REVIEW: American Horror Story Season 12, Episode 3, “When The Bough Breaks”

Television Reviews

***SPOILERS***

In “When The Bough Breaks,” Anna realizes she and Dex are handling their miscarriage in very different ways. Dex calls Siobhan to comfort Anna. Anna is experiencing time lapses and begins bleeding from her mouth. Despite miscarrying, Anna feels the baby kicking and believes he’s still alive.

This is a nitpick and probably a weird one, but I wish they would use some other motif besides “Rockabye Baby” sometimes. I’m tired of this song being played, sung, and alluded to in the episode titles. I don’t know anything about the book this season is based on, so maybe this was built into the source material. It’s just very annoying and repetitive. There are other ideas, songs, images, etc., associated with motherhood and babies.

One aspect I actually like about “When The Bough Breaks” is the spooky visions Anna has. This is the most Halloween-feeling episode of the season so far. Some of this actually may be real, like finding Ms. Preecher in the woods and being operated on by the shrouded women. I imagine the latter is actually happening; the spider references and imagery in the trailers have to mean something. I believe Anna is still pregnant, and these cult-like figures have done something to the baby. However, I really doubt Dexter is involved at this point. He clearly grieves for the baby, as you would expect, and he’s concerned about Anna’s mental and physical health. The only thing he does wrong in “When The Bough Breaks” is going to dinner with Sonia, the woman who looks like Adaline. And I can’t tell if that’s even really happening or if that’s Anna’s confusion kicking in.

Siobhan seems certain Dex isn’t cheating, essentially telling Anna to get off the soapbox and get back to her life. It’s possible Siobhan is scheming anyway; I imagine she and “Nurse Ivy” might be the hooded women looming in the shadows. Siobhan has been the nicest to Anna, comforting her and calling her out in equal parts when needed. She’s almost too good of a friend, which makes me suspect her. Everyone else has something suspicious going on except for the house manager (Michaela Jae Rodriguez), with whom I think Anna is just being snippy out of exhaustion. I wish Anna wouldn’t take her problems out on this woman who is just doing her job. Anna is very much giving off the sense that, as an actress and model, she’s above these people. I don’t think that’s her intention but even as a viewer, it bugs me. I actually hope I’m wrong about Siobhan, although I’m pretty sure about Ivy if she is even real.

This leads me to a bit of a theory. I think Anna actually may have multiple personalities, which would account for the time loss and explain characters like Preecher and Ivy. If Anna ends up being correct about Ivy not showing up on the hospital’s cameras, that will all but confirm she hallucinated her… or she is her. Ivy also has a pimple on her chin, exactly like Anna’s. It’s even on the same side and spot. The pimple definitely has something to do with the spider baby, and it can’t be a coincidence that Ivy has one. As for Ms. Preecher, nobody except Anna ever seems to see her. The only exception is in the OBGYN’s office, where the staff informed Anna that Preecher wasn’t a threat. But ever since then, evidence of Preecher, such as her Instagram and the fire she supposedly started, is always gone. Anna can never corroborate what she saw. So again, she’s either imagining her or taking on this personality herself. Furthermore, this would explain the vandalization of Anna’s New York apartment. The shattered mirror still can’t be explained, but the theory covers a lot of bases. It’s an objective fact that Anna met Sonia at Dexter’s art show. Still, other instances of her presence could be Anna’s fragile mind toying with her.

I really hate to beat a dead horse, but for the life of me, I can’t fathom why Anna and Dex don’t just adopt a baby. For reference, I take notes while watching these episodes. In my notes for “When The Bough Breaks,” I had three separate points about this. When Dexter asks Anna what she wants to do, he means immediately, i.e., getting food. But she replies about trying to get pregnant again. This is before it starts looking like she still has the baby, so I’m not factoring in the spider baby. We see how traumatic and soul-crushing this experience was for Anna, and we know she’s done this three times now. I admit it’s hard to put myself in her shoes, as I don’t want children. I don’t even like kids. I have a 19-year-old stepdaughter I don’t even live with full-time, and that’s already a handful for me. But even with this intense desire to be a mother, why does she insist on bearing the child herself? Is this about her own self-esteem and not feeling like a real woman or something? Adopted kids are 100% valid, and foster/adoptive parents are real parents. This seems less harmful, easier, and, at this point, for Anna and Dex, probably cheaper. Going through fertility treatments this many times has to hurt financially.

Dexter’s line about girls wanting to be movie stars intrigues me. He says every little girl grows up wanting to be famous, but they don’t know about the bad things that come with the territory. Nobody wants to be stalked or harassed by strangers, but they want wealth and fame that will all but guarantee those issues. In addition to believing she is being stalked, Anna finds a vandalized doll of her former TV character on the beach. It was obviously put here for her to find, with needles pushed into its stomach; the message is clear. This leads Dex to question whether Anna is really being stalked, as things seem too unlikely. Delicate poses a lot of questions about fame, the problems women face in particular, and the expectations that weigh on someone like Anna.

Overall, I enjoyed “When The Bough Breaks.” It has intense moments and scary visions and gives the characters room to breathe. So far, I am digging Delicate; I hope they can keep this energy up.