"American Horror Story" 1.01 Recap: "Don't Make Me Kill You Again"

Good eeeeeeeeevening, boys and ghouls. Last night FX premiered Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's new thriller American Horror Story, and I think I speak for everyone who watched when I ask, "What the faaaaaaaaalchuk was that?!"

Each week I will be recapping the madness that goes on inside and near the Harmon house, partly in an attempt to make some sense of it myself. But rest assured, dear readers - I am a lifelong horror nut with an advanced degree in Batsh*tology, so if anyone is qualified to give you a tour of this cursed piece of real estate, I'd like to think it's me.

Shall we get this party started?

Just a minute in, and it's already batty as hell...

We kick things off in 1978 with a few sweeping shots of the front of a gorgeous but disused Victorian mansion accompanied by some ominous and familiar strings (if I'm not mistaken, the music is from Psycho?). Outside, a small girl with Down syndrome stares up at the windows, and when two gawkish redhead boys move to enter the house with baseball bats, she tells them, "You're going to die in there." Needless to say, she's got a bright career ahead of her at Century 21.

The boys brush her off (one snarls, "I hate trees!" to no one in particular) and after they pass she sighs, "You're gonna regret it."

The boys trash the already trashed house (kids those days!), poke at a freshly-wounded animal of some sort, and eventually head to the basement. There they find bloody medical instruments, baby parts in jars, and what might be a thing or two from the Spring 1972 Fingerhut catalog. Before the opening titles roll, both are killed by what appears to be a mutant in a baby doll dress.

Even in 1978, gingers just couldn't catch a break.

Soon enough we are in modern times, and Tami Taylor from Friday Night Lights is in stirrups at the gyno. "Clear fluids. Full ovaries. Can't Lose?" Unfortunately, no - we learn that Viv (Connie Britton) had a miscarriage not too long ago and isn't keen on taking hormone therapies to recover. Her doctor makes a hackneyed This Old House metaphor to try to talk her into some gene-therapy ladyparts renovation, but she apparently ain't a Bob Vila fan. And I'm sure the house comparison isn't going to amount to anything, right?

When Viv gets home, she hears something upstairs and goes to investigate with a knife, and winds up finding the hot guy from The Practice in the upstairs bedroom. Like any sane person, she cuts him. (Okay, it's Dylan McDermott and he's apparently her husband and she's just caught him cheating on her, but already this thing's moving so fast that my head is spinning...) Like Carrie White hearing her mother's warning at the prom, "You're gonna regret it" echoes over the shot of his anguished post-coital face...

Opening Credits. They are bizarre, jumpy, and underscored by an Angelo Badalamentian smooth jazz riff that seems straight out of Twin Peaks. The images of baby coffins, burning wedding photos and organs in jars? Not so much. Murphy has said that by the end of the season, every image in the credits will be explained. Right now, they just make my brain want its wubbie.

Next thing you know, Ben (McDermott), Viv (Britton) and daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) are on their way to California, because in Cali people don't have affairs or lose children. Sounds just about right to me! Already I'm noticing that the show features a lot of jumpcuts, dropped frames, and combined multiple takes of the same action - it's disconcerting and a little annoying, but I might get used to it.

Dylan McDermott, Taissa Farmiga, and Connie Britton

In a scene straight out of The Sentinel, the realtor tries to simultaneously charm and insult the Harmons into taking the house, but the deal is sealed when she mentions (under legal obligation) that the last owners - a gay couple! - murdered one another in the basement. Violet takes a page right out of the Beetlejuice playbook and monotones: "We'll take it." We get clues to the house's origins (it was built by a "doctor to the stars") and to the Harmons' lives (he's a shrink, she used to be a cellist), and when the realtor places the SOLD sign outside, she gives the house a "BTCHPLZ" look to end all "BTCHPLZ" looks.

From this point forward, the show moves from merely "agressively quirky" to "utterly insane". There's so much going on and the pace of the cutting from storyline to storyline is so fast that I'm going to try tackling one major thread at a time. Please grab your motion-sickness bag and follow me...