Home Invasion

"Home Invasion" is the second episode of the first season of the television series American Horror Story, which premiered on the network FX on October 12, 2011. The episode was co-written by series co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk and directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. In the episode, Ben Harmon (Dylan McDermott) goes to Boston to talk with the student he had an affair with in the first episode (Kate Mara). While he is away, his wife, Vivien (Connie Britton), and daughter, Violet (Taissa Farmiga) deal with three home invaders intent on reenacting a murder that happened in the house in 1968. Kate Mara guest stars as Hayden McClaine, the student Ben was having an affair with. The episode makes use of the musical score to Psycho composed by Bernard Herrmann. This episode is rated TV-MA (LV). Plot A flashback to 1968 shows the house being used as a dormitory for nursing students. While alone in the house late at night, nursing students Maria and Gladys are studying when a man rings the doorbell and asks for help. Noticing the man is bleeding from the head, Maria lets him in and begins to heal his wounds. When she realizes there is no actual cut on his head and that the man is faking his injury, the man attacks them both. First, knocking Maria unconscious with an ashtray before pushing a fleeing Gladys to the floor, taunting her with an insult about her weight then drowning her in an upstairs bathtub. Maria wakes up and sees the man who forces her to strip off her clothes and wear a nurse's uniform. She is then hog-tied and stabbed repeatedly in the back. Back in the present, Ben meets with Tate, who reveals his sexual fantasies about Violet. Ben sees a new patient, named Bianca, who is fascinated by the history of the murders in the house. He receives a call from his ex-mistress and former student of his, Hayden, who tells him that she's pregnant and she needs his support while having an abortion.