 The penultimate episode of American Horror Story 1984 brings even more killers to the blood-soaked grounds of Camp Redwood, and today I'll begin with a recap of all the major plot points that occurred in the episode, then go into my opinion and review the episode, and lastly I will discuss some theories regarding next week's season finale. So let's begin with the recap. On October 30th, 1989, Donna and Brooke discussed final girls at a diner until Stacey Phillips, a writer for the National Enquirer, approaches them to tell Brooke that she looks just like the convicted and dead serial killer Brooke Thompson. Brooke and Donna head back to their motel, but Brooke is concerned that Stacey really recognized her. Meanwhile, Jonas wanders around the outskirts of Camp Redwood when he is picked up by Bruce, who is driving a hot pink car. Jonas hears screaming from the trunk, and it is revealed that a Mary Kay saleswoman tried to help Bruce after Donna and Brooke severed his thumbs and tied him up, but Bruce instead attacked her, locked her in the trunk, and stole her car. After she pleads with Bruce once more, Bruce stabs and kills the women, and Jonas disappears. Margaret discovers the death of Kaja Gugu and instructs Courtney to cut the bodies into small pieces and dispose of the band, which he reluctantly does. Benjamin confronts Richard Ramirez and the two brawl until Bruce hits Benjamin with the car. Benji gets away, and Bruce recognizes Ramirez and the two team up. Back at the motel, Stacey comes to Brooke and Donna's room and tells them that she knows who they both are, and she knows that Donna was Brooke's executioner. Brooke tells Stacey everything, including the fact that Margaret committed both the 1970 and the 1984 massacres, in hopes that Stacey will keep quiet until Brooke can get revenge on Margaret. Trevor and Montana lie in a bed, and Trevor says that he can stay with her at Camp Redwood to keep her company. Xavier takes Bruce and Ramirez to Benjamin's corpse, revealing his death to Ramirez. Benjamin's ghost stabs Xavier's ghost for some reason, and Ramirez says he's going to go to Alaska to kill Bobby, and since Benji is bound to the camp, he can't do anything about it. Benjamin tries to kill Richard, but Margaret shoots Benji in the head, and she recruits Bruce and Ramirez to kill every headliner at the festival. Ramirez agrees, as long as they don't kill Billy Idol. Brooke and Donna give Stacey a tour of the camp, and they tell her where everything happened, but Stacey is skeptical of their stories. Margaret sees Brooke and Donna from a distance, keying her in on their revenge plot. Montana, Xavier, Chet, Ray, and the three jingles tie Benjamin from a tree, and tell him that he can't kill Richard Ramirez because they don't want to deal with his ghost being trapped at Redwood with them. Benjamin pleads to them that Ramirez will kill his son, but Montana says Ramirez doesn't kill kids, but Benji tells her that after Ramirez left Redwood in 84, he killed men, women, and children. He also says that Montana ignited his fire for brutality. Brooke tries to kill Stacey, but Donna stops her, and Stacey runs off. Donna says she won't let Brooke kill an innocent person, and that they're here to kill Margaret and Margaret only. Stacey stumbles upon Richard Ramirez, Bruce, and Margaret, and the boys kill Stacey. Trevor finds Montana and tells her that he'll kill himself so that he can stay with Montana without growing old. Montana says he's too good for her, and she won't let him do that. She tells him that she never wants to see him again. Xavier and the jingles impersonators stab and torture Benjamin on the dock, and leave him to bleed out on a boat in the middle of the lake. Benjamin apologizes to Bobby once more, and is dragged into the lake by a deformed swamp creature a la Friday the 13th. Benjamin wakes up to find Levinia, and his brother Bobby having a picnic. Levinia comforts Benji for not being able to save his son, saying that nothing can rise above the darkness of Camp Redwood. Levinia says that she's eternally grateful that Benji brought Bobby back to her, and she tells him that they can be a family at peace again if he stays with them, and Benji goes off to play with Bobby. This episode makes me extremely nervous because they still haven't dropped the ball in my eyes, which either means they're going to hit a home run next week with the finale, or it's all going to fall apart. The fact that this season will be the shortest in American Horror Story history can either mean that the finale will seem more rushed than usual, or it could mean that it will be tighter and stronger, with the lack of any filler episodes. Of course, I'm hoping for the last one. I did expect for the festival to at least begin to take place in this episode, as it has been teased for three episodes now, and based on the preview for next week, they're going to have to fit in the festival, a flash forward to present day, and of course, closure on Brooke, Donna, Benjamin, Ramirez, and all of our Redwood ghosts. This season surely packs in a lot of plot in their episodes, so I think they can pull it off. And if