Season
#1
💖 Episode
#1: Pilot – A therapist and his family move across the country to escape
their troubled past but quickly discover that their new home comes with its own
horrific baggage. Dr. Harmon, a therapist from Boston, decides to move with his
wife and teenage daughter across the country to escape their troubled past. But
the family soon finds out their new home comes with its own kind of baggage.
Therapist Ben Harmon, his wife, Vivien, and their daughter Violet, move across
the country to Los Angeles to escape their troubled past. A family recovering
from a mother’s miscarriage, and a father’s infidelities make the decision to
move into a creepy home with a complicated history. The family is introduced to
a handful of eccentric characters including a psychopathic teen patient of the
father, a mysterious housekeeper who isn’t what she seems, a former resident of
the home who murdered his family, and a southern actress with a disturbed
daughter,. Vivien and Ben Harmon and their daughter Violet relocate to Los
Angeles from Boston and buy a large old house. As required by law, the real
estate agent discloses that the previous occupants were the victims of a
murder-suicide. The Harmons think nothing of it and concentrate on repairing
their marriage that has come under strain following Vivien’s miscarriage and
Ben’s subsequent infidelity with one of his students. Ben is a psychiatrist and
will meet his patients in the house. They meet the neighbors, the eccentric
Constance and her daughter Adelaide. Vivien also hires a housekeeper, Moira,
but Ben and Vivien don’t quite see the same person when they look at her.
Violet is bullied at school and befriends one of her dad’s patients who has
serious psychological problems. Strange events begin to occur.
💖 Episode #2:
Home Invasion – Vivien and Violet get themselves caught in a dangerous
situation. Meanwhile, Ben goes back to Boston to fix a mistake that he made.
Serial killer enthusiasts reenact the brutal murders of two nursing students,
Ben goes back to Boston to fix a mistake involving an old flame. Vivien and
Violet are caught in a frightful situation that seems all too similar to
something they have experienced before. Ben travels to Boston to take care of
something. 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.
💖 Episode
#3: Murder House – Vivien learns about her house’s first resident: A crazed
surgeon named Dr. Montgomery. Meanwhile, Ben confronts Moira about his
suspicious coffee. Ben receives a visitor who threatens to unhinge him
completely. Meanwhile, Vivien investigates the house’s original residents and
Constance and Moira confront each other over their shared secret. Ben confronts
Moira about recent strange behavior, while Vivien learns about the house’s
first resident. After their home invasion, Vivien insists that they move out
but their finances are such that there’s no possibility of moving into a new
place unless they can recoup what they’ve paid out. Vivien soon learns that
selling isn’t going to be easy given the long history of murders which go back
to 1922 when an abortionist and his wife lived there. Ben is having blackouts,
waking up in the backyard and is shocked when his ex0-girlfriend from Boston
shows up. Larry Harvey gives him a hand. Vivien gets an interesting visitor
from the past, though she doesn’t realize who the woman is. 1983 – Our episode
begins with our first history lesson of the house. Young Moira is going about
her duties in the master bedroom. The male owner of the house suggests an
afternoon rendezvous with her. She refuses for several reasons – she really
needs the job, he’s drunk and the last time they had one was a mistake. When
she tries to leave, he tackles her onto the bed and attempts to rape her.
During his attempt, a shadowy female figure approaches the room with a gun. She
fires a warning shot into a vanity mirror, interrupting them. Constance is the
gun-bearer and she has had enough of her lover and the maid’s trysts. After
shooting Moira through her right eye, Constance tells the man she has loved him
since she was 16. With her gun, she then takes her anger out on the man.
Constance cries out her emotional pain of betrayal and what the outcome has
caused her do. Through some nifty camerawork, Vivien enters the exact same
scene and we are thrust into the present. She and Ben are arguing about him
being deceitful with her – not in the way we think. It’s about an investment
deal gone wrong and she cautions Ben to not lie to her again. The next day,
Vivien meets with the realtor about putting the house on the market. The
realtor complains that it would be difficult, given the current financial state
of the country. Vivien remains firm, threatening to sue for not receiving full
disclosure on the house. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Moira tells Ben she made a
fresh pot of coffee and hands him an empty cup. Later, older Moira catches
Constance taking some Harmon silverware to add to her “magpie” collection.
