The third installment of “American Horror Story: Delicate,” titled “When the Bough Breaks” begins in Anna’s cliché dream sequence, where she is in a field with her baby, only for it to disappear right out of her hands. Suddenly engulfed by blood, with flies swarming her, the scene cuts to Anna and Dex on their way home from the hospital, the dream being a trauma-induced product of her horrific miscarriage.
While Dex continues to comfort Anna, it becomes increasingly clear that he is solely placating her so she doesn’t continue to spiral. Anna expresses that she wants to try for a baby again, but Dex is hesitant considering Anna’s mental state and seemingly recurrent psychotic breaks.
Angry with Dex over his hesitation, they pull over and Anna walks the rest of the way home. However, considering Anna’s state, it seems suspicious that Dex would let her wander through the woods alone, especially since it’s clear that everyone in her life thinks she’s crazy.
Anna sees Ms. Preecher in a tree, stalking Anna, with a bonfire creepily lit in an almost cultish fashion. The scene then cuts to nighttime, where Anna frantically arrives back at the house to find a worried Dex. He explains that Anna has been gone for hours, and a search party was out looking for her, yet Anna only recalls being gone for around an hour.
This is the first time Dex seems to actually be worried about Anna. In all other scenes, he is indifferent towards her and ignores her pleas for help. But just when glimpses of hope for Dex’s character begin, he quickly blames Anna’s disappearance on her meds and disregards any other explanation.
They go back out to the woods to investigate Anna’s claims, but everything she had described is gone, with only a barren spot left where the cult-like fire once was. This further descends Anna into madness, while simultaneously giving Dex more reason to believe Anna is just going crazy.
In this particular scene, Emma Roberts' acting has improved dramatically compared to the first two episodes. She convincingly depicts a crazy, hormonal woman, while making the audience root for her as she tries to uncover the truth about her visions.
After this incident, Siobhan visits Anna to comfort her. The two go on a calming walk on the beach, only for the camera to cut to two mysterious winged bunny-like creatures stalking them as Anna returns home.
Anna drinks a bottle of wine by herself, wallowing in her sadness after her miscarriage. She drunkenly visits the basement of the house she’s staying in, and looks at old baby clothes and artifacts from the owner’s kids, reminiscing about the life she could’ve had.
Suddenly, Anna hears a strange growl coming from a strange door in the basement and crawls in to inspect. Finally, this season has some horror. The same winged creatures from the beach abduct, drug and tie her down to a hospital table. The creatures then inject her with some mysterious liquid and seemingly inseminate her as she's lying unconscious on the table.
While this sequence is frightening and reminiscent of vintage “AHS,” it seems all too familiar. This cellar is almost identical to the basement in “Murder House,” from the bookcases full of jars with body parts to the eerie baby motifs and satanism, we have seen this all before. Even these winged creatures seem like a throwback to the rubber man from season one. Though Ryan Murphy often tries to connect seasons with different characters and scenes, in this case, it felt forced and unoriginal.
Anna wakes up in the basement, running upstairs to an alarmed Dex who is shocked when Anna tells him that she feels the baby kicking. Anna calls her doctor, who chalks all of Anna’s symptoms to having PTSD from the miscarriage, and that her body and mind still think she's pregnant, even though it's not possible.
Anna’s mouth suddenly starts bleeding, she Googles it to discover it is a symptom of pregnancy. Anna maniacally smiles and laughs in the mirror, convinced she is pregnant again.
That night, Anna visits a baby store, looking longingly at the products. An employee comes up to Anna, prying into her personal life and pregnancy. The employee touches her stomach and feels the baby moving, much to Anna’s relief. But as she leaves the store, she continues to have the same visions of the winged creatures, her stalker and of Dex cheating on her.
Her driver, Kamal, picks her up and finally sees the stalker Anna has been worried about. This is the first time anyone has truly acknowledged her visions, proving she isn’t crazy after all.
Though this episode finally brings back the terrifying nature that “AHS” is known for, it feels like a variation of the show’s first season, “Murder House,” failing to deliver original plots that keep the audience watching.
It seems like the showrunners are trying to go with this unreliable narrator trope, but instead of being mysterious and fear-inducing, this season would be more accurately described as confusing, and it ultimately loses its audience due to the plot’s murky nature.
Rating: 3/5
