t need to monetize trauma as a selling point. Seriously, why did I ever think writing a short story like that would be acceptable?
You see We Need to Talk About Kevin once and think “that’s what REAL cinema is.”
Anyways, Tate thinks he’s some savior for being a school shooter and is regaling this to Ben, who is offering him therapy for his nightmares. He has full face paint on and says he kills people he likes and that he doesn’t feel anything because he feels like he’s helping take them away from how shitty the world is: solidifying him as the savior of 2012 Tumblr.
I cannot emphasize how much Tumblr helped market this show to sad, depressed teens of its time.
Violet self harming herself is inter-spliced in this montage and Tate walks in to tell her she’s cutting the wrong way. If she wants to kill herself she should cut vertically and here I’m like sigh, this is probably why I loved this show. I projected all of my own bad behaviors on to Violet’s similar bad behaviors and just melded in my mind being a sad little college freshman who needed to be saved. This is Tate and Violet’s meet cute and I obsessed over their relationship far too much at nineteen.
Ben wakes up in the middle of the night to make a fire butt naked, the first thing he’s done that I admire. Moira, the housekeeper, shows up and she has two different eye colors and some pretty cool red hair. She’s really old and kind of weird but Connie gives her tea anyways. Connie asks “do you ever get tired of cleaning up other people’s messes,” and Moira answers “we’re women, it’s what we do,” proving that women truly did need saving before #metoo in 2016.
Someone needs to come in and break that glass CEILING for these HOES!!!!
Ben meets Moira but now instead of being an old hag she’s a SUPER hot young bitch holy shit. She’s wearing STOCKINGS. She’s got nice SKIN. This is going to be a problem for Ben. A solution for me (the audience). More of this actress.
The hot maid leaves (no!!!!!) and Ben lowkey tries to fuck Viv on the kitchen table (hot!!!!!!) but there’s no time because Tate is back and Ben is trying to prescribe him meds but he don’t want it because his dick won’t work! Ben’s like…. what? And Tate is like yeah I met someone and it’s your daughter. I wanna go rawdog gaga on her pink meat and spin her around like a table top.
This doesn’t actually happen but if you gave me a pen and a piece of paper I could make it happen, Hollywood.
Violet and Tate start comparing their scars and she tells this weird ass sad boy that his dad cheated on her mom which sucks cause her mom JUST had a miscarriage. That’s a huge fucking bummer because Violet is an only child and I kind of think she’d be more well adjusted if she had a sibling around. She asks Tate why he’s seeing her dad because fuck HIPPA and then they start talking about Morrisey and Kurt Cobain YAWN. Look at these two little posers, loafing about in their skinny jeans. So sad, so scene, so hip. When will they figure out that hating everything isn’t a personality trait, it’s just Twitter?
Ben catches Tate talking to Violet and justifiably freaks out because this kid has said he wants to shoot up a school before. Two seconds later, Ben catches the hot maid masturbating and then goes to his OWN room to JERK off. You guys, this iconic scene became the meme of the century. Dylan McDermott put his all into this scene. Deserved a fucking EMMY for this performance. Here’s a pic, for visual reference.
He sees a dude with half his face burnt off but it was after he finished so it’s okay. Meanwhile, Connie is having a TIME dealing with Jessica Lange’s daughter running around asking to pet Connie’s dog and telling her she’s going to die. Jessica Lange doesn’t really discipline her daughter but the dog does try to bite her which, Thank God.
Ben is on hold trying to report Tate for being dangerous and Hot Maid is back cleaning in front of Ben in her stockings doing the absolute most trying to seduce him. She’s got her bra off and her stockings undone and Violet sees! Instead of telling her mom though she decides to get in a fight at school and burn the bully with her cigarette, which is very fucking hot. Maybe it’s because I’m queer and genuinely forget women are straight, but she has HUGE queer energy because she listens to good music and dresses well. I don’t really get why she’s chasing after a man but she’s entitled to her wrong decisions.
Ben tries to make a move on Viv again but she respectfully declines and he freaks out by throwing something and asks how long she’s going to punish him for. We figure out right now that it was actually a student of his he was fucking. He was hurting too, Viv! God damnit, maybe you went into labor and delivered a dead child but Ben needed pussy. I mean, he went to therapy with you for six months and let you get a dog when he needed cuddles, what more do you want? It’s hard for him!!! Ben reveals they haven’t had sex in a year which sucks :/ You both are like forty, don’t you slow down by then? I was 26 and didn’t have sex for like eight months. I was unfazed. Then some twink came in and slapped my ass and I was better for like, three months.
The patriarchy ends up prevailing though since Viv and Ben decide to fuck that day. Not only once, but twice later on when he shows up in the full length leather outfit Connie told him to throw away except wait, in an insane twist of things, we realize that Ben was actually downstairs trying to light his fucking hand on fire. We actually don’t know who was in the suit (Tate) it could be anyone who’s neurotypical (Tate) and totally sane (Tate) and totally not in to Viv because he’s with her daughter, Violet (Tate).
Viv tends to Violet’s wounds and is very vulnerable about how she is afraid of everything and then Viv goes off to have Tate tell her to kill her bully. She lures the bully in to the basement with the promise of giving her cocaine and Tate promises he’ll scare the bully for her. Tate tells her to turn off the lights and all of a sudden the lights start flickering, all the while Tate is turning back and forth in to this weird fanged clown thing. Violet tells him it’s over, bud! Leave, you maniac! Hit the showers, bud!
Things keep getting weirder as Ben finally confronts the man who’s face is scarred by fire. He tells them they have to get out of the house because it’s a fucking nut place and he ended up killing his whole family because of it. He lit the place up like the Fourth of July because the voices told him to light everyone on fire. This would make sense, since Ben is sleepwalking and playing with fire lately, but Ben tries to dismiss him by saying he should be in a mental hospital. I always felt really bad for Lee because he was just trying to do the right thing and I’m pretty sure he gets killed later on because of it.
Jessica Lange is skittering around the house again stealing shit and Moira tells her to get out. Before she leaves though she lets us in on a little naughty secret that she actually killed the hot maid. Not only does the pilot leave us with this knowledge, it also tells us that Connie is pregnant and we don’t know (Tate’s) who’s it is.
And that’s the end of the first episode of American Horror Story! It’s truly wild to think Murder House kicked off a decade long series, but it did. They’ve made nine seasons and to my knowledge, only three of them held up. Roanoke wasn’t too bad, but I definitely fell off after the third season. For continuity, I think I’ll be reviewing the first episode of every subsequent AHS show since they all technically are their own shows.
Overall? I’ll give it a solid 9/10. Being the first of its kind, Ryan Murphy really paved the way for creating a Horror Story Miniseries universe on television.
He walked so Mike Flanagan could fly.
P.S. Here’s a photo of Evan Peters and I <3