I’m going to start this review by saying, I think this may actually be my personal favorite episode of the Stories franchise so far. And believe me when I tell you, when I saw what the episode was about, I went into it with extremely low expectations.
Last season had a few episodes based more or less on technology-based horrors, and these episodes really weren’t my favorite. The concept got tired after the first few instances of “a video plays and people die”, and it just added to the overall atmosphere of “AHS for a teen audience”. So, when I saw the episode was all about a doorbell camera, I was skeptical. Just about the only thing that made me want to watch this episode was Gabourey Sidibe’s involvement. And I guess I ought to thank her, because this was a great ride!
Aura opens up with a commercial for a security camera system/app named, you guessed it, Aura. I have to say, whoever wrote this portion really nailed that feeling of an overacted security system commercial. (Surely, if you were alive in the 90s, you can’t say “Slomin’s Shield” without singing it.) Watching this commercial in a hardware store, we meet Jaslyn, who seems to write it off as fueling paranoia, but we soon find out she did, in fact, spend the $199.99 to buy one, much to the annoyance of her husband, Bryce (who, notably, is played by Max Greenfield, previously seen in AHS as Gabriel, the drug addict who had an unfortunate encounter with the Addiction Demon, or as some like to call him, Drilldo, in Hotel). Bryce is one of those people who likes everything planned to the exact letter, or in this case, dime, and he’s not thrilled that Jaslyn spent so much on something that “wasn’t in the plan”. We find out that Jas has a pretty severe issue with PTSD, due to a home invasion when she was a child, by a man in a strange bunny mask. (It’s actually never made clear if he killed her parents, or how Jaslyn survived. She mentions seeing them tied up and gunshots are implied in the flashback, but nothing’s ever spelled out explicitly. Regardless, I feel like we have a Leigh Emerson copycat on our hands here, who prefers Easter to Christmas.) For this reason, she insisted that she and Bryce move to a gated community.
Bryce seems to have recently gotten a promotion at work, so Jas is home alone a lot. She makes and sells jewelry on Etsy, though, and overall seems pretty happy and well adjusted despite her childhood trauma.
That is until one day, a gaunt looking old man shows up on the Aura app, desperately trying to get into the house. He seems to know Jaslyn’s name, and really, really wants to be let in. She calls the police, and while she is speaking with them, a neighbor who has a security camera above his garage stops by, confused that the footage he captured does not feature the man at all, nor does any of the history on Jaslyn’s Aura app.
Bryce helps her chalk it all up to a crazy dream, but the same man continues to appear, each time leaving no trace of his presence where anyone can find it. After seeing him live on the Aura app himself though, only for him not to be outside the door, Bryce insists it must be a prank of some kind. Jaslyn researches Aura pranks, and while she’s doing this, she realizes she actually has seen the man that keeps coming to the door before. He was her high school janitor, Dale Hendricks. It is revealed that Jaslyn once sort of flirted with Mr. Hendricks as a joke back in the day, and he became obsessed with her. Jaslyn even goes to visit his sister under the guise of putting together a high school reunion, to try and piece together how and why this man is suddenly coming back into her life.
Upon realizing that Mr. Hendricks was good with computers, she and Bryce surmise that somehow he is the one behind all of this, still obsessed with Jaslyn after all these years and hacking into the Aura device to spy on and terrorize her. Jaslyn still doesn’t seem convinced though, and takes a chance the next time the Aura app lets Dale Hendricks’ presence be known. She opens the door after he insists he just wants to see her again. It seems at first that no one is there but a cool breeze, but when Jas turns around and goes back inside, Mr. Hendricks is standing in her living room.
He thanks her for letting him in, but tells her he lied about his intentions. For a long minute or so, it seems like something terrible is going to happen, but it turns out, Mr. Hendricks only wanted to apologize for his stalkerish ways back in Jas’s high school years. It’s actually an incredibly sweet moment between the two, as they forgive each other for what they’d done wrong, and it brings me back to the kind of tragic scenarios that made me fall in love with AHS in the first place. Mr. Hendricks, it turns out, was a ghost, and he fades away after this reunion.
After some more research, Jaslyn realizes that Aura devices are built in such a way that some of them can pick up on communication from spirits. Bryce doesn’t believe her, and rips the Aura off the wall when a ghostly woman appears at the door shortly after Jaslyn explains what’s really been going on. Bryce’s sudden aggression is more than a little “suss”, as the kids say these days, and it turns out, the woman at the door is actually his ex fiancé, Mary Jean Burkett. Mary Jean’s death had been ruled as a hit and run accident in 2002, but it turned out, Mary Jean was pregnant and that wasn’t part of Bryce’s plan, so, while an argument did cause her to run into the street and be hit, Bryce did actually play a pivotal role in ending her life by not getting her any help when she was clearly still alive. (Whether the hit and run itself was orchestrated by Bryce is unclear.) After this comes out into the open, Bryce decides Jaslyn is now no longer part of the plan either, and attempts to kill her, but Mary Jean kills him in a way that makes me think “Vecna!” for a second, and Jaslyn moves on with her life. She rents an apartment for herself but there’s one little catch: all the apartments in this complex come equipped with Aura, so the episode ends with Bryce desperately trying to break in.
It’s never gone into whether Bryce is an honest to goodness scum bag, or just terminally a Virgo. (And I can say that because I myself am terminally a Virgo.)
I’m not sure exactly what it was about this episode that did it for me, but I came away from it feeling more satisfied than I have with just about any other episode of Stories, save for maybe last week’s Doll House and last season’s superior episode, Feral. There was just something about this storyline. The scenes with Jaslyn and Mr. Hendricks invoked the feelings I love most from a good episode, where the characters are so good deep down but so tragic. Almost all of my favorite AHS moments involve sad ghosts in some way. And the twists actually weren’t predictable at all for me. I genuinely spent the episode wondering what was actually happening with the Aura camera. I was unsure of it was ghosts, a prank, vampires, or another instance of gaslighting, to be honest. I also didn’t see the plot twist with Bryce and his ex fiancé coming, either. When another ghost appeared at the door, I thought it was just going to be about Jaslyn finding her true calling helping spirits move on to the afterlife. That could be a fun series, honestly. Every episode a new ghost appears at the door, and their storyline and unfinished business gets resolved. It could be either a drama or a comedy, depending on the situation. Occasionally it could involve other Aura owners as well. The possibilities are endless!
The opening credits are a whole aesthetic vibe, too.
So far, I think Stories may just redeem itself after falling short more often than not last season. It may be a little early to tell but we definitely have two solid entries into the franchise so far, and despite the reuse of a technology based storyline, this one definitely brought its own unique flavor to the table and proved that the overly modern vibe of Stories might not be such a one-trick pony after all. I look forward to seeing what comes next!
Stay spooky, my friends.
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