American Horror Story: Roanoke 6×04 – Chapter 4 – Recap

Murders and revelations awaited in American Horror Story: Roanoke 6×04.

Read on for our recap of American Horror Story: Roanoke 6×04, “Chapter 4.”

Last week, American Horror Story: Roanoke left us with the team composed of Matt, Shelby, and Lee completely shattered. Shelby turned in Lee to the police, hurt by the fact that Matt and Lee went behind her back in promising to destroy the farmhouse so The Butcher would finally release Flora from the land of the dead. But Shelby has an ulterior motive to be mad. Seeing your husband “busy” with a possible ghost/witch/whatever Lady Gaga’s character is must not be easy.

American Horror Story: Roanoke 6×04 begins with a violent altercation between Shelby and Matt. The poor guy insists that he really can’t remember what happened in the woods. He bursts into tears, screaming his innocence, and Shelby believes him, but she knows what she saw.

Later that night, Shelby’s attempt to take a relaxing bath is abruptly interrupted when she is attacked by a… how to put it? Half-man, half-pig. Actually, two of them. Matt manages to rescue her, and together they run. They are saved by Professor Elias Cunningham, whom we met back in episode 6×02 when Matt and Shelby discovered his video explaining the farmhouse’s horrible story. He saves them using the word Croatoan, and the half-humans/half-pigs suddenly disappear.

Shelby asks about the significance of the word, and Elias explains that it was a message left at Roanoke for others to find the lost colony. The professor goes on to say that he always maintained possession of the house until he couldn’t afford it, so that others wouldn’t have the misfortune to live in it. The money ran out, and that’s how Shelby and Matt could afford to buy the place at the auction.

Elias tells Shelby and Matt that the house was completed in 1792 by Edward Philip Mott (ancestor of Dandy Mott from American Horror Story: Freak Show). Since then, families living in the house have gone missing. In fact, Mott was the first victim. The spirits that inhabit the house and the land around can hunt their poor victims anytime, but they can only kill in October. That’s why Shelby and Matt must leave the property immediately, but Matt says they can’t go without his niece.

Matt tells Elias about how Flora was dragged to the other side. The professor leads Matt and Shelby to Priscilla, because now the veil between the worlds of the dead and the living has been ripped off. Just when they locate Priscilla, along with some of the other victims of the farmhouse in the woods, Elias is killed by the ghosts. Shelby and Matt run away back to the house, where Cricket is waiting for them.

As American Horror Story: Roanoke 6×04 continues, Cricket says that there is still hope to save Flora, but he must go back into the woods. When he comes back, he’s shaken. He tells Matt and Shelby that he has met the “bitch with the real power” – the witch (Lady Gaga). Cricket explains that the lost colony was never, in fact, lost; they just decided to live in Roanoke, in blissful peace. But there was a price to pay for all that bliss – human sacrifice. Cricket sees who the victim was: Priscilla.

After that horrible sacrifice, the colony starts to doubt The Butcher and her son. The witch tells The Butcher she should make them all servants to her will by killing them all. And so she does, binding them all to be trapped forever in Roanoke with her – but not before the witch has killed her too.

Cricket says he knows a spell that can put the Butcher and her spirits down for good. He tells Shelby and Matt to stay in the house and wait for him while he goes back to his hotel to retrieve useful things for the spell. While Cricket is on his way, Flora crosses the street, so Cricket makes his Uber driver stop to follow her.

Back at the house, Shelby is asleep and Matt hears noises that drag him into the woods. He meets the witch again and learn a bit of her story. She arrived in the new land from England, and the soldiers tried to burn her as they believed her to be a witch. She eventually managed to escape, and became a new spirit in the new land.

In the meantime, Shelby wakes up to find The Butcher and her colony outside the house. Flora is with them, still alive. Matt hears Shelby’s cry for help and abandons the witch. The Butcher is about to kill Flora as a new sacrifice, but Priscilla manages to save her. Matt grabs Flora and runs back inside the house with Shelby.

Once inside, they find out The Butcher has Cricket, whom she tortures in front of them. The Butcher’s message is clear: They are next.

What did you think of American Horror Story: Roanoke 6×04, Chapter 4?