"I am not what I am," a frantic, bearded Denis O'Hare said on a videotape that provided Sarah Paulson's Shelby and Cuba Gooding Jr.'s Matt with some insight into their new home on American Horror Story. But who is Dr. Elias Cunningham from American Horror Story: Roanoke ? This professor and author knows a lot about Shelby and Matt's North Carolina house, but there is bound to be more secrets to come.
Whenever O'Hare is onscreen, I am ecstatic, so if you're like me and got lost in your excitement and missed some of what the fast-talking doctor said, I'm here to help. The videotape, from Oct. 11, 1997, was recorded as a last testament from Dr. Elias Cunningham. On it, he explains the story of the nurse sisters Miranda and Bridget, who murdered their elderly patients based on if the letters in their first names would help them spell out the word "Murder." Elias moved to North Carolina to research the sisters for a true crime novel — in the style of Helter Skelter about the Manson Family, he claimed — before he realized there was a power even more evil than Miranda and Bridget in the home and woods where Shelby and Matt now live.
While Bradley University, the school where Dr. Cunningham says to have taught at, is a real school, it doesn't look like Cunningham is inspired by any real person. So O'Hare's character's story line could go anywhere and even though he spit out his story in a rapid pace, it was the most fascinating thing to have happened on American Horror Story: Roanoke yet, so I can't wait to see what else Dr. Cunningham has in store for viewers.
Image: FX
