American Horror Story: Roanoke

Season six of the critically acclaimed FX series, American Horror Story, premiered Wednesday, September 14th with much anticipation. American Horror Story is an anthology television series created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk.
Each season follows a different story line sometimes with different cast members but they mostly stay the same. Season one, Murder House, focused on the Harmon Family: Dr. Ben Harmon, Vivien and their daughter Violet who moved from Boston to Los Angeles after Vivien has a miscarriage and Ben has affair with a student. They move into a Victorian style mansion unaware that it is inhabited by the former residents and their victims.
Season one received mixed reviews praising the cast while criticizing the writing. The second season titled Asylum, is set in 1964 in Briarcliff Manor, a mental institution, and it follows the lives of the doctors, patients, and nuns. Like the first season, the series was well received by critics and fans, gaining seventeen Emmy Award nominations.
Season three, Coven, takes place in 2013 New Orleans and it follows a coven of Salem witches. In the third installment of the series, Freak Show, is set mainly in 1952 Jupiter, Florida, telling the story of the last remaining freak shows in America. The premiere episode of this season attracted a series high of 6.13 million viewers. It ultimately became FX’s most-watched program ever. The season garnered a total of 20 Emmy Award nominations, more than any season up to date.
Season five, Hotel, broke from the anthological format. The season is interconnected to the first and third seasons and features an appearance by the Murder House and Coven cast. The season centers around Hotel Cortez in Los Angeles, California and the residents who live there. The season included Lady Gaga as The Countess, a vampire fashionista. Hotel received multiple award nominations and Gaga won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film.
With only having the first episode of Roanoke out the season has already gained a notorious fan base. Series co-creator Ryan Murphy stated that this season of the series would be “more rouge” and “dark”. The pilot episode was depicted as a paranormal documentary series titled My Roanoke Nightmare, that reenacts the experience of a married couple that moved to Roanoke Island, North Carolina from Los Angeles.
Chapter 1 opened with Matt (Cuba Gooding Jr,) and Shelby Miller (Sara Paulson) buying a home in Roanoke Island after Matt was randomly attacked as part of a gang initiation and Shelby had a miscarriage. Soon after they settle into the house strange and paranormal occurrences begin to taunt them. After Shelby was attacked in her hot tub by an unknown assailant, Matt calls for the aid of his sister Lee, (Angela Bassett) a former police officer with a drinking and prescription drug abuse history, while he’s away on business trips. Matt decides to put out surveillance cameras on the property to secure his and her safety.
Following an altercation between Shelby and Lee, Matt’s phone alerts him that the security monitors detected movement outside the house and he sees men with torches and bloody knives heading into the house. Shelby and Lee hear a noise down in the basement and head downstairs to investigate. The noise turns out to be an old television playing a VHS tape of a figure wearing a pig’s head. They head back upstairs to find hundreds of handmade figures of twine and straw hung from the ceiling.
Matt returns home and assesses that it’s just the hillbillies trying to scare them. But Shelby had enough and took the car and drove off down the road when she hits a woman that’s standing in the middle of the road. Shelby gets out of the car to help but the woman has fled off into the woods. Trying to help Shelby follows her into the woods tripping over tree roots in the process. She comes to a patch of land that seems to be pulsating and as she looks up she can see figures with torches.
The episode ends with the image of a man with no scalp screaming for help. We can only anticipate what will happen in the next episodes as we come up with our own theories of the house and the land that surrounds it.
There’s no denying that this may be the best season yet, with mystery, romance, paranormal activity, and suspense. New episodes of American Horror Story premiere Wednesday nights 8/9 central.