In our continuing visitation of Season 1 of American Horror Story, do the Harmon’s finally have a buyer for “The Murder House”? Not if Constance and Larry can help it. This is the recap of Season 1, Episode 7, “Open House”.
It has taken me a while to actually write the re-caps for season one of Murder House because after deeply analyzing the dialogue and the intentions of each character, I came to sympathize with almost all of these tortured souls, both dead and living, that are pulled into the Murder House’s orbit. Something I keep coming back to in my mind is—-does the house make the residents the way they are or is the house a beacon to desperate and depressed people, that’s actually a siren waiting to pull them under. It’s hard to say what the writers and Ryan Murphy thought in regards to that, but it’s a thought I keep having.
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Season 1, Episode 7, is called “Open House”, which brings to mind something out of Home & Garden magazine, but that’s not what this particular open house has to offer—-at all. As most of the episodes in the Murder House season, we open in the past.
“Do it like we discussed”, Constance says to a pre-fire Larry. IT is killing her developmentally and physically disabled son, whom she has tied to a bed in the attic. You can see the good natured side of Larry with Constance and even as he puts a pillow over Beau’s face, right up until that point, you see the good in him. In a way, you could say Constance has Larry “under her spell”, but I believe that Larry had every choice in the matter to not cheat on his wife with Constance.
Which is a good segue into the next scene where Vivian and Ben are in the doctors office. Vivian doesn’t even really want Ben to be there but of course he shows up anyway. At this point, we discover that Vivian is having twins.
Finally we get to a point where Marcy, the realtor has an open house for Chez Murder, and the first visitor is a real smarmy looking SOB named Joe Escandarian (Amir Arison; The Blacklist). He comes upon Moira in her young sexy iteration and asks if she comes with the house. When he find out she does, he seems even more interested in buying it. The next visitor to the open house is Larry, who freaks Vivian out. Ben discovers that he was there when Vivian says a burn victim visited. He is furious.
A possible buyer for the murder house?
Vivian and Ben thought it would be a good idea to have a family dinner with Violet but Violet is definitely not interested and sees through their plan and tells them she’s fine and that they can “go on with your policy of benign neglect” in regard to raising her.
Escandarian comes to the house again and Moira does something which definitely sweetens the deal on buying the house. Vivian tells him about a lot of the things that happened in the house which infuriates Marcy. We then overheard him saying he’s just going to tear it down to buy condos.
Larry is entering his shabbily appointed apartment, and in a turn of the tables, Ben is waiting for Larry in the living room. He gives Larry the riot act in a major way and at this point Still believes that Larry didn’t kill Hayden. Ben thinks the two are in cahoots because he sees Hayden with his own two eyes. She’s obviously not dead!
Larry desperately wants the house back because he believes that will give him Constance again. We see in a flashback the moment where Larry tells his wife, Lorraine, that he is in love with Constance and that he’s kicking her and their kids out of the house. She is upset, of course, but she appears eerily calm. The next scene is her and the daughters burning to death from a fire Lorraine started. Larry was not burned. So how did he end up the way he did? Let’s just say, Karma has a way of coming back around, and if you’re patient you’ll find out exactly how in a few episodes.
Vivian wants to know exactly what happened in the house so she can disclose to Escandarian or whoever buys the house so that she doesn’t perpetuate the cycle of chaos the house brings about. So, she and Marcy decide to take the Murder House tour again. When Stan and the crew roll up to the Murder House, we find out a lot more about Charles and Nora Montgomery.
Charles Montgomery working tirelessly on his creation.
We already know that Charles has something of a drug problem, as well as a Dr. Frankenstein complex. Additionally, the Montgomery’s provided in-house abortions for many young women who were “in a bad way”. Nora is incredibly distraught about losing her son, Thaddeus. Charles is excited to let Nora know that he has brought their son back. Except as you know when you see—-what used to be Thaddeus, there’s something very wrong with Dr. Montgomery’s newest creation. Nora is horrified and kills Charles, immediately shooting herself afterwards, hence the bullet hole.
Next thing we know, Constance is meeting with Larry in the basement. Larry is giving Constance the details of Mr. Escandarian’s intentions of destroying the house and turning it into condos. She’s immensely distraught, considering two of her three children live—-I mean, reside in the house.
Violet hears a noise in the attic. She goes up and sees a ball roll towards her. She rolls it back and then she sees Bo. She’s scared by him and Tate appears and tells Beau to go away. Violet stays in the attic and looks around. She finds some pictures of Charles and Nora Montgomery. She takes them with her downstairs
Constance finds out where Joe Escandarian lives and goes to his house. She begs him not to tear down the house. Escandarian claims his mission is to “improve upon the past and build a new future”. Constance has a pretty razor-sharp BS detector. She warns Escandarian “You can’t tear down that house. One day your times going to end and they’ll be building on top of you, too”.
While Ben is having a session with Tate where he asks Tate to come to him about Violet, Constance sneaks into the house to see Beau. She runs into Tate on her way and he won’t let her touch him. In regards to his session, he says “Were really getting to the root of the problem. Turns out I hate my mother”.
Constance then tells Moira that Mr. Escandarian is not building a swimming pool for her like he said and that he’s actually tearing down the house ,which means god knows what for all the dead residents. Constance says she needs Moira to “do what you do best” to help her take care of Escandarian. Moira gets him to the house and does something that is basically every mans worst nightmare, and then Larry chokes him. Constance orders Larry to remove Joe from the premises before he “expires” so that she won’t have to deal with him into perpetuity.
At the end of the episode, Vivian sees a photo of Nora Montgomery and says “I saw her, she came to look at the house”. This is the beginning of Vivian’s budding awareness of the House’s true nature. As we go into the following episodes, the awareness expands exponentially.