they do, 1984 could easily rank among the best seasons of the show. In terms of this episode, I enjoyed it, although not as much as last week, but that was a tough act to follow. I'm glad that neither Lily nor Dylan's returns were solely for an episode, as both of their characters are already standouts for the season as a whole. I like the character of Stacey, the National Enquirer Reporter, and I like that even after being convicted of murder, sentence to death, and her execution being faked, people still have trouble believing Brooke. Little things like that really make the season cohesive, and each character is still being developed. Montana was great in this episode, along with Donna and Xavier. I loved Montana's breakup scene with Trevor, and it was interesting to see how she dealt with being cited as the inciting incident for Richard Ramirez's rampage. Her darkness and hopelessness was really well illustrated by the writing and by Billy's performance. But the real standout this episode for me was John Carroll Lynch as Benjamin Richter. As the season progresses, this character becomes more and more interesting. His pleading with the ghosts to let him kill Ramirez to save his son was actually heartbreaking, and I nearly teared up at his reunion with his mother and brother at the end of the episode. The one thing that the season lacks is tear-jerking moments, but those moments are present thanks to this character alone in the last two episodes. Of course, our prediction about the swamp creature was correct, and they went for a near-shot-for-shot recreation of the ending scene of Friday the 13th, and I'm not mad about it. I doubt they'll explain whether Bobby was an actual swamp monster all those years, or if this is just a hallucination, as it was a hallucination in the film. But nonetheless, I can overlook it for the sake of the homage. Overall, this episode effectively leads up to a potentially excellent finale to an excellent season, and I give episode 8 entitled Rest in Pieces, 9 Montana Dukes out of 10. Be sure to let me know your opinion and rating of the episode in the comments below, and now let's get into some finale theories. Theory number one, Bobby becomes like Donna. This theory is based off of the promo for the finale, which reveals Fin Wittrock's return to the series, and many people are assuming that he is playing the role of Bobby, Benjamin's son. So if we assume this is correct, I think we can gather some substantial information about adult Bobby and what he's doing in this finale. For the theory's sake, let's say Benjamin succeeds in defeating Richard Ramirez, or at least someone defeats him before he can get to Alaska to kill Bobby. And with Benjamin still being bound to Camp Redwood, Bobby never knows his father. Maybe his aunt, who is presumably raising him, never told him the truth about his father, or maybe she never even knew. This leads to Bobby developing a bit of some daddy issues, as well as an identity crisis when he inevitably finds out about his father's past involvements with the massacres at Redwood. At this point, maybe the truth has yet to be uncovered about Benjamin's relative innocence, so Bobby traces his father's footsteps in order to figure out if he is guilty or not. Similar to Donna's quest to find out if her father was always a cold-blooded killer, or if something sparked it in him. We see shots of the exterior of the Red Meadows Asylum, the facility in which Benjamin was imprisoned after being framed for the 1970s murders. We also see Finn's character, Pui, are assuming as Bobby, throwing a tantrum in a waiting room. Maybe he goes there to search for answers about his father and gets thrown out after not being able to get what he wants. This leads him to the grounds of Camp Redwood, where he gets taunted by Trevor and Montana. And maybe after their fun is done, they tell him about his father and his relative innocence. Taking this a little further, maybe Bobby is the key to clearing his father's name. This could potentially be a way to show some duality between Donna and Bobby, as well as Donna's father and Benjamin, but maybe with a happier ending. Theory number two, Brooke survives. This theory is also based off of the promo, which has a very weird-looking shot of Brooke. She seems to be sitting down for a television interview like Lee Harris and Lana Winters in Roanoke, but her face and neck seems weirdly airbrushed to potentially hide some prosthetic-aging makeup. They could have edited the shot for the promo to look like it's young Brooke, but the actual footage is Brooke 20 years later discussing her experience with being framed and faking her death and all that. I mean, look at the shot. There's some weird distortion under her eyes, and the more you look at it, the more it looks like they've tried to buff out some prosthetics to avoid spoiling the time jump and Brooke's survival. All right, so be sure to let me know all of your finale theories and your thoughts on the episode in the whole season in the comments below. Give this video a like and be sure to subscribe. I would appreciate that greatly, and I'll see you next week with the finale.