AHS: Murder House re-watch-E9: Spooky Little Girl

As we near the end of our exploration of AHS: Murder House, we have a spooky new house guest who also happens to be one of Hollywood’s most famous murder victims. Also, Ben starts to truly see the truth about the house. All this and more in episode 9, Spooky Little Girl.

Caution: This article contains detailed spoilers of the episode. If you haven’t seen the episode, please check it out on Netflix or FX+.

Spooky Little Girl starts off in our beloved Murder House in 1947. As Charles Montgomery and Ben Harmon have respectively used the house as a home office, so did Dr. David Curan (Joshua Molina; Scandal, A Few Good Men). He was a dentist who was known for giving “special consideration” to attractive female patients. His patient that day is none other than  struggling actress Elizabeth Short, later to be known as “The Black Dahlia”(played in Murder House by Mena Suvari).

Elizabeth Short (Mena Suvari) visits dentist Dr. Curan (Joshua Molina), another doctor who saw patients in The Murder House. Courtesy of Fox

We are then back in 2011, where Alexandra Breckenridge’s Moira is making up Ben’s bed. Ben is concerned about Violet, due to all the insanity that’s been occurring in the house. He notices she hasn’t been eating all that much and asks Moira to make her a sandwich. She hits on him as usual and he says that he wants his wife to come home and he’s not interested in what she’s selling, so to speak. She says “The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.”

Over at Constance’s house, she is painting while drinking heavily. Travis enters the kitchen and Constance begins a tirade against him when he says he doesn’t feel like walking the dog. He has recently got a part-time job and says he’s tired. In Constance’s typical acerbic fashion she says “Oh, you work at a call center for two hours a day, let me rub your feet”.

Of course Travis ends up walking the dog, but on his way he runs into Hayden directly inside the gates of the Murder House. After a brief conversation they end up hanging out in the basement, where Travis complains to Hayden about Constance. Coincidentally, they end up having sex and immediately after he says he has to go back to Constance’s house. Hayden is confused but also feels angry that she is once again being used as a source of comfort for a man who’s in a troubled relationship. She can’t escape this fate, even in death, and she’s none too pleased with this fact.

Hayden’s sister, Marla (Tanya Clarke) is convinced that Ben has something to do with Hayden’s disappearance. Courtesy of Fox

Upstairs, the doorbell rings and once again it’s Detective Jack Colquitt, who was sniffing around the house before on the Sally Freeman case. This time he is accompanied by Hayden’s sister, Marla, who has no misgivings whatsoever that Ben is responsible for Hayden’s disappearance. Since he indirectly (and only by the slightest margin) is, he is, as the kids say, “shooketh” when he sees Hayden’s sister. Because Hayden is, of course, still madly in love with Ben, she makes herself visible in the kitchen to quell her sister’s (very accurate) suspicions.

When everyone leaves, Hayden tells Ben she’s sorry for the way she had been acting before and also says “By the way, I had the abortion”. Knowing the real truth about this situation makes the statement incredibly sad. It can be difficult to sympathize with Hayden because she is framed as a troublemaker for such a large percentage of the show, but if you think about the situation from her point of view, she really got the short end of the stick and it is completely understandable that she would want to cause Ben pain, while still loving him. Love is a strange emotion, and as the old adage goes, “you always hurt the one you love the most”.

Since we now know that Elizabeth Short i.e. The Black Dahlia is a resident of Murder House, it would only be a matter of time before she tries to go visit a doctor in the house again. She, like so many others in the house, doesn’t really know that she is dead. She’s depressed that she is famous and that’s why she’s going to see Dr. Harmon. Ben says that she needs to make an appointment but that he would be more than happy to help her. She makes the appointment and when the question comes about the manner of payment, Ms. Short asks seductively if she and Dr. Harmon can come to an “agreement”. Ben briefly visualizes an encounter with her but he snaps out of it and refuses. He says that there is another way that they can work out a payment schedule and dismisses her.

On the other side of the house, Constance opens the kitchen door and greets Moira. Constance is sure that Travis cheated on her with Violet because she could smell something “different” about him when he came home the previous evening. Remember earlier on in the season when Constance said she had “the nose of a truffle pig”. I guess this must be true. Moving on, Moira says that Violet couldn’t have been the one to participate in Travis’ transgression because she’s in love with Tate. Moira also knows that Vivian’s babies have two different fathers, and that Tate is one of them. Constance is livid. She storms to the basement to look for Tate.

Constance confronts Tate about what he did to Vivian. Courtesy of Fox

“Tell me it isn’t true, what I’ve been hearing about you,” Constance yells into the air, because Tate hasn’t appeared yet, “Tell me you did not crawl on top of that man’s wife.”

Tate appears and begins to explain his (flawed) reasoning behind what he did, but Constance doesn’t give him the chance, she starts beating him screaming “What’s wrong with you!” and he’s crying and yelling out “Mama, I’m sorry”. It makes one think that this is probably mirroring what happened to him while he was alive, but one can only speculate on that, as we’re never explicitly shown it during this season.

