The Horror of this Story
The new season of American Horror Story is starting up on October 8 this year and I know it is going to be amazing. The season is called Freak Show, which means that AHS is going to the circus. Where there’s a circus, there are clowns and knowing the way AHS works, it’s going to be gruesome. I can only imagine what heartbreak and sadism they have in store for their viewers. I was so excited for this new season that I decided to do a preparation for the scary delights of the new season. I decided to watch all of the past seasons in preparation for the fourth and newest. There will be spoilers on here for this show. If you haven’t watched it, don’t read this until you do. My roommate Izzy promised to watch all of the episodes with me and I’m not letting her back out! Welcome to The Horror of this Story: Episode Reviews of American Horror Story!
Season 1: Murder House Episode 1: Pilot
In my opinion, you should never take the Pilot episode too seriously. It’s really just a way for the TV executives to see if the show will generate a following at all. I told this to my roommate Izzy before we started watching it. I explained to her how it usually just introduces you to the characters and the reasoning behind why they do what they do, and to not get too confused over anything. I got this annoyed look after my explanation and she said, “It’s like you think I’ve never seen a Pilot episode before. Just play it.” So I complied.
Obviously, she asked about twenty questions and had a long stream of commentary in the first ten minutes of the episode. What follows are the most memorable from the ordeal:
Would Izzy be watching it again? “Of course!”
In my opinion, you should never take the Pilot episode too seriously. It’s really just a way for the TV executives to see if the show will generate a following at all. I told this to my roommate Izzy before we started watching it. I explained to her how it usually just introduces you to the characters and the reasoning behind why they do what they do, and to not get too confused over anything. I got this annoyed look after my explanation and she said, “It’s like you think I’ve never seen a Pilot episode before. Just play it.” So I complied.
Obviously, she asked about twenty questions and had a long stream of commentary in the first ten minutes of the episode. What follows are the most memorable from the ordeal:
- “Oh my god. If they kill that little girl with Down’s Syndrome we’re turning it off. I can’t do that sort of thing.”
- “Why are we watching her GYNO appointment? Wait. Did the doctor just say miscarriage?”
- “Oh my god she’s so dumb. Why doesn’t she call 911 if she thinks there’s someone in her house?”
- “Thank you for calling 911. No. Why are you grabbing the knife? Stop grabbing the knife and get out of the house!”
- “She’s going upstairs. Kate, why is she being like every other dumb person in a horror movie?”
- “Wait. Why did she just slash his arm? Is that her husband? What just happened? Wait. Pause it, I’m confused.”
Would Izzy be watching it again? “Of course!”
Season 2: Asylum Episode 1: Welcome to Briarcliff
I have two confessions about this episode. First, I watched this episode without Izzy. She went to visit her aunt and uncle in New York City this weekend, and I was craving Jessica Lange and horror. Second, I’ve actually never watched this season before. I skipped it because my sister thought I wouldn’t be able to handle it, and honestly, she wasn’t wrong. It was a drastic jump from the last season to this madness.
Already I see the beginnings of something that I know will progress into something gruesome. The show mostly takes place in the early 1960s in an asylum for the criminally insane, but of course nothing is ever that simple in the AHS world. In the present-day segment, the man’s arm gets ripped off when he sticks it down a chute in the abandoned asylum. If this was any other TV show, I wouldn’t think too hard on it, but this is American Horror Story. Whatever ripped off his arm will attack someone else in the same episode. Sure enough it does. It attacks one of the main characters, a journalist named Lana who is also a lesbian and, at the end of the first episode, is committed to the asylum for homosexuality.
Lana isn’t the only apparently sane inmate at Briarcliff. There’s Kit, a man who is accused of skinning and decapitating three women, including his black wife, and Grace who, according to the police, killed her entire family. These two seem innocent, and all three of the characters appear to be sane. They all seem saner than the people hired and volunteering to take care of the inmates. Sister Jude is extremely strict and basically the traditional scary nun. She likes hitting people with the cane and believes firmly that all of the patients aren’t insane, just sinners who need redemption. Sister Mary Eunice is extremely nervous and skittish, but in an adorable way that makes you want to give her a big hug and a warm beverage. She is essentially the complete opposite of Sister Jude in every way. I also met Dr. Arden, who seems really sketchy and I think he’s doing something sketchy with the patients of Briarcliff. I can’t wait to find out!
