- Serial killer enthusiasts reenact the brutal murders of two nursing students, while Ben returns to Boston to fix a mistake involving an old flame.
- Ben gets a new patient, Bianca Forest, something of a murder groupie who is just amazed that he lives in the house that has been the scene of so many famous murders. Ben has his own problems when the student with whom he was having an affair in Boston calls to tell him she's pregnant. He lies to his wife Vivien saying he's got to return to Boston to deal with one of his old cases. While he's away however, Bianca and two of her friends stage a home invasion intent on recreating a murder of two student nurses in 1968.—garykmcd
- Ben has a new patient, Bianca, who has a dreadful nightmare where she is cut in half by an elevator. Bianca is curious about the house and the murders that had happened there. Ben receives a phone call from his former affair that tells that she is pregnant. Ben is forced to travel to Boston and he lies to Vivien about the objective of his trip. Meanwhile Bianca and two friends break in the house to recreate a murder that happened in 1968, threatening Vivien and Violet.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- 1968 - the moon was in the 7th house and Jupiter aligned with Mars; Richard Nixon, a republican from California, declared his presidential candidacy; Martin Luther King Jr. spent a day at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis and would die there; and Andy Warhol is shot by a struggling actress/writer and a green Shelby Mustang pulls up in front of a familiar house. So begins AHS's second episode - Home Invasion. The house we know that had once been owned by a doctor to the stars now houses female students enrolled in nursing school. Three of them are going to the Hollywood Bowl to see The Doors in concert. Two other "squares" pass up the chance and stay home to study. One, Maria (Rosa Salazar), makes the mistake of opening the front door to a presumed-wounded stranger. "Franklin" (Jamie Harris) proves to the two nurses his aversion for women in that particular career field and shows us the first detailed crime to take place in our current favorite house. Both women die in particularly gruesome fashions and the stranger disappears.
In the present, Tate (Evan Peters), in his own way, makes his intentions known to Ben (Dylan McDermott) about Violet (Taissa Farmiga), Ben's daughter, including graphic details about wanting to have sex with her. Ben ends their session early. Ben has been avoiding his ringing cell phone. After telling the caller about their arranged agreement to not speak anymore, we learn who Ben had the fling with a year ago and that she is pregnant. Meanwhile, perhaps feeling guilty about the attack in the basement, Violet becomes friends with Leah (Shelby Young) who now dons a floppy hat to cover graying-from-fear hair.
Later that night, the house burglar alarm goes off, but that doesn't dissuade Tate from watching Violet sleep. Ben searches the house, and the open door down into the basement, to find neighbor Adelaide (Jamie Brewer) playing in the basement. He leaves, thinking she was playing alone, and we see a ball being rolled back to where Addy had been.
Ben takes on a new patient: Bianca Forest (Mageina Tovah), a struggling actress, who dreams of being cut in half trying escape a Carpenters song playing on a stalled elevator. Ben suggests the dream represents some inner, unresolved pain. "I just think I'm afraid of getting chopped in half." While on the phone with Tate's mother, trying to get out of that professional relationship, Bianca appears in the room with Ben. He thought she had left. She does leave, but after looking around the place.
Constance (Jessica Lange), the neighbor for which we have a love/hate thing, cooks in her own kitchen while explaining to Addy why she doesn't look like the magazine models. "You were born with...other gifts." We, nor Addy, aren't told exactly with those gifts are, but Addy is allowed to add to the recipe for cupcakes for the neighbors - her own spit and Ipecac syrup.
Ben, as per usual, comes across Mr. Harvey (Denis O'Hare) on his jog. Larry tells Ben he must lie to his wife to cover up the predicament with his former fling. Constance delivers the special-made cupcakes to the Harmons. She offers them as an apology for all of Adelaide's unlawful entries, yet insists they are for Violet alone. After sensing that Vivien is with child, Constance relates tales of herself being a mother, not only to Addy but to three other children - two of which had Down's syndrome as well, the other was "a model of physical perfection...lost to other things." This, including talk of her former screen-godlike husband, saddens Constance.
That night, Vivien takes a cupcake to Violet, who feels left out about the pregnancy news. She thinks her mother is too old and "weak" to be a mother again. Refusing the cupcake, Violet sets it outside her door. In Boston, we and Ben meet Hayden (Kate Mara), a needy clingy psych student. She insists to Ben that she's fine without him now. She just needs his support to cope with the upcoming abortion. However when he checks his phone to see if his wife has called, Hayden freaks out and forces him to turn over his phone.
During Ben's excursion, Vivien hears the doorbell in the middle of the night. Forty years after the opening scene, another stranger needs help - with the same "injuries" as Franklin back then. Vivien appears smarter than the naive nurses of long ago and does not open the door for the wounded woman, yet offers to call 911 for her. It is then we see the outsider already has inside help. Two hooded invaders, one of which is Bianca, must have found Addy's way inside.
The three intruders (Kyle Davis, Azura Skye, & M. Tovah) intend on recreating the murders we saw at show's opening, because "Franklin was the first. Before Manson. He changed the culture." Vivien and Violet were to be dressed up like nurses. What the intruders didn't count on was a) the house was intent on protecting its current inhabitants on this night, and b) the current inhabitants are stronger women than the 1968 nurses. First, Violet breaks free and is pulled into a pantry by Tate, who tells her to somehow "get them into the basement."
Vivien, meanwhile, sees Adelaide behind her attacker and phrases her words to instruct her neighbor to seek help. Upstairs, the lady intruders prepare the bathroom crime scene for Violet. Bianca finds the cupcake and eats it. Violet tells her captor that the scene is wrong. The original bathtub was downstairs, in the basement.
Next door, Constance entertains her male "business associate," perhaps to train him in some pillow talk. Adelaide knocks on the bedroom door to try to explain about the "bad man" next door. Constance thinks she speaks of Ben and shoos her away. When Addy interrupts the tryst again, Constance locks her daughter in a mirror-filled Bad Girl closet as punishment. "Look at yourself. Look at yourself hard."
Once Tate knows that Violet has put his plan into place, he makes Bianca realize her worst fears and embeds an ax into her midriff - twice. He then appears in the basement, calling out Violet's attacker. When she draws near to the tub, its original victim's ghost appears in it. Vivian escapes the male attacker, who thinks she has entered the open basement door and follows her into the tub room. The two ghost nurses await him, as well.
At the abortion clinic, Ben checks his neglected cell phone to see he's missed a few calls - only 13. Back home, two of our latest victims lie dead in the basement, their throats ripped open like the twins in 1978 (Episode 1). Constance appears alongside Tate and Moira (Frances Conroy), asking if the intruders' demise were his handiwork. He says no. Regardless, the three have a mess to clean up.
The police (Drew Powell & Scott Lawrence) have lost track of two intruders - the third was found cut in half - but are confident in finding them. Violet burns her dad for not being there for them, and for thinking she let Tate in the house. She said at least Tate was here. Then praises her mother for being brave through the ordeal. Our episode ends with Vivian telling Ben not to call the place "home" anymore. "We're selling this house!"
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