Back upstairs, Moira and The Black Dahlia are making out on the sofa. Both of them are asking Ben to join them. Ben has another fantasy vision of himself with the two of them. This makes him angry and tells them both to get out, and also fires Moira for good this time, telling her he doesn’t care if she sues him or not.

We then see AHS’ version of what happened to Ms. Short. Side note; this is the first time that AHS uses a real person in their fictional storyline. While a lot of the episodes in AHS history are based on real events, Ryan Murphy loves to entwine real criminals or victims into the tapestry of his twisted tales.

We find out that Dr. Curan definitely takes Elizabeth’s offer while we see him doing “things” with Ms. Short while she’s under anesthesia. He obviously got a little carried away, because when it comes time to do his actual dental work, he realizes  that Elizabeth is dead. He panics and then another one of Murder House’s resident physicians appears. Who else could it be in 1947 but our OG Doc, Dr. Charles Montgomery. He says that he can help Dr. Curan.

Dr. Curan didn’t know that Dr. Montgomery’s version of help was to do one of his Frankenstein hackjobs, but he did make it easier for Curan to get rid of the body. Of course, Charles thought she should be smiling, so he gives her a Heath Ledger-as-Joker smile with a surgical knife.

Back in 2011, Elizabeth is complaining to Hayden about she’ll never be famous, and Hayden smiles and says “you don’t know, do you?” She then explains to Elizabeth that she is possibly Hollywood’s most famous murder victim and Elizabeth is so happy that she did get her wish, even though it came true posthumously.

More from American Horror Story

• What’s up with season 12 of American Horror Story?
• The other AHS season 12 teaser big reveal (besides Kim Kardashian)
• Where can I watch American Horror Story, and what is it about?
• American Horror Story alumni Evan Peters and Ryan Murphy win Golden Globe awards
• AHS: NYC showcases a very real kind of horror story

Ben leaves the house and goes to visit Vivian in the hospital. She is lying down and doesn’t speak to Ben. Ben tells her how mad he is at her for cheating on him. He obviously has no idea about the true parentage of the other twin and instead rants about how she acted like a saint when she was cheating on him just as he was cheating on her.

It’s pretty apropos that the next scene is a flashback to Ben and Hayden hanging out at a bar near the college in Boston. Ben is drunk and complaining about how difficult his marriage is currently. Hayden seals her fate at this moment without knowing it by admitting to Ben that she has a crush on him.

Back in 2011, Ben apologizes to Hayden for hurting her. Hayden is still attempting to get Ben to be with her, even though she simultaneously hates him for what he did to her.

“We’re not written in the stars, we’re not meant to be together,” Ben says very matter-of-factly to Hayden. He also tells her that he doesn’t love her, he never did, and that (as we all knew all along) he used her. She seems to be okay with this and asks “Can I have a hug?” They hug and she ends up kissing her, which just makes Ben more frustrated. Hayden also relays the false information that she’s seen Luke, the security guard, coming around a lot, even though she knows that Tate is the father of the other twin.

From the time that Constance was beating up Tate, until now, her tune has decidedly changed. Instead of being mad at Tate, she has now decided  that she will use his mistake as another opportunity to raise the perfect child she always wanted, Vivian’s child.

Constance then apologizes to Travis for being mean to him before, and asks Travis to marry her. She speaks of a child, which Travis has no idea about, and says that she thinks he would be a perfect father, due to the way he was with Addy (RIP) and the dogs. He looks completely bewildered and says “What about my career?”

Naturally this sets Constance off on a whirlwind of angry insults. “I was going to be a big star, and if I didn’t then you aren’t”. She follows this up by saying “How could I have ever thought you could be a father? You aren’t even a man!”

This makes Travis angry and he raises his hands to hit Constance. She grabs his hands and screams “Don’t you dare! You know why? Because the last man who thought that he could strike me came to a very unpleasant end and he was a man.”

Travis’ feelings are hurt so he runs over to Hayden to lick his wounds. Once again, she is being used. It’s almost as if her exact situation with Ben is being repeated, except Travis is not as smart or caring as Ben is. He literally complains about Constance while they’re having sex, which is not only weird, but incredibly rude.

Hayden (Kate Mara) can’t believe that history is repeating itself for her with Travis(Michael Graziadei). Courtesy of Fox

Almost as soon as they’re done having sex, he says he has to get back to Constance. Hayden is confused because he was just saying that he hated her and he says “well, I think I love her.” Hayden screams about how he was using her and she says she was using him too to see if she could have sex with someone “who’s alive”.  Travis is confused by that statement but lets her know that he had a great time.

Again Hayden asks, “Can I have a hug?”

Travis is okay with this, but this time, while Hayden is kissing Travis, she stabs him to death. This is probably what she wanted to do to Ben, but couldn’t.

A matter of seconds later, Travis’ ghost pops up next to Hayden above his body. “Whoah! Constance was right! Now I’m never going to be famous”. Then Black Dahlia walks over and says “That’s not necessarily true. In fact, now you might have an even better chance.

Hayden interjects, “The only one who’s gonna be famous out of this is Ben if they find the body down here. They’ll send him to prison, or he’ll move out. Damnit!”

Naturally, since there’s a dead body around, Dr. Charles Montgomery appears and says “Who’s to say that the body has to be found here?”

