History Series / AmericanHorrorStoryMurderHouse

%%* AmericanTitle

%%* BoyMeetsGhoul: [[spoiler: Violet and Tate.]]

%%* KissKissSlap

** [[NightmareFuel Nora and Charles' son getting kidnapped, murdered, and sent back to them jars]].

* AdultFear: One of the reasons the Harmons (and Chad and Pat before them) [[ClosedCircle can't just leave]] is because they've sunk so much money into the house that just leaving or making the house price low enough to attract people would be like committing financial suicide.

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:None of the Harmons survive. (Except the dog.) Really, this show killed off almost every cast member. Constance and Larry are the only major characters who are still alive.]]

* MercyKill: [[spoiler: Moira]] ends her mother's life by disconnecting her oxygen.

* DysfunctionJunction: Every family and relationship, except the Latin family in the final episode.

** In an example that stretches across several seasons, Billie Dean Howard vaguely references the Roanoke colonists dying and then haunting the Indians, who banished them. This becomes a major plot point in [[AmericanHorrorStoryRoanoke the sixth season]].

* BlondesAreEvil: Constance, [[spoiler:Tate, Nora, and ultimately Michael, implied to be the Antichrist]].
* BoyMeetsGhoul: [[spoiler: Violet and Tate.]]

* DoesNotLikeMen: Moira likes to give speeches on how men are cruel, opressive, and treat women like dirt, while telling Vivian it's women's job to suffer quietly and clean up men's mistakes. This may have to do with [[spoiler: suffering an AttemptedRape at the hands of her last employer, only to be shot by his jealous wife]]. Rather than voice her feelings and try to get some closure, she uses her looks to try and manipulate [[spoiler: Ben]] into screwing up.

* DoesNotLikeMen: Moira likes to give speeches on how Men are cruel, opressive, and treat men like dirt, while telling Vivian it's womens' job to suffer quietly and clean up mens' mistakes. This may have to do with [[spoiler: suffering an AttemptedRape at the hands of her last employer, only to be shot by his jealous wife]]. Rather than voice her feelings and try to get some closure, she uses her looks to try and manpulate [[spoiler: Ben]] into screwing up.

** This seems to only be the case with [[spoiler: Moira]], we don't know why everyone else is stuck there and it's not possible that all of their bodies are buried on the grounds since there are records of their deaths, meaning that someone would have had to have found their bodies following said deaths (or else the records would have just said that they disappeared.) The only condition for someone becoming a ghost in the house is that they die on the grounds, not that their bodies remain there.
*** It's explained that the only reason [[spoiler: Moira]] wants her body found is so that Constance will finally be caught and face retribution for what she did. It won't get her out of the house, but it would probably make it easier on her mind frame if she didn't have her murderer mocking her at every turn.

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Everyone who becomes a ghost typically remains in the condition they died in, so characters who died under nasty circumstances make horribly disfigured ghosts, making being stuck in eternity even worse (e.g. "The Dead Breakfast Club" and Larry's family). Taken UpToEleven with Chad and Pat, and later [[spoiler:Violet and Tate; both couples break up as one no longer loves the other, but are forced to live in the same house indefinitely]].

** Ghosts are fully capable of physically interacting with the living, and their behavior is often casual enough that [[DeadAllAlong it can be a surprise when we learn which characters are ghosts]]. Ghosts can kill the living, have sex with them...and even [[spoiler:conceive children with them]], as we ultimately find out.

** Actually, not just Moira, but pretty much all of the ghosts trapped in the house. They can scream all they want about their condition and beat the shit out of each other freely, but they're still stuck there for as long as the house stands (and possibly longer, who knows).

* AbhorrentAdmirer: [[spoiler:Larry, who is disfigured by burns, towards Constance.]]
** [[spoiler:Tate]] becomes this to Violet once she learns the whole truth about his past.

* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Ben is supposedly a psychiatrist, a medical doctor specializing drug management of mental illness. He is shown do little if any medical treatment, instead acting as a psychotherapist.
** He seems to fill both roles. He does ask Tate questions regarding his medication.

* BlondesAreEvil: Constance, [[spoiler:Tate, Nora]], and ultimately Michael, [[spoiler:implied to be the Antichrist]].

* ComeOutComeOutWhereverYouAre: said verbatim by Violet and Constance to invoke ghosts.

** [[spoiler: Tate Langdon]], killed by a full-on SWAT team after [[spoiler:shooting up his school]]. This is how Constance knew about the house's power, as they were living there at the time.

