"Game Over"
Directed by: Liz Friedlander
Written by: Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk
A couple (Noah Cyrus and Adam Hagenbuch) dares to spend the night in one of the most infamous haunted houses.
"Game Over" contains examples of:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Michelle wanted to know how the Murder House worked. She gets it by being murdered and thus stuck in there.
- Beyond Redemption: Ben mentions that, despite trying to counsel Tate after everything the latter had done, Tate is "just as bananas as he's always been."
- Celebrity Paradox: Invoked when Michelle encounters Ben Harmon in the Murder House, and mistakes him for Dylan McDermott doing a bit to amuse fans of the show for Halloween.
- Decoy Protagonist: Connie and Dylan are set up as the episode's lead characters in the opening few minutes, before it's revealed that the events they just experienced are taking place in a video game being (respectively) designed and played by the real protagonists, Michelle and Rory. Despite the many iterations the game goes through over the course of the episode, Connie and Dylan are never seen again.
- Face Death with Dignity: A variation as they're already dead but as the house burns, the spirits except Ruby are ready for whatever fate awaits them.
- Mercy Kill: How the inhabitants of the house (except Ruby) see Rory burning down the place to free their spirits. They stop Ruby from trying to kill Rory as "nothingness is better than this."
- Sarcastic Confession: When asked how she can afford this condo, Scarlett says she became a contract assassin. It's unclear if the realtor actually believes her or not.
- Show Within a Show: Or "unofficial-video-game-spin-off with in a show". Which in itself is recursive, as the events of the episode itself then turn out to have actually taken place in the video game after it was extensively re-written. Or something.
- Also, in the universe of this episode (and seemingly this episode alone), American Horror Story exists as a TV show and its actors are at least somewhat recognisable. (Although Michelle blanks on Dylan McDermott's name when she encounters Ben Harmon in the Murder House. Not that you can really blame her.)
- Shout-Out: Connie and Dylan are named in honour of Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott, who played central couple Ben and Vivian Harmon in American Horror Story: Murder House. Since in this episode the TV show exists in-universe, this is likely intended as a Shout Out in the fictional video game as well as in the actual episode.
