FX’s American Horror Story season six episode eight begins exactly where episode seven left off, with Agnes (Kathy Bates) falling to the ground dead outside while Shelby (Lily Rabe) and Dominic (Cuba Gooding Jr) try to figure out what to do inside the house. Dominic’s freaking out and the monsters outside stare up at the house, torches blazing. Shelby decides the best course of action would be to try to leave through the tunnel. She pauses at Matt’s dead body and then they slowly begin walking through the tunnel. Noises freak them out and then ghosts of the Chens (former owners of the house who also died gruesome deaths) crawl upside down and sideways toward them on the tunnel walls. Tunnel escape plan aborted, they run back into the house.
Mama Polk (Robin Weigert) sharpens her knife, teaching her son, Jether (Finn Wittrock), how to get the best parts off of Lee’s body. Lee (Adina Porter) pleads with them to stop and Mama decides this is the best time to tell Lee her family’s history. Apparently they’ve been eating people for decades, killing hobos who killed their livestock as well as others who were unfortunate enough to stumble onto the Polk family lands. The police leave them alone, no one in town messes with them, and then story over, it’s back to cutting off pieces of Lee for dinner. Lee’s ear is placed in a jar, and Jether tells her that at Christmas they each get a pickled ear as a special treat. Yummy!
Lee starts crying, thinking about all the Christmases she’ll miss with her daughter. Jether confesses he just wanted to be on the TV show, and Lee promises if he lets her go, he can be on season two. Jether tells her about the origin of the Pig Man, and Lee tells him he can be a hero if he lets her go. It seems he’s considering it, but then tells her to forget about leaving. No one ever leaves.
Jether offers Lee drugs to take the edge off the pain since his mom’s about to take her shoulder. She wonders why they don’t just kill her, and he explains it’s just tradition. Plus, fear and exhaustion makes the jerky taste better. She snorts a line, knowing nothing matters now.
Dominic and Shelby are back inside the basement, but the Chens are still following them. Dominic slams his hand in the door and grabs some ice in the kitchen. Shelby pretty much gives up, sitting huddled on the kitchen floor while Dominic insists they can use some supernatural blood moon rules to get out of the house. He promises her they’ll escape so he can get his spin-off and as Shelby stands up, the Pig Man attacks. She stabs him in the head with a knife and then they fight off the Chens and the nurses. Creatures are all over the place and the massive chandelier falls from the ceiling and lands on Shelby’s foot while the nurses, the Chens, and Pig Man force them upstairs. They make it into the master bedroom’s bathroom, but now they’re trapped once again. Outside, The Butcher’s people draw closer with their torches.
Shelby laugh/cries that they’re back where they started, and Dominic begs her to stay with him (mentally). Saying there’s no place left for her since she killed Matt, Shelby slits her own throat.
If you’re keeping track, this leaves just Dominic, Lee, Audrey, and Monet still alive. We know three of them will be dead before the Roanoke story is over, according to the disclaimer in front of “season two.”
Lee asks Jether for the picture of Flora that’s in her pants pocket. He shows it to her and she talks to it, then asks again to talk to Flora. Jether gently covers up her wounds before filming her making a statement to Flora on camera. She tells Flora she loves her and wants to tell her the truth. She confesses she did kill her ex-husband. No one helped her and she takes full responsibility because she didn’t want him to take Flora away permanently. She tells Flora to go on, rise up, and nothing should hold her down. When the taping is over, Jether says he’s never killed anyone but his mom says it’s his turn next. Lee wants to know if he’s the one who will kill her and he says he really doesn’t want to because he likes her. He rubs against her and Lee plays along, even asking if he wants to touch her. He wants to film it so he can watch it later, promising not to show anybody. She asks to touch his penis and he loosens her restraints. Lee acts quickly, getting Jether in a stranglehold and then managing to stand although she’s in a lot of pain. She grabs a knife, stabs Jether, and runs.
Back at the house, Dominic talks to the camera unaware that Sidney and the production team are all dead. He wants out and is complaining about all the career plans he had that aren’t going to move forward now.
Finally, we catch up with Monet (Angela Bassett) and Audrey (Sarah Paulson) who are still alive and tied to chairs. Audrey and Monet try to tell the Polk boys it’s all the real Shelby and Matt’s fault and that they’re just actors. The two Polks watching over Monet and Audrey are busy making teeth necklaces to protect themselves from The Butcher and her people. They need more teeth and decide to take Monet’s first. The pliers break before her teeth come out, and so does Monet’s chair. She’s loose and tries to untie Audrey but hears Mama and runs away. Mama tells her boys to chase Monet and then it’s Mama’s turn to try and extract Audrey’s teeth. Audrey spits in her face – not a wise idea when you’re tied to a chair – and tells Mama to burn in hell. Audrey keeps insulting Mama’s boys, telling her she bred with her farm animals and that’s why they’re grotesque, but then finally opens her mouth so Mama can remove her teeth.
The Polks chase Monet through the trees and because they have a flashlight and know the woods, they come across her fairly quickly.
Back at the farm, Lee knocks out Mama and unties Audrey. Mama starts coughing and choking and Audrey kicks her and then pounds her head into mush. Two Polks down, two to go.
Lee and Audrey make it back to the house where they find Matt dead on the floor. Lee begins wailing and Audrey forces her to move away from his dead body. They must keep moving to have any hope of surviving. They make it into the living room where the chandelier is still in the middle of the floor but there aren’t any Chens, nurses, or even a Pig Man in sight.
Upstairs, Audrey finds her pills and offers them to Lee to take away some of her pain. Audrey keeps trying to comfort her, and then they wipe the blood from each other’s faces. Audrey and Lee go into the bathroom to get water and find Shelby dead on the floor, having bled out. They don’t even notice Dominic until he says something from the corner. Dominic tells Lee Shelby killed Matt with a crowbar after watching him have sex with the witch. Lee doesn’t believe Dominic and screams at him to get out of their sight. Lee knows Shelby loved Matt, and Audrey – having played Shelby for six months – believes Shelby would never have killed herself. They force Dominic from the room, closing the bedroom door in his face. The Pig Man immediately attacks, killing Dominic while he’s banging on the bedroom door to get back in. Lee is fine with him being killed as she blames everything on him. Shelby isn’t taking it quite so well, unfortunately, and she tells the camera that she had more performances in her to give to her fans. She loves her fans.
Lee and Audrey make it through the night, and Lee says they have to go back to the Polk farm. She wants the tape of them killing the Polks before someone else finds it. Audrey reminds Lee the video also shows Mama Polk force-feeding them parts of Lee’s body. Audrey gives Lee more pills to take away the pain and then agrees to go with her back to the Polk farm. They have to pass by Dominic to get to the stairs, but Lee doesn’t want to go past Matt again in the basement so they decide to leave through the front door. They open it and the Pig Man’s just standing there. Lee hits him in the head with the crowbar. He yells, takes off his head, and it’s the actor (Wes Bentley) who played one of The Butcher’s sons in season one.
The episode ends and we know Lee and Audrey are alive. Monet’s condition and whereabouts are unknown.