** Violet shows signs of this [[spoiler: after she discovers the truth of what Tate had done. It's further compounded when she looks for Tate in the basement and instead finds one of the nurses, the two home invaders, and Charles, leading to her being DrivenToSuicide]].

** The medium's story of Roanoke Colony. [[spoiler: It's almost completely inaccurate, so it's no surprise when it turns out to be worthless.]]

** The events of episodes 5 and 6 are alluded to when [[spoiler:Tate has his first session with Ben; the sequence where Tate is shown walking through a school and a very brief shot where Tate sees himself covered in blood alludes he actually has acted on his murderous thoughts.]] Additionally, [[spoiler:Tate also being a ghost is implied when the dead cheerleader remarks that she would be 34 if he hadn't killed her; since she went to the same high-school at the same time at Tate, it's highly implied that he should be about 30 too.]]

* InTheBlood: [[spoiler: Tate's son apparently inherited his dad's psychotic tendencies, if the nanny he murdered at ''three years old'' is any indication.]]
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Tate to Violet. However, he has several major misconceptions about how to go about it. Like trying to [[spoiler:kill off the new owners' son, who had only displayed a passing interest in her]], so she wouldn't be alone.

* MamaBear: Constance. Despite her obvious contempt for her daughter, she threatens to break Vivien's arm if she touches her again. She's the same way with [[spoiler: Beau and Tate]], even though [[spoiler: Tate hates her]]. The woman will ''kill'' without a flutter of remorse to keep her family together, as seen when she allies with Larry and Moira to [[spoiler:off a possible buyer who was going to tear the house down]].

** Larry's wife burned herself and her daughters, [[spoiler: after Larry announced he was leaving her for Constance.]]

** [[spoiler: Nora rescuing a young Tate from Thaddeus.]]

** Tate, towards Violet. He likes to stare at her while she sleeps. [[spoiler: He's not breaking in, though...]]

* StarCrossedLovers: Tate and Violet, due to [[spoiler:Tate being Dead All Along]]. It was resolved once [[spoiler:Violet found out that she had died, too, but their relationship was shot for goof when Violet found out that Tate killed Chad and Patrick, and raped her mother]].

** [[spoiler: Tate and Violet are this briefly, up until she finds out the truth about him. Violet later gets this for real when she is reunited with Ben, Vivien, and the stillborn twin after they all die, getting her whole family back.]]

* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Some ghosts still have the wounds that killed them, though sometimes they do not, usually in the interest of preserving their looks.

* TheBechdelTest: Pass.

