5 Reasons American Horror Story: Roanoke Is the Most Underrated AHS Season

More than any other season, Roanoke pushes forward the idea that all of the show's disparate stories are connected. It's a season that's very much informed by the history of American Horror Story, and the 10-episode season seamlessly drops in Easter eggs that create a larger picture of the show's expanded universe. From the introduction of the original Supreme, Scathach, to delving into Dandy Mott's family tree to introduce Edward Mott (expertly played by Evan Peters in the My Roanoke Nightmare reenactments) and bringing Asylum's Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) back for a dramatic interview with the season's sole survivor, Lee (Adina Porter), season six brilliantly brings all of the franchise's instalments together to create a cohesive universe.

This is no simple feat for a show that spans decades and large swaths of the United States. But Roanoke pulls it off while also telling a complex story through the lens of reality and true-crime television. That alone is reason enough to respect the season's ambition, but the interconnectivity is just the beginning of Roanoke's brilliance.

The true story of what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke, NC, remains one of America's strangest mysteries. The 16th-century colony famously disappeared some time during the three years that John White was away in England stocking up on supplies. The only thing he found upon his return was the word "Croatoan" carved into a post.

Over the years, the lost colony has sparked numerous conspiracy theories, and it's a story that Murphy seemed intent on weaving into American Horror Story as far back as season one when psychic Billie Dean Howard recounts the mystery of Roanoke to Violet. In fact, Bille Dean lays out most of the backstory for season six in that single conversation, proving that Roanoke had been in the making for quite sometime.

While it's not at all likely that the colonists disappeared due to a spirit banishment spell, that tiny nugget of truth adds extra weight to a season that tells a less-heightened story. The true story of Roanoke only adds to the feeling that what we're watching could be real, which is essential when you're dealing with found-footage storytelling. The show expertly uses the mix of fact and fiction to create a grounded horror story (well, as grounded as you can expect from AHS) that rewards the viewer's patience.

Oh yes, Porter gets her very own slide. There are lots of fun performances in Roanoke, including Kathy Bates as The Butcher/Agnes and Sarah Paulson as the TV version of Shelby/Audrey Tindall/Lana. However, the real reason to cherish this season forever is Porter.

Porter is something of an AHS regular now, but her small role in Murder House aside, she was a virtual newcomer to the franchise in season six. And the truly impressive part of her performance is that for the first five episodes, she only appears in the talking head scenes of My Roanoke Nightmare, while Angela Bassett plays the fictionalized version of Lee. Even in those moments when she's simply recounting the trauma of her daughter's disappearance and the ghostly occurrences she faced at her brother's home, Porter's Lee is enigmatic and infinitely watchable.

When Porter is finally released from the safety of a studio in the back half of the season, she brings all of Lee's frustrations, fears, and secrets to life with a ferocity that leaps off the screen. By the time she becomes the season's requisite final girl, it's not at all surprising that she out-survives Shelby or Monet, the actor who played the character of Lee: she's a force of nature. Porter perfectly balances Lee's unwavering will to survive and protect her daughter with the character's dangerous side. The result is a mesmerising performance that made Porter an essential member of Murphy's repertoire of actors.

On occasion, AHS has a tendency to get too lost in the twists and gore to produce a clear mission statement. That's not the case with Roanoke. The season is divided into three distinct chapters: the show within a show, My Roanoke Nightmare, the found footage from the doomed sequel, and Lee's big interview with Lana. Each one of those chapters paints an increasingly disturbing picture of America's obsession with fame and crime, and the way those obsessions converge in the way we eat up the grisly details of true-crime documentaries.

Because of its reality show framing device, Roanoke is just as eerily relevant now as it was when it premiered in 2016. When we look back on the season, it's important to remember that precious few of the characters died of supernatural causes. Instead, they die by each other's hands as truth and fiction twist together to poison their perceptions of one another, particularly in the cases of Shelby and Matt. By commoditizing their horror story and agreeing to return to a house they barely escaped from alive, Shelby, Matt, and even Lee doom themselves.

They're not the only ones that suffer because of My Roanoke Nightmare's popularity. The actors' desire to capitalize on the show's success leads them to ignore the signs that the horrors they reenacted were in fact real. Meanwhile, fans of the show also endanger themselves by seeking their own brush with fame by sneaking onto the property. Ultimately, the reality show spawns an endless cycle of voyeurism, greed, and violence that leads to everyone who comes near it dying in a grisly manner. But even as people's lives and careers are destroyed, America simply can't look away from the horrors unfolding on their screens — and if that realisation doesn't send a chill down your spine, then nothing will.

At the end of the day, we tune in to AHS to be scared and grossed out in equal measure, and while Roanoke doesn't lead with the grotesque twists of previous seasons, it's full of memorably frightening moments. Remember, this is the season where it rains teeth. That's a level of horror that I quite frankly could have lived without.

In addition to the teeth, we also have serial-killer nurses, the gruesome rampage of The Butcher, the haunting origin story of Piggy Man, and those disturbing hill folk cannibals, the Polks, who eat bits of Lee's leg as she's forced to watch. There's enough nightmare fuel in the season's 10 episodes to keep you awake for at least a month, and that's before we add in the meta horror of the social commentary.

Because of the secrecy surrounding the season when it first aired, it's understandable that the formula-breaking Roanoke initially put people off. However, it's past time that this season got its due. Roanoke is a scary, smart, and well-crafted season of television that deserves to be revisited and appreciated as the most daring instalment of AHS made so far — and with season 10 delayed, there's no better time for a marathon than now.