Warning: Spoilers below for Episode 9 of “American Horror Story”!
Who survives? The question we’ve been asking ourselves since Episode 6 of “American Horror Story: Roanoke” aired just a few weeks ago has now been answered.
The answer: Adina Porter’s Lee Harris. Lee the recovering alcoholic. Lee the former cop. Lee the devoted mother. Lee the murderer.
What does that mean for the season finale? Series co-creator Ryan Murphy has stated that Episode 10 is structured to stand alone, not as a direct continuation of where the story picked up last week.
From the preview, it looks like a perfect mashup of “American Horror Story” and “American Crime Story” (also helmed by Murphy).
We see Lee sitting with a team of lawyers, exiting a courthouse, and sitting across from Sarah Paulson as Lana Banana Winters, from Season 2’s “Asylum.” Lana was the journalist who went undercover to expose Briarcliff Manor’s atrocious care, but ended up the near-victim of its maniacal Dr. Thredson, played by Zachary Quinto.
Since Episodes 6 through 9 have shown us footage aired on “Return to Roanoke,” the sequel to show-within-a-show “My Roanoke Nightmare,” we’ve seen Lee confess to murdering Mason and hidden-camera footage showing her killing Dylan, Monet Tumusiime and the millennial ghost-hunters. That footage strongly indicates her guilt in the deaths of multiple people. But what about her encounter with the Witch of the Wood? The Witch and her pig heart seemed to put Lee under a kind of trance, as she was able to do with Lee’s brother, Matt, to manipulate her actions. Surely “trance” is an admissible defense in a court of law?
“Equally reviled and celebrated, she is one of the most provocative and polarizing figures of our time. Lee Harris has agreed to an interview live on television,” Lana narrates a teaser for the special, which we can assume will play out through the bulk of Episode 10. (What could go wrong during a live interview with a maybe-possessed person?)
The identity of the sole survivor in “Return to Roanoke,” the second show-within-a-show this season, came down to Lee and Audrey Tindall ― until Audrey made the ill-fated decision to pull a gun on Lee in front of some cops. (R.I.P. Audrey.) This marks the first time one of Paulson’s characters died in the series, since Season 5’s Sally was dead before that season began.
With the reappearance of Lana, however, Paulson’s streak may be still going strong. For now.
“American Horror Story: Roanoke” airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. on FX.
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