Picking up exactly where we left off last week, Agnes gets her head split in two by the real Butcher. Shelby is remarkably calm upstairs in the bedroom while Dominic freaks the eff out. “I did not sign up for this shit!” Shelby suggests they head to the not-so-secret-anymore tunnel to make their escape. They run downstairs, but then encounter the vicious and vindictive Chen family in the tunnel, crawling towards them (including on the ceiling and walls). Freaky.

Back at the Polks’ Cannabis Farm, Mama is showing her son how the blade needs to be extra sharp for the thin slices she likes.  Mama (Robin Weigert) and Jether (Finn Wittrock)(she calls him Jether, but the IMDb credits call him Cain, which I think is a mistake) tell a little story to Lee, who has suffered numerous painful indignities while strapped to a chair, about the beginnings of their murderous clan and how they acquired their taste for human flesh (during the depression, doncha’ know). Mama and son start carving away (again) at Lee’s leg as she screams and screams. 

*VIDEO GLITCH*

A lovely close-up of a severed ear dropping into a jar of liquid.  Lee is horrified to find out it is hers. Jether says it’s a Christmas gift. They give each other pickled ears, blackstrap molasses, mentholyptus, and ammo. And creepy cuddle time with Mama. Sweet. Lee tries to get Jether to think of her as more than food, so she mentions her child, and how much she loves her. Lee tries to appeal to his vanity, telling him she could get him on TV, on the new show, he can be a hero. He can let her go. He seems interested, like he could see it happening, then sits down resignedly. “You best put leaving here out of your mind.” He gets mad at her for even suggesting it, and kicks over a bucket.

*VIDEO GLITCH*

Okay, before we continue, I have to say all these scenes with the Polks are trying my patience. For one thing, there are cameras everywhere in this pot-drying room. And Jether loves to film the goings-on with a little handheld camera. How convenient. Did Sidney install them? Are the Polks that security conscious? And another thing, I know it must be hard to try and find the reality inside the mind of a redneck incestuous cannibalistic family, but all these Polks (maybe with the exception of Wittrock?) are just giggling, mush-mouthed parodies of stereotypes. At one point Mama even imitates the “slurpslurpslurp” of Hannibal Lector. *eye roll*

Rant over. Jether snorts some cocaine, and offers it to Lee since Mama will be here soon to slice off a piece of her shoulder. It’ll dull the pain. After refusing at first (she’s clean and sober, after all) she asks him if she’s going to die there. By way of answering, he deadpans, “After we take the best parts, we make bone broth.” She stares at him, mutters “Gimme that shit,” and snorts up.

Back at the house, Shelby and Matt are piling tons of stuff up against the tunnel door, hoping to keep the Chens away from them. As they run up the basement stairs, one of the Chens busts through their barricade and chases them. They’re able to beat her back at the door at the top of the stairs.

Side note: this is another in a long list of times when the ghosts react to being hit with something, or even being shot. I just find that interesting. Does the blood moon give them a physical body, however temporary?  Is that a clue as to how to get rid of them?  Developing…

Anyway, Shelby collapses on the floor, intoning, “We’re going to die in here…” Dominic tries to soothe his injured hand, while at the same time freaking out about real ghosts, and trying to get Shelby back to reality.  He’s able to talk her down and, just as they’re leaving the room, Pig Man attacks and Shelby quickly buries a knife in his head and they both run out of the room.

But they are not safe. The Chens attack, from both the floor and the ceiling. The murderous nurses attack them. The Butcher and her clan start hacking through the door to get inside the house.  Without warning, the giant chandelier lets go and drops two stories to the floor. Right on Shelby. Her leg is horribly injured and bloody. Again.

Dominic drags her up the stairs (with the other ghosties in hot pursuit) and back to the master bedroom and bathroom. They slam the doors and catch their breaths. Shelby starts crying but it quickly turns to laughter at the absurdity of it all. ‘We’re back where we started,” and she laughs some more. And then cries. She’s killed the only man she ever loved. “There’s nowhere left for me.” There is a long, uncomfortable silence. She stays on the floor, breathing heavily. Then she raises the knife and cuts her own throat.

Back at the Polks’ place, Lee is missing a few chunks of skin, thanks to Mama (we presume). She begs Lee to let her record a final message to her daughter, and Lee tenderly covers up her injuries before he records her bombshell: she killed Flora’s daddy, Mason. He was going to take her away, and she couldn’t have that, could she? She want the whole record to be set straight, and I guess this is one way to do it?

