American Horror Stories Finale: Recap, Review & Ending Explained

Game Over

What happens to the first couple at Murder House?

Episode 7 of American Horror Stories Season 1 begins this finale with a couple showing up at one of the most haunted houses in America. This is, of course, the Murder House. There’s a note on the table for them, welcoming the pair into the house, along with a trail of black rose petals leading up to the bedroom.

The pair are massive American Horror Story fans and wander through the house (after a quickie in the bed laid out with candles upstairs) and begin exploring the house. There, they find 3 girls downstairs in the basement who died 10 years prior. Anyway, the pair are eventually killed as a litany of different monsters and characters from American Horror Story show up. How? Well, it turns out all of this was just a videogame. Gotcha!

Who buys Murder House?

We then meet a Mum called Michelle who’s developed a videogame with gameplay and decent graphics all by herself. Anyway, her son Rory isn’t happy that she’s skimped out on the reality of why American Horror Story works (and why American Horror Stories is so horrible) and eventually Michelle settles down to watch the different seasons.

Realizing she’s getting nowhere, Michelle instead decides to buy a brand new house and move in. That house? Yep, it’s Murder House. Anyway, she tells Rory she’s going off to a convention for American Horror Story when in reality she’s going to snoop around the house on Halloween, by herself in the dark. What could possible go wrong, eh?

Upstairs, Scarlett happens to be in the bath with Ruby. She’s not in her rubber suit anymore, at least not outside the early prologue clips anyway. She speaks to Ruby about her life, claiming she lives for Halloween and doesn’t care about anyone but her. And that includes her Dads too. Given it’s Halloween, the pair decide to cause some trouble.

Does Michelle die?

Among those in attendance in the house is therapist Dr Ben who bemoans how he has nothing after having so much in his life – including a wife and mistress. Michelle discusses her compulsive disorder with him, or as Dr Ben puts it – she’s hungry and wants to be fed. This chat with Ben gets her nowhere but Scarlett and Ruby show up and kill again, this time stabbing Michelle in the gut before kissing.

We the cut forward to Halloween one year later. Michelle tries to meet Rory after she was brutally murdered in the house but he’s not happy that she lied. There’s no happy reunions here and he doesn’t seem to care that she’s a ghost. In fact, Michelle is actually okay with it and claims that despite Scarlett killing her, Michelle “did it to herself” so there’s no hard feelings.

What happens to Murder House?

Well, with Halloween finished, Rory shows up with gas cannisters, intent on burning the place to the ground. Despite Scarlett the murderer showing up to try and stop this, Rory manages to light the place up. Ruby pleads with Scarlett through the flames for her to die with her but instead Scarlett turns around and walks away.

We then jump forward three years later. Scarlett shows up to look at apartments. The Murder House has ben renovated from the ground up, turned into a brand new apartment condo. It turns out Scarlett is an assassin and that makes sense given she enjoys killing. Anyway, she buys the place out.

It turns out all the ghosts have moved on now apart from Ruby, who decides to stick around because “true love never dies.” As they lovingly embrace and bloody fireworks fil the screen, we skip out again where it’s revealed that the entire episode has been one big horror game. Well, they need some QA testers pronto.

The Episode Review

Yeesh, American Horror Stories bows out with a finale that tries to be clever but just ends up falling flat on its face. There are a number of fake-out segments here, fourth wall breaks and generally a desire to try and pull everything from American Horror Story and American Horror Stories together but done in such a haphazard way with absolutely no subtlety at all.

The characters have been poorly written, with skewed motivations, while Ruby and Scarlett have been the most unlikable characters across all these seasons. That’s only usurped by the constant “gotcha” moments which negate any enjoyment that could have been garnered from this.

A sour end to a sour series; American Horror Stories has been a real disappointment from start t finish.