‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ Recap: Chop Till They Drop

Warning: This recap of the “Chapter 7” episode of American Horror Story: Roanoke contains spoilers.

If you’ve ever attempted to make a short film or video, you know a lot can go wrong. You could lose sunlight, or the microphones might pick up too much wind, or sometimes your actors start getting murdered by colonial phantasms. Nobody ever said the cinematic arts were easy, but that goes double when there’s a blood moon! Triple if there are pot-farming cannibal hillbillies in the vicinity. That’s what the cast and crew of Return to Roanoke: Three Days in Hell learned this week… the hard way.

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With “Chapter 7” we’re now two episodes deep into American Horror Story‘s most high-concept (and possibly most effective!) twist to date. It’s truly saying something that six seasons in, the old girl’s got some magic still left in her, but it’s still a fact. This season is so good! And considering the rate at which characters are getting killed, at this point you almost have to marvel at the fact that THREE more episodes remain. The real question is, can we stomach how gruesome the rest of the season promises to be? I know I’m game. Let’s talk about “Chapter 7”!

We began with one of nature’s most beautiful creatures attempting to eat grass with a spirit hell said “no thanks” to.

I don’t know about you, but I got VERY nervous something terrible would happen to that deer on account of the nonstop terrible things that tend to happen on this property. But fortunately not even these ghosts would harm an adorable deer. Phew! Deer crisis averted.

At this point Sidney and his skeleton crew noticed that there was now a pool of blood where Rory had once hunked. And as far as Sidney knew, he did not hire anybody to actively murder the actors. And come to think of it, where’d that PA girl go?

Oh, there she was. But before Sidney could scream at her to get back to work, suddenly Kathy Bates ran out of the woods and stabbed him with a butcher knife!

Sidney was surprised to say the least, and except for a few possibly hallucinated jump-scares last week, this was our first confirmation that Crazy Agnes had indeed infiltrated the set with revenge in mind. It was going to be a long night.

Meanwhile the house guests had, per tradition, reset to nonscared after they reasoned that the pool of blood in Rory’s room was probably just, like, a spilled Squeezit or whatever. And also the graffiti downstairs that said “MURDER” was probably just a Banksy prank. So now they had nothing to worry about anymore! Everything was fine.

I liked this moment when Agnes started yammering to herself (with a stolen camera) about whether murdering the nice PA girl was a cool thing to do or not. And in case you were wondering if she’d been possessed by spirits or whatever, she hadn’t! Because at this point the spirits started harassing her with twigboys! So Agnes was simply a schizophrenic, freelance murderer with no actual ties to the Roanoke story except fandom. Stans take it way too far sometimes.

The next morning Shelby found a bloody camera on her bed and while she was examining it, guess who jumped out and chopped at her a ton? Correct, it was Agnes.

I loved when Shelby accepted that she was probably going to die in this moment and her final gesture was to lift her phone and record it. Social media has ruined us! Anyway, don’t worry, Cuba Gooding Jr. ran in and tackled Agnes. But then she ran away! Till next time, crazy.

I also loved that the various house guests still found the time to duck into the confessional booth and get REAL. Yes, they were in certain mortal danger, but sometimes you just gotta talk trash.

So at this point the group split up, with Lee, Audrey, and Monet heading out through the secret tunnel. And after they encountered a ghost in a fop wig who screamed at them so much, they stumbled out into the woods, where they were attacked by Agnes! Fortunately, Lee shot her ass.

But just when it seemed like they could all take a breather, Audrey’s vlog was interrupted by dripping blood! And you guessed it: Rory was hanging disemboweled from the pine tree above her. The only thing worse than finding your husband disemboweled and hanging from a pine tree is getting his blood in your eyes, but that’s just my opinion. Flush those peepers!

Then a filthy Finn Wittrock ran up and cattle-prodded everybody! That’s right, the hillbilly element of the reenactments had not been made up, and Finn Wittrock was their handsomest family member! Sometimes inbreeding pays off?

Agnes, meanwhile, retreated back to her basement TV studio and removed the bullet from her bosom. This did not look like it felt very good, due to all her scream-crying. But nothing was gonna keep this old gal down.

Shelby, Matt, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. were still back at the house and had no idea what was going on, despite all the gunshots. See, Shelby had been cut real bad, plus there was the love triangle to attend to. But it all went to h*ck when Matt sleepwalked to the cellar and did sex with a witch! Cuba Gooding, Jr. woke Shelby up and led her to the scene of the sexin’, and if you can believe it she was not thrilled to see Matt doing sex with a witch. For that reason, she pulled a crowbar off the wall and hit the witch! The witch was like, “Byeeeee,” and Matt was like “Hey, I only came here to do sex with that witch!” and Shelby was like, “Then we are getting divorced, ROANOKE STYLE!”

In other words Shelby went WILD on Matt and within seconds his head resembled expired borscht. Rest in peace, sweet prince that likes to do sex with witches.

At this point Lee found herself tied to a chair with a gaggle of pot-farming hillbillies applying oils and seasonings to her inner thigh. This was not as sensual as it sounds, particularly when they began stabbing her! That’s right, it was cannibalism o’clock and Lee’s leg was the main course.

But because the hillbilly family was hospitable and generous, they offered some Lee tartare to their other two captives and forced them to eat it. Audrey complained that she was a vegan and therefore couldn’t eat human flesh, but Monet just sort of shrugged and gave it a taste. Not bad!

Our episode concluded with Agnes dousing the front of the house in gasoline with the intention of setting it ablaze. She was interrupted, however, by a gaggle of angry-looking ghosts! Including one woman who did NOT appreciate being upstaged.

Yep, the TV butcher met the REAL butcher finally. (I’m sorry if that .gif was too graphic, but it’s not every day you see Kathy Bates’ head cleaved in twain on national television.)

Man, this show. Probably the most astonishing thing about these past two episodes has not been the switch to found footage or even the meta-nature of watching the actors hanging out with their real-life counterparts. No, the true thrill has been this body count! Holy jeez are big characters (and big names) dropping like flies! (Why do flies drop?) Again, last week promised that only one person will survive this ordeal, which is a hell of a blood bath all in all. If that’s true this promises to be the shortest, bloodiest, and most intense season yet. Much like that one song from Flashdance, what a feeling!

What did YOU think of “Chapter 7”?

American Horror Story: Roanoke airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FX