We see night camera footage of a deer eating some grass near the production trailer for Return To Roanoke. In the background is a woman (Priscilla?) standing in the grass. There is a glitch in the camera signal, and she is gone.

Inside the production trailer, Sidney is admiring his camera set-ups in the house just as Dominic and Matt get into their fight from last episode. Alissa, the assistant, comes into the trailer bringing dinner, and asks if Diana is ever coming back? She hasn’t returned any calls.  After she leaves the cameraman with Sidney sees Rory getting stabbed by the two nurses on camera. “Did you see that?” Sidney wasn’t watching the feed. They start to rewind the footage when they hear a loud scream from outside. They scramble to the door.

Outside, all is quiet.

Well, maybe not that quiet. There is a quiet gasping, rasping sound. Sidney looks behind the trailer and–“Oh shit. GRAB THE CAMERA!”  Nice priorities there, Sidney.  P.O.V the camera as it is grabbed and brought outside. Alissa is on the ground, with blood still spurting from her neck. Suddenly, Agnes is right there in full Butcher mode with her cleaver, which she promptly slams into Sidney’s belly. Then we hear her attack the cameraman as the camera is dropped to the ground.

Wow.  Pretty intense way to open the episode. All of the people in the house are now completely isolated, their only link to the outside world gone in one fell swoop. Boom.

Back in the house Audrey is searching for her young husband Rory. They all help out, venturing into different rooms. Dominic is the first to call out: “Guys? You better come in here and see this.” He shows them a huge bloodstain on the wood floor. Audrey is worried–but then laughs, remembering that Rory got a better offer in L.A. Sidney must have put him up to this to scare them. In the confessional, though, she speaks from the heart about maybe being too old for him, and maybe he’s gone to someone else.

Agnes is down (I think?) in the underground cellar, lit by a torch, speaking to the camera she picked up earlier. She switches back and forth from herself, Agnes the actress, lamenting about the dead girl who treated her so well onset, and then back to The Butcher, wailing about stolen land and blood. It’s really a remarkable scene, full of insanity, pathos, sympathy, and pure emotive power. Bates is amazing here.

She ends with a completely actor-ish admission: she was only hired for three episodes, but she ended up with five. The fans wanted The Butcher. The torch goes out, and she is in darkness. She tries to light it again once. Twice. The third try makes it blaze high–and reveals that the room is now full of those eerie little stick figure things. She screams.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Monet is looking at the “MURDER” graffiti on the wall. Dominic comes and, so does Lee. They snipe a bit at each other, and Dominic leaves for the kitchen. Where Shelby is. He wants to get together with her, and she wants nothing to do with him anymore. Matt comes up from the basement as they argue. Aaaawkward (cue laugh track). Matt says, “You want her? You can have her.” Shelby is shocked. Matt just wants her to stay out of his way.

Back in the confessional, Dominic admits that he loves playing the bad guy. They get more screen time. Sidney gave him a mini body cam in the form of a necklace (is this a thing? I have my doubts). So now we get yet another angle of all the future events in Roanoke. From Dominic’s chest. 

Shelby is crying in her bedroom, reeling from what Matt has just said. How could he? As she sits there she notices a huge camera has been placed on her bed. As she reaches out to it, Agnes sneaks up behind her. Shelby whirls, and Agnes advances on her slowly, complaining in both her regular voice and her Butcher voice. Shelby turns to run and WHAM Agnes chops her in the back. Shelby goes down, screaming and howling in pain. Shelby brings her camera up, hoping to record her last moments and let everyone know who was responsible. Agnes gets ready for another slice and WHAM Dominic comes in from…uh…how did he get in the room? Anyway, he slams her into the mirror, knocking her to the ground. He goes to Shelby to help her, and when he turns to look behind him, Agnes is gone.

Matt, Audrey and all come running into the room to help. They bandage Shelby up as well as they can, and Dominic screams into one of the cameras for Sidney to send help, that Shelby is really hurt. An hour later, and no help has come. No help will ever come.

They take turns arguing about who should go out into the woods to find the trailer (and some damned help), when Audrey reminds them that there is a secret way out of this house. They don’t have to go out into the woods. Much.

Next, they’re all in the secret escape tunnel, complaining about Sidney and his cameras. And worrying about that psycho bitch Agnes. Off in the distance they see someone in fancy clothes. Audrey thinks it’s Rory, come back for her. But as it gets closer it lets out a blood-curdling howl. Lee pulls out her gun and shoots at it. Surprisingly,  the bullets seem to injue it a bit, then it starts running towards them again. They all run back out of the tunnel at breakneck speed. And now they’re in the woods. As they all catch their breath, Lee asks, “Do you believe us now? Or do you deny what you’ve seen with your own eyes?”

They go off to find Sidney.

Back at the house, Matt and Shelby have a painful conversation about the state of “us.” Matt says that they were over the first day they set foot in this house. He felt he had to come back, not for her, but because the house was drawing him back. Uh oh.