“You gonna drag him out of here, Casper?,” Hayden asks.

“Well,” Charles explains, “If you know someone who might, I could certainly make it easier”

“There is someone who owes me a favor…”

Can we remember who that might be?

It’s Larry of course, and in the next scene we see him lurking in the shadows of a South Central basketball court, when the kids playing basketball find Travis’ body, all laid out the same way that The Black Dahlia’s was.

Ever the concerned neighbor, Constance visits Vivian in the mental hospital. Courtesy of Fox

At this point, we’re back in the mental hospital. Vivian is sitting alone on her bed, staring into space, when there is a knock on the door.

It’s Constance, as she enters she says “Even this hideous place can’t dim your charming girlish spirit.” Buttering Vivian up much, Constance? Geez.

Anyway, Vivian is not in the mood for Constance’s chicanery and in a depressed monotone utters, “Oh hello, Constance. What a surprise”.

Vivian tells Constance that she’s having twins, which she obviously knows and is truly the only reason she’s really there. Constance then begins a long speech about how she fully intends to be there for Vivian, ending with “the secret (to raising a baby) is community, sisterhood.”

Either Vivian isn’t buying it or she really is tired but she asks Constance if she can leave so she can take a nap. As Constance is leaving she says “Vivian, I know the pain of being doubted by everyone around you, it ravages the soul.”

“Constance, I was raped, I didn’t hallucinate any of it,” Vivian responds.

“Of course not, oh honey, I never doubted if for a minute,” and with that Constance leaves Vivian alone.

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Back at the Murder House, Ben sets off the house alarm on purpose, due to the seed that Hayden planted in his mind about Luke. When Luke arrives, he says that he didn’t have to set off the alarm to get him over there. Ben then confronts him about the second twin having a different father.

Luke finds this whole thing kind of humorous and responds, ” Oh, I guess the other one (twin) must be mine.”

“I just want to hear it from you, man to man,” Ben exclaims.

“All right, man to man,” Luke says, “Hear this, Ben, if that was my baby, you couldn’t keep me away. But, the sad fact is that I’m shooting blanks. You can ask my ex-wife, we tried for five years.”

Ben at first doesn’t believe him but eventually comes to the conclusion that Luke is not the father of the second twin. As Luke leaves, he says that maybe Vivian being in the hospital is a good thing, maybe she’s safer there. This throws Ben into another fit of anger, throwing stuff around after Luke leaves. He then finds the Rubber Man mask and there’s Moira, standing behind him.

“Oh, kinky,” she says coyly, “You want me to try that on? It looks like you went to a lot of trouble to find it.”

“What do you know about this?” Ben demands

Moira replies with some inappropriate sexual innuendo, as always when she’s with Dr. Harmon. She’s always trying to trap him, like she knows all men can be trapped, by their own vices. Which is her cross to bear through eternity, due to the way she died.

Ben is over Moira’s attempts to seduce him. “Stop your bull____ and listen to me,” Ben screams, “You’re in this house all the time. You see everything. What happened with Vivian?”

Moira sighs with exasperation, “What do you care? You’re a man. Isn’t this what all men want? the freedom to satiate their needs guilt free?”

“Just tell me the truth,” Ben pleads, “I think I made a horrible mistake by putting Vivian in the hospital. She was attacked by someone.”

Moira is in the process of walking out the door and says, “Congratulations, Mr. Harmon,” and when she turns around, Ben finally sees the Frances Conroy version of Moira for the first time, “You’re beginning to see things as they are.”

This is one of my favorite scenes in American Horror Story history. Ben finally knows that the house is, at the very least, not normal. The look on his face is priceless and now finally, he’s stepping up to the plate to be a good husband and father, although it’s truly a little too late.

In the final scene of the episode, we have a very important lead-in to the coming season, American Horror Story: Apocalypse. Bille Dean Howard is in Constance’s kitchen, and since the scene is so very important, I’m going to transcribe the dialogue in script format below:

Constance: What happens when a human copulates with someone from the spirit world?

Billie: Spirits aren’t known for their potency.

Constance: Yes, but, what if there is, in fact, a conception?

Billie: You do know about the box? The pope’s box?

Constance: What the hell are you talking about?

Billie: When a new pope has been chosen, and the bells of St. Peter’s chime, he is shown into a chamber next to the Sistine Chapel. They call it the “room of tears”, named after the sublime mixture of joy and sorrow that he must contemplate at this moment.

He is brought a key to this box. It has been said that this box contains the ultimate secret. It holds the secret to the end of the world. This piece of paper reveals the exact nature of the AntiChrist. “A child born of human and spirit will usher in the end of times.” It is the essence of evil. A perversion of the immaculate conception.

Constance: What are you talking about?

Billie: Oh come on, honey. The Holy Ghost merely whispered into the Virgin Mary’s ear and she begat the son of God. If the devil is going to use a human womb for his spawn, he’s going to want a little more bang for his buck.”

We will find out more about the AntiChrist in Apocalypse and even towards the very end of Murder House. Which is where we’re headed ourselves. Stay tuned to 1428 Elm, as I recap “Smoldering Children” next.