Constance tells her to let things go and “Move on, missy!” When Moira breaks
down and says she can’t, Constance lets her know that she feels no remorse for
Moira whenever she looks at that ghastly eye of hers. Ben has a new patient, Sally
Freeman, who has martial difficulty. She doesn’t know why, because she has
tried her best to like the things her husband does. She begins to list all the
things she has tried and Ben enters a sort of fugue state, from either boredom
or something else. He then finds himself outside, in the backyard, with blood
on his hands. Inside, young Moira cleans up a bloody mess and follows him into
his office, where she began her cleaning. Once again, she tries to coerce him into
a fling, but they are interrupted, this time by Vivien. Vivian doesn’t really
know who to believe. Older Moira claims Ben approached her, which is
understandable from the stress put upon him. Vivian suggests that Moira take
some time off. Moira fires back with threats of pressing charges. Later,
outside, Vivian sees the Eternal Darkness Tour vehicle pulls up. The guide
calls her house, the Murder House. Also outside, Ben finds Violet who hasn’t
hidden her smoking from him vey well. He offers to find her help if she needs
someone, aside from family, to talk to. But the person she seems to confide in
is always near – Tate. Ben approaches young Moira about the whereabouts of his recorder
he uses in his patient sessions. Moira suggests it might be down the front of
her dress. She then tells Ben he has a new patient in waiting. The new patient
is Hayden, the woman with whom Ben had an affair and got pregnant. We last saw
her at the abortion clinic with him. She changed her mind when he bailed on
her. Police Detective Jack Colquitt interrupts them and Ben thinks he’s there
with questions about the previous break-in. But he tells Ben he’s there to ask
about a missing patient of his – the woman with marital trouble. We learn, via
the tour guide, how actor Sal Mineo allegedly died – stabbed in an alley after
making sexual advances on a guy. Vivian has become a ticket holder on the tour,
in order to learn more about her house. In the 1920s, “Doctor To The Stars”
Charles Montgomery moved his wife Nora to the house in L.A, only to fall on
hard times and become addicted to different drugs. He developed a “Frankenstein
Complex”. One night at the dinner table, they squabble over numerous things,
including money. Nora tells him she’s arranged for him to help out women “in
trouble” in order to have additional income. Their first patient Dorothy
Hudson, arrives, and Nora calms her by giving her a sedative for what’s to
come, while politely asking for cash up front. Nora turns her over to Charles,
with tears in her own eyes. Before we can learn how the Montgomery’s lives came
to a “shocking finale,” Vivien notices she’s spotting blood. The OB/GYN, Dr.
Hall, tells the Harmons that spotting blood during pregnancy is normal, but
that there can be no more stress put upon Vivien. Under his own stress and
possibly something else, Ben briefly faints. The doctor suggests blood work to
determine the cause. While taking a few of her canine “clients” for a walk,
Constance notices Tate in the window of the Harmon house. She waves, but he
remains stoic. Accompanying Ben during his outdoor exercise, Larry Harvey attempts
to run lines with Ben, then solicits $1,000 from him for “headshots”. Still panicked
over losing his patient recorder, Ben searches high and low in his office for
it and ends up in the backyard again. This time, he has a shovel nearby and is
joined by Constance. Strangely, Moira looks on while Constance tries to convince
Ben of building a gazebo in the backyard, rather than planting things. Inside,
Vivien gets a visit from someone she believes is a potential buyer of the
house. The woman seems to have an intimate knowledge of the house’s design.
Upon entering the kitchen, she flinches and winces at the modern appliances.
Vivien offers her some tea to calm her. Vivien’s visitor is confirmed (to us)
to be not of this world, as the camera pans behind her to show a gaping head
wound. “Nora” learns Vivien is pregnant and vanishes into thin air. While
landscaping Ben is told by the detective that his missing patient, as well as
his recorder, has turned up. The recording reveals what really happened during
Ben’s “fugue” sate with the patient. She thought he had tuned her out and was
ignoring her, so she slit her wrists and ran, taking the recorder with her.
Violet accompanies Vivien to look at a new place. She tells her mom that they survived
being victims of the intrusion and, if they move again, she will run away and
never be found. Dr. Hall calls Ben about his bloodwork. The narcotic ,
Laudanum, appeared in his system. (Until the early 20th century,
Laudanum was sold without a prescription.) Before answering the door, Ben tells
young Moira he knows she drugged him. She tells him to prove it. At the door is
an angry Hayden intent on telling Vivien their secret. Ben decides to take her
somewhere to talk about future plans, but Larry has plans of his own for her.
Outside, he landscapes her face with a shovel – twice. Ben freaks out. At
first, he’s sorry for Hayden, then worried he’ll be implicated for her death.
Larry tells him to leave things to him, while again asking for the $1000. Larry
prepares to bury Hayden in the backyard and thanks Ben for starting the hole.
He finds the hole has been previously occupied. Among the remains, he finds a
doily-type material similar to a collar of a certain maid’s uniform. She
oversees her “excavation” from the window. Will she finally be free? Not today,
as Larry drops Hayden’s body on top of Moira’s remains and begins to bury the
two. Later, Ben covers the gravesite with a concrete foundation. Constance
needles Moira that now she’s “stuck here forever”. The Harmons delight in the
new gazebo – Vivien because it adds to the value of the house; Ben, because it
covers up two mistakes regarding Hayden. That night, while Vivien sleeps, the
ghostly Nora watches over the new mother.