In the woods, the ladies have stumbled upon the trailer, as well as the bloody eviscerated bodies of Sidney and the others. Audrey gives perhaps the best line of the season, when she screams “I’m not American! I’m not used to this carnage!” Lee coolly searches the bodies as the other two go a bit nuts, crying hysterically. She finds the car keys and tosses them to Audrey, as Monet searches the trailer for a phone, a laptop, anything. No dice. Car’s dead, phones are gone. Aaaand…Agnes comes running out of the bushes at them, cleaver raised. Lee pulls out her gun and BLAM shoots Agnes to the ground.

They start running through the dark woods.

The blood moon hangs high in the sky, watching over them. They argue about what they should do, and which direction to go, when they see people off in the distance, carrying torches. Audrey wonders if they can help, but Lee yells: “Get off the road! Now!” They run and run and run, cameras bouncing, trees herkily jerkily passing by (for those of you who got sick during the handheld moments of Blair Witch, this won’t be fun). And speaking of Blair Witch, Audrey is next seen recording a message to camera, tears streaming down her face, as she professes her love to Rory. Heather Donahue would be proud. Lee is over her shoulder looking all exasperated.

Blood unexpectedly trickles down Audrey’s face. She turns to look up in the trees and–there’s Rory’s body, hanging from the branches. 

Screaming, crying, Audrey collapses to the ground, Monet tries to console her, and through it all Lee continues to film. Flashlights appear in the distance, and Lee knows that this is not a positive sign. She, again, tells them to run. Again. After a crazy chase, the zap of a cattle prod brings them down. Someone throws bags over their heads.

Back in the secret cellar, Agnes (wha…? She’s alive?) psyches herself up and removes the bullet from her chest. She heats up a pair of needlenose pliers, and digs into the hole. Twist, grunt, yank, and out pops the bullet. Mission accomplished! Exhausted, she rants about having her vengeance. Again.

Matt is sleeping next to a recovering Shelby and, apropos of nothing, awakens wide-eyed. he slowly, trancelike, wanders downstairs. Dominic sees him and sneaks behind him. Matt goes down to the basement. Dominic follows. Matt walks in a few feet, then stairs off behind some shelves. Suddenly, Matt is grabbed by the real creepy woods witch woman and is pulled to the ground. Dominic runs back upstairs, only to entice Shelby back down to see what’s going on.  She walks down the stairs, as we hear some wild inhuman growling and moaning, but also some…er…more intimate sounds. She rounds a corner and sees Matt full on shagging the creepy woods witch woman. Instead of running, Shelby grabs a heavy crowbar and hits her with it. “Get off of him!” But Matt is upset. He wanted to be with creepy woods witch woman. “I came back for her. I’m in love with her” And this is finally too much for poor Shelby, She beats Matt to death, right then and there, hitting him in the head again and again and again and again until Dominic can restrain her.

Whoa. 

Well, well, well, look who’s back: it’s the Polk family! These crossbred, weed-growing, rednecks are also kidnappers and cannibals, as they rip Lee’s jeans off and make her rub oil into her own thigh, after which they sprinkle it with with some seasoning herbs.  And then they stab her with a barbecue fork.

Back at the house, Shelby is in shock over the events of the last few minutes. She still grips the crowbar tightly. Dominic gently and calmly loosens her fingers and places the crowbar far from her. Her shock breaks and she cries and cries about what she did to Matt. “I killed him!” He tries to calm her down, and also suggests that she’s going to have to turn herself in. There are too many cameras watching, they recorded it all. He hears something outside and goes to the window, only to see Agnes dumping gasoline around the house. She’s going to fire it up.

Back at the Polk’s place, Audrey and Monet realize they haven’t seen Lee in a while, just as the matriarch brings in a plate of very very fresh meat for them to eat. They’re guests, after all.  Monet, cringing, picks up a piece, but Audrey screams at them–and gets a couple zaps from the cattleprod for her trouble. I know what the director and writer were trying to do here, to make the Polk’s be truly and realistically horrific people, but I still think this scene went on just a bit too long. Lingering over this scene and all its cruelty, with the old woman cackling like a damn witch,  actually took a bit of the impact away.

Back at the house, Agnes is ready to set fire to the big old house. She has occasionally been speaking Gaelic (?) or Old English (?) throughout this episode, which is interesting. Is she becoming possessed or just going further into madness?  Behind her, yep, a large crowd of people, dressed in old clothing and brandishing torches, slowly make their way to her. She is happy to see them. “Brethren!” she calls out, welcoming them. They stand silent. She looks from face to face, then suddenly realizes who the person in front of her is. Agnes is now face-to-face with the real Butcher.

Agnes falls to her knees. “My idol! My maker!” The Butcher remains stoic, and shows no sign of recognition or emotion. Reverting to her old self, Agnes whimpers, “I’m sorry, I just wanted to be on TV.” The Butcher takes one mighty swing and cleaves Agnes’ skull in two. Blood runs down her face as Dominic screams from the window.

This episode exhausted me, but in a good way.  So much happened in such a short period of time. I’m a little concerned that with only three more episodes the energy that they’ve been able to build and maintain might fall off a bit, but I have much faith in these people.  I am really excited for the rest of this nightmare. See you next time!