American Horror Story Forums

The order is this: She sees a shadowy Tate moving through the house. She goes to the basement. Sees the ghosts. Goes upstairs. Sees "I love you" written on the chalkboard. Pops the pills." I actually squeezed in a second viewing of this week's episode, even though I really had no business taking the time to do so. It occurred to me that I've been contemplating this episode for very different reasons than previous episodes. In previous episodes, the primary drive for contemplation was trying to sort out exactly what happened. It seems to me that in this episode, what "happened" was pretty straightforward. What I've been contemplating is the emotions that it evoked for me. Finally, I figured out that the moments between Violet and Tate when he shows her her body and then, afterward, in her room felt very intimate to me, despite an almost complete lack of any sort of romantic gestures (other than Tate hugging Violet). Yet, those moments, for me, somewhat superceded any of the sex we've seen on the show. I couldn't figure out why. It finally occurred to me...What could be more intimate than someone who was there with you when you took your last breath sharing that moment with you? It's creepy. That's for sure. But something about it is also very...I don't want to say "romantic" because that's not it...I guess the word I really do want is "intimate." That person has an insight into you that no one else will ever have because you only have one dying moment. Also, because she can't remember it, Violet has no choice but to blindly trust what Tate is telling her. Not that I think that's really pertinent to anything, necessarily. I just find it interesting that that feeling is what struck me the most about this week's episode.

I get what you are saying. When Tate said they were like Romeo and Juliet something clicked with me. We have continually gone back to the discussion of who we like and do not like, who are sympathetic characters, etc. While I thought Tate was creepy and Violet annoying at times I never lost all my sympathy for them and I finally realized why. They are Romeo and Juliet characters.

If someone has not really studied the play they just think of the couple as stereotypically romantic and tragic, but the story is truly more about their families and their society and how they are lost within both. They are never seen as individuals, just as extensions of their parents' lives that are pulled and pushed about until they make a tragic bid for love and control of their own lives. In the end the parents left to realize the horror of their own actions.

I think we are seeing that sort of "scene" playing out here.

Constance is slipping for me. I am losing all empathy for Constance. Everything about her seems so selfish, even her love. It all has to be on her terms and under her control. Ugh.

I should not even dare after the points that I have missed, but what do you think for the final two episodes? I think Ben and Vivien have to find out she is dead and they probably escape with one of the babies and the house keeps the other. ???

I get the Romeo and Juliet reference (two doomed teenage lovers), but to me Violet and Tate are much more Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet is angry at his mother because his father has just died and she immediately re-married the uncle who murdered him. Helped along by the ghost of his dead father, Hamlet eventually becomes so consumed with rage that he becomes dead set on exacting revenge on said uncle and sort of loses touch with reality. In the process, he accidentally kills Ophelia's father. Ophelia, grieving the loss of her father and Hamlet's sudden ambivalence toward her literally loses it and either accidentally kills herself or on purpose kills herself (or she may have been murdered by Hamlet's mom, but not very many people are fans of that theory). In fact, pretty much everyone except Hamlet's friend ends up dead at the end of that mess. Like American Horror Story, you know almost from the get go that it just can't end well. To me, those plot parallels are a lot closer to the Violet and Tate story than those of Romeo and Juliet, which is essentially about two dueling families whose past grievances with each other feed hate and vendetta between them until two members of each family, Romeo and Juliet, finally bring peace between the families by falling so in love with each other that they would quite literally die for each other, which ultimately demonstrates to their families how petty they've been. Whether Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet and Ophelia, though, I still agree with what you're saying about what drives our sympathy for them, despite our personal feelings about their actions and personal choices. Essentially, even though neither couple is innocent, they're both ultimately victims of something that is much bigger than them. And, for that, you can't help but feel at least a little bit sorry for them. That's also exactly what has happened to Violet and Tate.