If the sudden disappearance of Flora (Saniyya Sidney) on last week's "American Horror Story" didn’t set you on edge last week, then this week is sure to make your blood boil! When we last left Lee (Adina Porter/Angela Bassett), Matt (Andre Holland/Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and Shelby (Lily Rabe/Sarah Paulson), they were panicking as the only evidence found was Flora’s yellow sweatshirt — located towards the top of an extremely tall tree.
With the police now involved and volunteers ready to help search the property, Lee spearheads the campaign for everyone to split up and search the property. But in their search, Lee discovers another piece of unsettling evidence: Flora’s doll, dismembered with a pig’s head. When Matt & Shelby join her search, they come to find an abandoned farm riddled with flies. In the barn, something even darker lurks, as two feral boys (Dustin Jones & Connor Rosen) feast on a pig and know only one word: Croatoan. The boys are taken into custody as it turns out that they were part of the Polk family, better known as the hillbillies who tried to buy the property.
As the investigation continues, Lee’s ex-husband Mason (Charles Malik Whitfield) finally arrives, demanding to know where Flora is. He does not believe Lee’s story that Flora has gone missing, but rather that Lee is waiting for everyone to leave so that she could take Flora out from hiding and run off from her.
Abusive and pained, Mason pushes Lee and storms off, threatening to call the authorities. Later that night, though, Matt, Shelby and Lee are woken up as the police have uncovered a body tied upright in the words, charred beyond belief. While the investigation was initially to find Flora, there is now a dead body burned beyond recognition, save for a piece of jewelry. Lee recognizes the piece and knows that Mason was the burned victim.
When the group head back to the house, Matt shows Shelby an unsettling truth on video: Lee was seen walking out the door minutes after Mason and returning hours later. When Lee enters the room and tensions rise over the death and accusations, all stops as a strange little man named Cricket (Leslie Jordan) enters the home. A psychic from New Orleans who has a penchant for finding things lost, especially children.
As Cricket begins to investigate the home, he gravitates towards the hiding spot that Flora was in during a prior episode, speaking to Priscilla. In the spot is a bonnet, which when Cricket picks it up, assures Lee that her daughter was alive but has been taken by something not living.
To try and speak to Priscilla to locate Flora, Cricket holds a séance in the home. Unfortunately, instead of bringing forth Priscilla, another figure comes forward: Thomasin White, known as the butcher (Kathy Bates). As Thomasin stands firm in staying in her home and refusing to leave, smashing windows and slicing the candle in half, Cricket starts to scream “Croatoan,” the same word repeated by the feral boys.
The séance ends, Cricket offers to continue helping for the price of $25,000. Enraged, Matt throws Cricket out of the house, but not before the psychic whispers something into Lee’s ear, shaking her up. While Matt and Shelby are not sure as to what was said, Lee shares the story of Emily, her first daughter. Cricket’s words to her were that Emily says hello. Shaken up, Lee tells the interviewer (Cheyenne Jackson) that she had Emily at 17 years old and when Emily was 4, she went missing when Lee went into a store for just a minute to grab a jar of sauce.
Convinced that Cricket could help her, Lee gives Cricket the $25,000 and he now explains that getting Flora back will take a little more than they realize. When Cricket had been kicked out the house and he attempted to leave the property the night before, the spirits attached to him and he knew that they needed to learn as much as possible about Thomasin and the other spirits to find out Flora’s location.
Thomasin White, the wife of John White, was left in charge of Roanoke while John returned home. The settlers became restless and wanted to move inland to have a chance, but Thomasin remained firm in staying until her husband returned. Angry with her decision, a group of the settlers detained Thomasin and put a cage around her face. The final blow coming from her son Ambrose (Wes Bentley), who placed the actual padlock on her prison before the men sent her out into the forest to die.
Close to starvation, Thomasin is found by a strange woman (Lady Gaga) in the forest, who cuts out the heart of a pig for Thomasin to eat. Releasing the cage around her face, Thomasin takes the heart and begins to eat, the price being she gave her soul to the strange woman. Revived and renewed, Thomasin seeks out the men who imprisoned her and murders all of them except for Ambrose. Instead of staying to wait for her husband, Thomasin finally decides to move the colony inland, as previously proposed.
In order to bargain with Thomasin and her group, Cricket, Lee, Matt and Shelby head into the forest so that Cricket can speak with them. In exchange for Flora, the group will leave the property and, unbeknownst to Shelby, will burn the house to the ground. When Shelby hears that Matt was on board with this decision, she goes to ask to find he's missing from the group. Shelby goes in search of Matt only to find him in the forest with the hillbillies. Even more disturbing, though, is that while Matt has no recollection of what he did, Shelby also saw him having sex with the strange woman that offered Thomasin the pig heart. Disgusted, she runs back to the house.
When Cricket and Lee notice that Matt & Shelby went missing, they searched for a better part of an hour before finding a disoriented Matt in the forest. Approaching the house, the police are there and Shelby, obviously shaken up by what she saw, refuses to hear Matt out as she believes he willingly cheated on her. The final nail in the coffin is when Lee approaches the house and is arrested by police. Matt asks Shelby if she was responsible for the police, to which Shelby feigns knowing what happened.
Will they find Flora? Can Matt redeem himself? And what is "Croatoan"? Join me next week to find out what happens on "American Horror Story" as the Roanoke tale unravels!
