American Horror Story: Murder House re-watch – Episode 3: ‘The Murder House’

Adina Porter’s introduction to the AHS universe is as Sally Freeman, Dr. Harmon’s patient and most boring person on Earth.

Ben is panicking because he seriously doesn’t remember what happened in the lapse between his session with a woman whose husband is divorcing her because she is too boring, and being covered in blood. When he goes back into the house, Moira-as-sex-pot is scrubbing the floor in the risqué version of her maid uniform, and is hinting to Ben that he must have hurt or killed someone.

He accuses Moira of stealing his tape recorder which results in him grabbing Moira and she is furious. Ben tells Vivian he wants to fire Moira but Moira screams that she deserves respect and that she won’t be fired. Vivian seems okay with that, and Ben really has no choice but to go along.

At this point is when Vivian is picking yellow roses in the yard and witnesses the “murder house” tour come by. The tour is actually entitled “Eternal Darkness” tours. The tour is led by a jovial enough guy with a black truck named Stan (David Anthony Higgins; Tapeheads, Snake Eyes) who leads adventurous tourists through the dark back alleys of Hollywood History. It reminds me of the amazing book by Kenneth Anger, Hollywood Babylon, which if you haven’t read, you totally should.

Eternal Darkness tour guide, Stan (David Anthony Higgins) (Photo: FX)

Throughout this episode, Ben is trying to convince both Violet and Vivian to go to therapy to discuss the home invasion that happened very recently, but neither of them want to admit they have any issues, which seems to be a stubbornness carried down from Vivian to Violet, which presents itself fairly often. Violet is sitting outside smoking a cigarette while talking to her dad, and once he walks away, we see that Violet is talking to Tate.

Moira tells Ben he has a patient when he comes back into the house. He wasn’t expecting anyone and is unpleasantly surprised to see Hayden sitting on the couch when he enters his office. She is not exactly thrilled with the fact that Ben left her, but we find out that she didn’t go through with the abortion. She wants to keep the baby, she wants Ben to be a father to the child and she wants them to tell Vivian together that this is going to happen. Ben obviously doesn’t agree with any of this, which causes Hayden to start screaming, ending with a resounding scream of “I MATTER”.

This lovely fracas is broken up when a detective from the LAPD arrives at the door. Ben tells Hayden he will meet with her tomorrow. He is sure that the detective is there about the home invasion, but no. It turns out that Ben’s last actual patient, Sally Freeman, has gone missing. Due to what happened during the session, Ben is incredibly nervous about what happened but keeps everything cool with the detective.

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While this is happening, Vivian has decided to take the Eternal Darkness tour herself. The scene begins with a re-enactment of a man getting beaten to death in an alley because he propositioned another man who ended up not being gay. This is Sam, the tour guide telling us the story of the real-life death of Sal Mineo, who starred most famously in Rebel Without A Cause. As is true in real life, a black man was arrested for his murder, but most people believe that Mineo was the victim of a hate crime. It’s one of the sadder stories in Hollywood’s dark past, especially since Mineo showed such great promise as an actor. The fact that all three actors in Rebel Without A Cause died young and under questionable circumstances still perplexes me and many other people to this day.

Then, as the tour approaches Vivian’s very own “murder house”, Sam begins the tale of Charles and Nora Montgomery, who are fictional, but a part of me is incredibly curious to see how much of these characters’ story arc has a basis in reality. A later plot point does seem to nod toward the Lindbergh family, but only circumstantially. Mostly, the two are some amalgamation of F. Scott Fitzgerald & Daisy Buchanan and Dr. Victor Frankenstein with a grossly entrepreneurial wife. Not unlike the famous fictional doctor, Charles Montgomery is not afraid to go outside the ethical and medical norms to discover what he considers greatness.

Nora Montgomery is, of course, the first time in the AHS series that we are introduced  to Lily Rabe, who up until that point had only really had guest spots on shows such as all branches of the Law & Order franchise, and Ryan Murphy’s second hit show, Nip/Tuck. She went on to be in several seasons of AHS, as well as build her career in other arenas. Charles Montgomery is played by the great character actor Matt Ross, who at this point in time is probably best known for his hilarious turn as billionaire tech mogul, Gavin Belson, on Silicon Valley. He started out his career playing small roles in such great movies as Twelve Monkeys and American Psycho.

In many ways, the Montgomery’s are the most interesting part of American Horror Story: Murderhouse, so much so that their characters are revisited in American Horror Story: Hotel and hopefully in Apocalypse. 

During the Eternal Darkness tour, after Sam’s story about the Montgomery’s, which focused on Charles’ drug abuse and Nora’s idea for Charles to perform illegal abortions in the basement for extra cash, Vivian starts to bleed through a pair of white pants. She jumps out the tour vehicle and runs towards “the murder house”.

Stan screams “You can’t go in there!” to which Vivian replies “It’s my house”. As this is happening, Marcy the realtor is posting a sign up in the front yard of the murder house and Constance walks by with one of the dogs from her in-house doggy day care.