I have renewed faith in the future of American Horror Story. The Halloween two-parter reeled me back in from the brink of just saying fuck it and now I’m slowly being sucked in again. That’s not to say there weren’t some problems with “Piggy, Piggy” but they were far outweighed by the good.

I’m not going to lie. The opening minutes of “Piggy Piggy” were hard to watch. Even though it happened 12 years ago Columbine is still difficult for me to get my head around. Plus, part of me really wanted to believe that Tate (Evan Peters) didn’t kill fifteen of his classmates at Westfield High in 1994. The real mystery now is why. They certainly held nothing back here and the scene was probably the most tense and frightening thing I’ve seen on television in a while. It also showed us that Tate was gunned down in the house by the police shortly after the massacre and doesn’t seem to be at all aware he is dead.

This new information doesn’t sit well with poor misunderstood Violet (Taissa Farmiga) who is dangerously close to a psychotic meltdown of her own. One on hand she has a new BFF who has a drug problem and a fetish for Biblical horrors. On the other she has fallen for a guy who is not only dead but gunned down fifteen people for no good reason and now he’s in love with her. No wonder she fantasizes about cutting herself and winds up with a gut full of prescription sleeping pills. Thankfully her tortured boyfriend is always lurking and manages to save her from herself. She doesn’t seem too keen on the idea but can’t resist a good snuggle.

Meanwhile Vivien (Connie Britton) is too focused on her Devil baby to notice the angst party going on upstairs. Heck everyone is focused on the Devil baby lately. Moira (Frances Conroy) refuses to be fired so she can hang around to help and Constance has taken to dropping by with some nastiness called “sweetbreads” which are neither sweet nor bread like. Paula Deen would not approve. These culinary experiments in terror are “for the good of the baby” Constance tells her and Moira immediately serves them up. Vivien chows down on some fried pancreas and then gobbles up some cow brain like its pumpkin pie. Moira also offers her opinion about Ben and his cheating, something she seems to have some experience with.

Constance (Jessica Lange), while fabulous in a scary Tallulah Bankhead sort of way is the kind of neighbor that most people would file restraining orders against. She lets herself in all the time and this week goes so far as to invite her friend Billie (Sarah Paulson) over to help Violet realize her potential as a medium. Granted, she used to live in the house back when Tate was first getting trigger happy but I have to wonder why she ever sold the place if she couldn’t bear to move any further away than next door and spends more time in her old house than her new one. At any rate, Billie with the vulgar nail polish gives Violet some advice about dealing with the dead and even lets Constance chat with the poor departed Adelaide who doesn’t seem at all upset she has passed on. I guess the afterlife is more appealing than more time in her special mirrored closet.

Ben (Dylan McDermott) is back in the house treating patients because somebody has to make some money around here right? His patient this week is Derek (Eric Stonestreet from Modern Family), a man afraid of everything but especially afraid that urban legends are true and he will die because of one. The focus of his paranoia lately involves the Piggy Man who is essentially Bloody Mary in the form of an angry pig farmer from 19th century Chicago. While this new addition to the urban legend catalog was creepy in its own right it really served no purpose in the context of the episode or the copious amounts of mythology being vomited at us every week. Piggy Man would have made a very good episode of Supernatural but didn’t work at all for this. Derek’s story doesn’t end well at all but since it didn’t end in the house (and Eric Stonestreet is a busy guy) I doubt we’ll see him again. It did establish that Ben will be around the house still despite having been thrown out by Viv after his diddling with Hayden was revealed.

American Horror Story still has some kinks to work out but I think I’m sold on it finally. I still think the narrative is too disjointed and I think they need to reel it in a bit and focus, but each week the show seems a little closer to finding their groove. As for the characters, I don’t know how I feel about Tate now. His sexy angst thing is appealing but now I wonder what will happen if Violet ever does reject him. And why did he do what he did? Was it the house?

Check back in with the Harmons next Wednesday with “Open House”.

American Horror Story got about the business of answering some questions this week in Halloween Part 2 but I still think this show has way too many irons in the fire. Keeping up with it all is more exhausting than deciphering Lost. It is Halloween still and according to the rules the ghosts that haunt this house can all walk free for one night only.

As last week’s episode came to a close it looked as if Violet was spirited away to an unknown fate by the Rubber Man as Larry the Burn Guy squawked and stomped around on the front porch. This week we find out that no such thing happened. Rubber Man vanished, Larry (Denis O’Hare) left after scaring some trick-or-treaters and Tate showed up to whisk Violet away for their date. Once this fact has been established by a quick cell phone call Ben (Dylan McDermott) grabs the nearest shovel and sets out to dispose of Hayden again. Instead he finds Larry and assumes that he and Hayden are plotting to extort money from him. Ben doesn’t catch on very fast does he?

Hayden (Kate Mara) is a persistent little thing and torments poor Viv about Ben’s trip to Boston. Her trick of writing ASK HIM in the steam on the bathroom mirror was especially effective considering she wasn’t in the room at the time. But making Viv (Connie Britton) think she had cooked the dog was just cruel and made me dread the inevitable reboot of Fatal Attraction. When the two finally do come face to face it isn’t pretty as each finds out the other is pregnant with Ben caught in the middle and he’s forced to come clean. I know someone who’ll be sleeping on the couch forever.

Down at the beach Violet’s date with Tate (Evan Peters) is going well and he continues to be adorably tortured until a group of high school kids show up who are either wearing the best Halloween makeup ever or are dead. I am going with dead, and they have a bone to pick with Tate who quickly gets Violet out of there and back home. It isn’t long before the kids show up again and Tate leads them on a chase around the neighborhood. When they finally corner him they want answers about why he killed them, but he has no idea who they are. This adds more fuel to my suspicion that Tate is dead and doesn’t know it, but it opens up a whole other can of worms such as how did Tate become Ben’s patient, who is paying the bill and who did Ben call to tell them he couldn’t treat him anymore? Plot holes like this are usually reserved for Glee so I hope they tie all this up pretty soon. They also confirmed another suspicion of mine; that Tate is Constance’s perfect son.

Speaking of Constance (Jessica Lange) she seems to have softened up a bit in the wake of Addie’s death. Her conversation with Violet was downright maternal and dare I say the two bonded. She did reveal to Violet the truth about who Tate is but there was no mention made of this notorious Westerfield High massacre. I suspect we’ll learn more about that in the coming weeks. I did think the obvious reference to the Columbine massacre was unnecessary though. No need to beat us over the head with it.

American Horror Story has managed to keep me on board for another week but it is teetering dangerously close to falling apart under all the weight of the plot. I did enjoy seeing Chad (Zachary Quinto) again and thought his comment about feeling forever trapped in a house he’ll never be satisfied with was very telling. Moria (Frances Conroy) confirmed his fears as the ghosts that haunt the Harmon’s house all returned at sunrise.