After watching this week's episode of American Horror Story, I think I've decided that warm fuzzy Tate, (the one who cries a lot and shows emotion) really does love Violet. Or if it's not love, it's some sort of infatuation that's fueled by feelings akin to love.
As for cold, sinister Tate...who knows? Maybe my whole two-Tates-theory is for the birds??? His behavioral flip-flops are definitely not my imagination, but it might just be something that goes with the territory of being dead and trapped in Murder House.
In this week's episode, Constance finds out that Tate has fathered one of Vivien's twin babies, and she's not too happy about it (at first). She finds him in the basement, takes his face in her hands in a fairly rough way, and begs him to tell her that he did not do it. When he says nothing, she's loses it, starts hitting him (a lot!), and the scene ends with Tate cowering on the basement floor, clearly terrified of his mother, and crying. And yet, it seems that his main concern (and the only concern that he actually voiced) was that she please not Violet what he'd done. Is he ashamed? Feeling remorse? Or is he just desperate to hold onto her?
From what I can gather, he likely never had a girlfriend in high school. Then he died at 17-ish, and has been lingering around Murder House since. This is the first time (since he died) that a teenage girl has lived in the house. And she's great. She's cool, she's "a pretty girl", and she's wicked smart. That's my kinda girl. What's there for one lonesome ghost boy not to love?
In this episode, we also learn that young Moira is an illusion. Of course, we've always know something like this, but now it's been defined. For the bulk of the episode, she appears to Ben as her pinup girl self, making passes left and right. But by the end, Ben has realized that he made a mistake by locking his wife away in the mental hospital and that maybe she was a indeed a victim of assault. He sees things clearly for the first time, and there's an inkling that some truths are about to be brought to the surface for the house, and for all of its inhabitants, spirit or not.
As Moira leaves the house, she changes (ever so quickly and smoothly) into her older self, and says "congratulations Dr. Harmon, you're finally beginning to see things as they are."
I'm pretty sure that in next week's episode we'll learn something about Tate as a child, and about his relationship with his mother and/or why he hates her so much. I'm so looking forward to it.