** Nora and Charles get married in the first place (Charles is a drug-addict surgeon who can't pay the bills; Nora's used to a higher-class lifestyle, making her [reasonably] upset with Charles' failure [the way she expresses it, though, is not very civil]). After they set up a secret abortion clinic, one girl can't hold her tongue and her boyfriend is enraged. The boyfriend kidnaps their child, Thaddeus, and leaves a cryptic message for Nora: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. When Nora goes to check the crib, the child is gone. A while later, the police come around and Charles answers the door. The police don't allow Nora to see what is inside, even though it's quite obviously Thaddeus' body, and the image drive Charles even further into his madness. One night, Nora descends the stairs with what she wants to bury their child in only to find that Charles was working on his new Frankenstein creation: he was sewing a hoof onto their child. What is assumed to be a few days after the incident, Charles finally comes to Nora and tells her to go check the nursery, that he was finally a success after "using the beating heart from one of our girls." She does so. When she returns, she says he truly is a genius, that she's proud of him. However, she then explains that she tried to nurse the child when arriving, but it wanted something else (blood). She says she attempted to kill it with a letter opener, but it didn't work. Charles, however, still in awe that he was finally able to impress his wife goes over to hug her. While he's looking away, she pulls out a gun and shoots him, then puts the gun in her mouth and shoots herself. After this, we don't see much of Charles, though we know that he's still practicing surgery in the basement. Every time we see Nora, however, it seems that she's forgotten that she's dead (likely due to the brain damage a bullet through the skull would've caused) and is wondering where her baby is.
** Though not much information is given on Chad and Patrick before they were ghosts, we know that they were planning on having children for a long time. However, as soon as they moved in, they became an unhappy couple. Patrick began cheating on Chad constantly, such as sleeping with his trainer, (if one would consider it cheating, as it seems to be a debate) online roleplaying in an S&M chatroom with "JungleJim4322", etc. Though Chad tried his hardest, he seemed to only ever be in the mood to do something "weird" around Halloween, much to the chagrin of Patrick. On Halloween of 2010, Patrick was going to the gym (this followed a snarky exchange between him and Patrick about condoms and his trainer) while Chad stayed at home decorating. A man in a rubber suit appeared and Chad immediately remembered the suit that was supposed to be used for sex from a few months before. Assuming it was Patrick's way of apologizing, he accepted the "apology" and said the suit looked sort of spooky. However, it was [[spoiler:Tate Langdon]] underneath the rubber. Rubber Man drowned Chad in his apple-bobbing bowl. When Patrick arrived home, Rubber Man shoved a fire-poker into him, killing him. Therefore, Chad and Patrick found themselves stuck forever in their unhappy relationship.
** Constance is "no stranger to tragedy" herself - you can practically hear her Virginia drawl! [[spoiler: In a way, Constance is responsible for most of the tragedies caused, however. Killed her husband and her maid for suspecting them of sleeping together. Mother of three or four kids (at the beginning, she says four, though we only hear about three), all died before they even reached adulthood. Her first child we know about was Beau, a disfigured young man who was chained up by Constance in the attic. When Child Protective Services threatened to take Beau away for criminal child neglect on Constance's part, Constance had her then-lover, Larry, carry through their discussed plan. Larry went upstairs, tucked Beau in, then smothered him with a pillow, making it so he'd forever be in the Murder House. Her second oldest child, Tate, was of "model good-looks," but he was deeply disturbed inside, something Constance refused to see. One day, Tate went straight to Larry's office, set him on fire, then to his school and killed 15 kids. He was killed in the Murder House later that day when the police came around. Finally, Constance's youngest, her daughter, Addie, was both a monster and a gift in Constance's eyes. Born with mental disabilities, Constance was always ashamed to walk down the street with her - at the same time, however, she would maul anyone who laid a hand on Addie, as was with all her children. This was the one tragedy she was not directly responsible for. Constance gave Addie a mask for her Halloween costume; however, when Addie ran out into the middle of the street to try and catch up with some trick-or-treaters, her peripheral vision was blocked and she was hit by a car. Constance was unable to get her to the Murder House lawn in time, so Addie was her one child that truly died. Luckily for Constance, she was able to contact her through Billie Dean, her medium, and Addie told her she was happy she didn't get to the lawn - she didn't want to be with the other spirits, and Tate scared her. She also eased Constance's conscience through various words. (Also, if you'd like to count the final child she cares for, though it's not her own, she had to deal with the Anti-Christ).]]
** Moira. [[spoiler: In 1984, she had an affair with Constance's then-husband, Hugo Langdon. After one episode, however, she decided they should cut their sexual ties. Unfortunately, Hugo decided differently and began an attempt to rape her. While Constance was walking down the hallway, she believed the cries she heard from the room were noises of pleasure (isn't that always the way?) and withdrew a pistol. Entering the room, she didn't stop to question. She shot Moira in the eye, gave a speech to her husband, then shot him multiple times, as well. After that, she buried them both separately in the ground. In the wake of the event, all Moira wants is for someone to find her bones and release her from the house's grip, yet she watches as Ben (covering Larry's tracks when he buries a victim in the same place as Moira's bones) cements the hole her bones are in and covers it up with a gazebo. The only day she's free, Halloween, she goes to visit her dying mother (who has been mentioned before - it is clear that Moira has a deep affection for her mother) and releases her miserable body from life support. Once her mother has died completely, she sits on the bed as her mother appears behind her and beckons her to come with her to the other side. Moira then cries, telling her mother that she can't. Now, if that isn't enough, she also has to live with the constant accusations, berating, and name-calling from Constance.]]

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Ghosts in the house are normally unseen by the living, with a few exceptions, but can make themselves be seen if they want to. They can be attacked by the living and other ghosts, but are unfazed by any damage. They in turn can kill the living and otherwise interact with the rest of the world. Sometimes they are aware they are ghosts, other times they cannot remember. Only ghosts inside the house are ever shown, and they cannot leave the house -- except on Halloween, when they are allowed to leave for the day. Other ghosts unrelated to the house appear on Halloween, too, but it is unknown how much they can interact with the rest of the world the rest of the year.

* GenreSavvy: Marcy invokes this when she pulls a gun on Larry during the open house. Too bad she's WrongGenreSavvy.

* GirlOnGirlIsHot: Elizabeth and young Moira attempt to invoke this on Ben. It doesn't work.

* KissKissSlap

* AmericanTitle