Season 1 Episode 2

Season 1, Murder House

Episode 2,  Home Invasion:  Begins in 1968 at the house as a group of young women are leaving for a Doors concert. A few girls, nursing students, stay behind to study.  A suspicious man who appears to be bleeding comes to the front door for assistance.  He is later determine to be named R. Franklin.  He is brought inside and one of the girls cleans him up, noting that the blood did not come from a wound.  He notices the girl is wearing a cross necklace and asks, "You think that Jesus is going to save you?"  She mentions they are all saved.  He grabs an ashtray and hits one of the girls over the head, knocking her out, and throws the other to the ground after she screams and attempts to flee.  The girl he hit regains consciousness and is forced to disrobe and don her nurse's uniform.  He ties her up and sits, watching, while twirling a knife in his hands.  She begins to pray out loud and is then repeatedly stabbed in the back, killing her.  Switch to present day, during one of Tate's sessions with Ben.  Tate tells him of his sexual thoughts about Violet, seemingly to provoke him.   Ben asks if thinking about sex is a coping mechanism.  He says Ben isn't helping his dark,  bloody thoughts go away and tells him Violet told him about his affair with one of his students.  Ben cuts him off and Tate leaves.  Hayden, the student he cheated with, calls and tells him she's pregnant.  Violet and her bully bond over their shared experience.  The bully tells her she thinks she saw the devil, in whom Violet does not believe, in the basement.  Tate watches Violet as she sleeps.  The house's alarm goes off.  Ben investigates, finding the door open and Adelaide in the basement, talking to someone who can't be seen.  Ben sends her home.  Vivian calls the police and Ben tells her it was only Addy.  Vivian is worried about her baby, owing to lack of morning sickness, which she suffered from with Violet.  Ben thinks the baby is their salvation.  Ben's patient Bianca is telling him of her nightmares about being cut in half by an elevator.  She's more interested in talking about the history of the murder house, seemingly obsessed with it.  It turns out to be the sole purpose for her visit.  Ben calls Tate's mother and tells her he has to stop seeing him.  Bianca enters the kitchen, snooping, unbeknownst to Ben.  He directs her to the door.  She continues peppering him with questions.  Constance is baking cupcakes as Addy reads magazines and asks why she looks different,  wanting to look pretty like the girls in the magazine.  She puts syrup of ipecac in them and asks Addy to spit in the batter.   While jogging Ben breaks down sobbing over the affair and is approached by Larry Harvey, who tells him basically the house is out to get him.  Ben tells him it's not the house but his affair he's upset over and that Hayden wants him to come to Boston. Ben lies to Vivian, telling heraa he's going to see Ginny Blevins, a former patient who attempted suicide.  Vivian believes him, thinking he's a good man.  Constance delivers the cupcakes to Vivian for Violet, making sure she knows they are for Violet only.  She senses Vivian's pregnancy and is asked if she senses anything else.  They sit down to coffee.  Constance discusses her difficulty in accepting Addy's Down Syndrome and reveals she has 4 kids, all affected somehow by an affliction, except one, whom she lost. Moira comes in and is abused by Constance, who reveals she used to work for her.  Moira never takes the bait.  Ben leaves for Boston.  Vivian brings the cupcakes to Violet, who doesn't eat them, setting them outside her door.  Violet is upset over the pregnancy, which she guessed, and her mother's acceptance of her dad's affair.  Vivian calls Ben, who is with Hayden, and he doesn't answer. The night before her planned abortion, Hayden is apologetic to Ben but is furious when he checks his phone for messages.  She pressures Ben to sleep in her bed.  A young, strange, bleeding woman knocks on the door and Vivian, looking through the eyehole, is suspicious.  She wants to come in, but Vivian instead offers to call for help while she waits outside.  The woman bangs on the door.  Somehow she and 2 others gain entrance.  They tie up Vivian and Violet.  From their discussion, it is gleened that their intention is to recreate perfectly the 1968 murders of the nurses in the home by R. Franklin, a Manson-esque cult leader who hated nurses because he had a bad experience with the mercury in a broken thermometer.   Tate is hiding upstairs and whispers to Violet to get them to the basement. Addy is also there and sees Vivian tied up, talking to the male intruder, and runs for help.  It is revealed that Bianca is one of the three. The other two are a woman named Fiona and an unnamed man.  Violet is brought upstairs and forced to dress as a nurse.  We learn they intend to drown her in the bathtub and that this is how one of the nurses in 1968 was murdered.   She manages to stall them by telling them the original bathtub is now in the basement. Bianca eats the cupcakes left for Violet and becomes violently ill.   Meanwhile, Constance is entertaining a hot young guy named Travis Wanderly as Addy interrupts and tells them what's going on next door.  Constance doesn't believe her and puts her in a mirrored room so she has to look at herself, shutting the door on her screaming.   Tate tries to kill Bianca with an ax. We later learn she was found 6 blocks away nearly cut in half.  Downstairs the man puts a cross necklace on Vivian.  He cuts her free so she can put on the nurse's uniform.  As she is undressing she grabs an item from the fireplace and hits him over the head.  They struggle and she manages to knock him out with the ashtray they brought into the house.  Fiona brings Violet downstairs where Tate is waiting.  Violet escapes.  Fiona screams when she sees the ghost of the drowned nurse. Violet's mother grabs her and they run out of the house, being seen running and screaming by Constance as they run past her house. The man recovers consciousness and sees one of the nurse's ghost heading downstairs.  He follows her, calling out to Fiona to come.  He sees both nurse's ghosts standing by the tub.  Fiona is dead, her throat slashed.  Ben takes Hayden to the abortion clinic and waits for her in the waiting room.  He sees 13 missed calls from Vivian and runs out in a panic.  Constance, Moira and Tate are in the basement.  They see the male intruder next to Fiona, his throat having been cut also.  Constance asks if Tate is responsible. He answers "it was them.".  The three agree to help each other get rid of the bodies so that Ben will continue to treat Tate.  Ben and Vivian go together to the police, where Ben continues to lie about the reason for his Boston visit.  Violet comes to the police station, still upset with her dad.  He wonders how Tate got in.  Vivian wants to sell the house.

Syrup of ipecac is featured on 3 of the first 4 seasons.  There is copious  vomitting in all 4 seasons.

The first 2 seasons feature bathtub  drownings. The other 2 seasons also have someone being drowned.

Two of the characters are named Tate and Bianca.  The Manson murders, committed in January of 1968, are known as the the Tate-LaBianca murders.  R.Franklin is mentioned as a predecessor to Manson.

The obvious inspiration for R. Franklin is Richard Franklin Lindbergh,  also known as Richard  Benjamin Speck, who murdered 8 students nurses in one day in 1966.

The body count for this episode is 5.