After Lee is done recording, she starts to seduce Jether, asking if he wants to touch her. “I want you to,” she adds. He lets down his guard (after slobbering all over her and feeling her up–ugh) and she punches him in the balls and then ch0kes him out. He collapses to the floor. And kudos to the writer/director for getting her to finish the job. She doesn’t just assume he’s incapacitated and walk away, letting him rise up against her later. No, she grabs a knife and stabs him right in the head. Bye bye, Jether.

Back at the house, Dominic is stuck in the bathroom with the corpse of Shelby. He cries about the unfairness of his situation, yells at the camera/Sidney that he’s supposed to go to Thailand next month! And fly first class! Oh, the humanity.

Monet and Audrey are still stuck with the Polks, trying to convince the inbreds that the show they watched was not the reality. They’re just actors. They had nothing to do with the police taking the feral kids away. And, naturally, the Polks are recording it all (that continues to stick out like a sore thumb, such an obvious device). The polks are making a necklace of teeth (wha…?) and they need more teeth (wha…?) so they figure the two interlopers will have to give up theirs. Ooookay.

While they attempt this, the chair Monet is in breaks, and they all fall to the ground. While trying to get up, Monet gains the upper hand, and kicks the elder one to the floor. Monet tries to untie Audrey, but can’t in time, and runs out.  Poor Audrey is still stuck in the chair when Mama returns, with a big pair of pliers.  Audrey has finally had enough and spews out a string of lovely insults at Mama Polk. So Mama takes out one of Audrey’s teeth. 

Outside, the other two Polks are hooting and hollering, running after Monet with their cameras flashing and their southern accents a-blazing.  They spot her and give chase as she runs away.

Mama Polk seems about ready to take another of Audrey’s pearly whites when someone calls out, “Mama?” She turns around and -SMACK- Lee bashes her head in. Audrey is quite grateful to see her again, and lee quickly lets her up. Audrey looks for her wedding ring and slips it on. Mama starts to wake up and angry Audrey starts kicking her. Mama just laughs. And then Audrey picks up the business end of a large pipe wrench and gives the special effects crew some overtime. Mama won’t be getting up no more.

Lee and Audrey have made it through the secret tunnel and are safely in the basement–where Matt’s corpse still lies on the ground, his head mashed in. Lee sees her dead brother and breaks down, screaming, crying, wailing over him. Audrey tries sympathetically to get her out of there. They head up and find the rest of the house in disarray, but deathly quiet. They go upstairs to the master bedroom and Lee collapses on the bed, in obvious pain from the Polk injuries. Audrey searches through her bag for some heavy-duty drugs (still clutching that camera, are we Audrey? Riiiiight). Audrey goes into the bathroom and freaks out at the sight of Shelby’s body. She screams and moans a very actor-ish thing: “I feel like a part of me has died with her!” That made me chuckle. Dominic is still sitting on the floor, too, and makes his presence known. He wearily recounts the sequence of events that led to Matt’s death and Shelby’s suicide, but the two ladies don’t believe him. They back him up and lock him out of the room. And into the waiting arms of the Pig Man.

As the horrible sounds of hacking and slashing can be heard, Audrey the actress delivers a weirdly funny monologue into the camera that begins, “If I die, I just want you all to know that I had so many wonderful performances waiting for you.”  It’s hilariously shallow and self-serving, and very very apropos of the character.

Dawn is breaking. It’s quiet at the house. Audrey wakes with a start, grateful that she is still alive (and amazed that the camera battery is still charged). Lee flatly says, “We have to go back.” The Polks’ murders were captured on video, and they need to get that footage back, or they could be looking at jail time. Or worse: audience disapproval. Audrey decides to go along with Lee. They limp downstairs and, after pausing at the basement stairs, they both decide they can probably go out the front door now. It’s daylight. They open the front door.

AND THE PIG MAN IS RIGHT THERE! Lee hits him with the crowbar, and he yells out. “Godammit! Stop! It’s me!” He takes off the pig mask to reveal: the actor who played one of the Butcher’s sons in the reenactments. Audrey gasps: “Dylan?!”

Okay, other than the weird repetitive scenes with the Polks, this was a good episode.  The death toll is rising like a cross between And Then There Were None and Friday The 13th. We know (or think we know–have they been playing us all along?) that there will only be one survivor. Who will be the Final Girl (or Guy)?

Only two episodes left. See you next time!