(Warning: This post contains spoilers for Wednesday’s episode of “American Horror Story: Apocalypse,” “Return to Murder House.”)
The “Return to Murder House” episode of “American Horror Story: Apocalypse” had enough callback moments and references to the franchise’s first season to leave longtime Ryan Murphy fans with years worth of material to obsess over. But one moment in particular had Violet (Taissa Farmiga) and Tate (Evan Peters) shippers screaming at their screens: that ending where the two ghostly lovers finally reconcile.
Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts) came around in the final moments of the eagerly-anticipated crossover episode to blow some magical dust in Ben (Dylan McDermott) and Vivien Harmon’s (Connie Britton) daughter’s eyes, which seemed to help her allow Tate back in to her life after all the violent acts he committed in Season 1 aka “Murder House” — including a school shooting and raping her mother.
Of course, just because the dead teens rekindled their romance, doesn’t mean their real-life counterparts were totally onboard with what appeared to be a forgive and forget solution. At least Farmiga wasn’t.
“Part of me was, I guess the part that was Violet was happy that she didn’t have to cry anymore and the part that’s Taissa was sort of — you know, I like things that aren’t tied up in a neat little bow,” Farmiga told TV Guide in an interview published Thursday. “I like when things are ambiguous. So you know, I think I was more happy with the Season 1 ending but I think the Violet inside me is more happy with this ending.”
As for what Farmiga thinks about the episode seeming to have explained away the evil in Tate, the actress says that’s a hard topic to unpack.
“That’s such a complicated question,” Farmiga said. “Just because someone is in a circumstance that is influenced by outside evil or outside darkness and they’re led to do these actions, I don’t think you can completely wipe the slate clean and fully take away the responsibility from that person. So it’s hard because Tate has been ruined by the house.”
“He’s been overcome by the darkness that’s there and yet it was still his actions that went and hurt those people and murdered those people and hurt my mom at times — or Violet’s mom,” she added. “See, I told you it’s hard to differentiate sometimes. I don’t know. I feel that because these two people are stuck in a house together for the rest of eternity and they can’t go anywhere, I think at that point you sort of only have forgiveness to fall back on.”
Farmiga also seems to think it’s for the best if we don’t go back to “Murder House” again, saying: “Um, you know I think Violet’s happy. I don’t think you need to change that. I don’t think you need to go and meddle now, in my opinion. I think you need to let sleeping ghosts be.”
You can read TheWrap‘s “Return to Murder House” interviews with McDermott and first-time director Sarah Paulson here and here.
“American Horror Story: Apocalypse” airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on FX.