'American Horror Story: 1984' Episode 5 reveals the origins of Rita aka Dede's inherent evil and her obsession with serial killers
This article contains spoilers for season 9, episode 5.
This week on 'American Horror Story: 1984' episode 5 we find out further about Dede (Angelica Ross) aka the nurse pretending to be Dr. Rita all this while, and the reason behind her insane mission to unleash Mr. Jingles' horrors for a second time on Camp Redwood.
Titled 'Red Dawn', the episode opens with a flashback of Dede following her father in a car. The older man seems to be out with another woman, a much younger one, as Dede tracks her down to his house. She walks inside to loud music playing, and hears a woman's scream. Expecting it to be screams of pleasure, Dede knocks on the door, with loud bangs. When there's no repone, she barges into a woman lying on the bed, her hands handcuffed to the wall, and her stomach lit wide open - intestines sprawling out all over.
The woman is still alive, barely breathing, as Dede comes across the shrine of polaroids on her dad's bedroom wall - all of those pictures being those of women he prospectively brought home and has murdered in the past. Suddenly, the victim on the bed begins spasming like a seizure and as Dede tries her best to stop the bleeding from her guts, her dad arrives.
Knowing there is no way out, Dede's dad tells her she wasn't supposed to know this part of him which he claims has been active for years now. He talks about his urges and the intense hunger to kill and absolutely brutally attack them human bodies - all this while, holding a giant sharp knife in his hand. Dede, trying her best to remain calm, tells him all hope is not lost. She tries convincing him, telling him that she could admit him for professional help to cure his condition, but then the unthinkable happens. As her father answers her desperate pleas stating he almost believed her, he pulls the knife up and stabs himself in the jugular.
Dede losing her father to what she thought was a mental condition - the way her father was wired or programmed, if you will - is what urged her to take up a career studying serial killers who are just like her father. And that would explain why she personally reached out to Mr. Jingles. When we return to the present, we find Richard Ramirez - recently back from the dead - tell her about how the darkness has always been inside her. He doesn't really answer her questions about levitating in thin air and resurrecting from the dead, but as he disappeared into the darkness, her father's spirit appears and asks her to continue his legacy.
Ramirez tells Dede that the murders were carried out by her and her dad's ghost almost gives her a proud thumbs-up, asking her to embrace the evil - like father, like daughter. So if you were wondering what kind of a psychopath frees a man accused of spree killing to terrorize the same place once again, there's your answer.
'American Horror Story: 1984' airs on Wednesdays at 10pm only on FX.