Little side note I had, I completely disapprove of Jessica Lange’s accent. As someone from Massachusetts, I should be used to people butchering my accent, but it still hurts when it’s that bad. That is the wrong way to do a Massachusetts accent, or a New England accent in general. I mean, I shouldn’t get so upset over these little things, but if you’re going to represent Massachusetts for the nation, at least listen to the local dialect for a while before trying imitate it.
This season is already giving me the creeps. Next episode, I’m watching it with a cup of tea and a fuzzy blanket to keep away the nervous chills.
I have two confessions about this episode. First, I watched this episode without Izzy. She went to visit her aunt and uncle in New York City this weekend, and I was craving Jessica Lange and horror. Second, I’ve actually never watched this season before. I skipped it because my sister thought I wouldn’t be able to handle it, and honestly, she wasn’t wrong. It was a drastic jump from the last season to this madness.
Already I see the beginnings of something that I know will progress into something gruesome. The show mostly takes place in the early 1960s in an asylum for the criminally insane, but of course nothing is ever that simple in the AHS world. In the present-day segment, the man’s arm gets ripped off when he sticks it down a chute in the abandoned asylum. If this was any other TV show, I wouldn’t think too hard on it, but this is American Horror Story. Whatever ripped off his arm will attack someone else in the same episode. Sure enough it does. It attacks one of the main characters, a journalist named Lana who is also a lesbian and, at the end of the first episode, is committed to the asylum for homosexuality.
Lana isn’t the only apparently sane inmate at Briarcliff. There’s Kit, a man who is accused of skinning and decapitating three women, including his black wife, and Grace who, according to the police, killed her entire family. These two seem innocent, and all three of the characters appear to be sane. They all seem saner than the people hired and volunteering to take care of the inmates. Sister Jude is extremely strict and basically the traditional scary nun. She likes hitting people with the cane and believes firmly that all of the patients aren’t insane, just sinners who need redemption. Sister Mary Eunice is extremely nervous and skittish, but in an adorable way that makes you want to give her a big hug and a warm beverage. She is essentially the complete opposite of Sister Jude in every way. I also met Dr. Arden, who seems really sketchy and I think he’s doing something sketchy with the patients of Briarcliff. I can’t wait to find out!
Little side note I had, I completely disapprove of Jessica Lange’s accent. As someone from Massachusetts, I should be used to people butchering my accent, but it still hurts when it’s that bad. That is the wrong way to do a Massachusetts accent, or a New England accent in general. I mean, I shouldn’t get so upset over these little things, but if you’re going to represent Massachusetts for the nation, at least listen to the local dialect for a while before trying imitate it.
This season is already giving me the creeps. Next episode, I’m watching it with a cup of tea and a fuzzy blanket to keep away the nervous chills.
Season 4: Freak Show Episode 1: Monsters Among Us
Here it is, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. It is the first episode ofFreak Show. Because my apartment-style dorm doesn’t have a cable cord for my television, I had to wait a day longer to watch the newest installment. It was entirely worth it.
First things first, I think that the clown is the scariest thing to come from American Horror Story, and so does Izzy. It was the first time I’ve ever seen her speechless, and that is saying something. Actually, she didn’t say much the entire episode—probably because she knew her questions would go unanswered. I apparently screamed so loudly that I scared one of my other roommates (Rachel) into checking on me more than once. She was laughing at me when she did. Thankfully Izzy stood up for me, explaining with many swears that the clown was terrifying and that Rachel shouldn’t be laughing at me, or her. Not only is he a kidnapping, murderous clown, he wears a mask that looks like it’s fused to his face and he is fast. He ran up on that girl in the field so impossibly fast that it seemed rational to scream. “You guys are insane for watching that show,” Rachel said in response. She laughed at our antics and left so we could continue to watch in delighted horror.
I really like the overall plot for this season. I like how they included real people who were in the sideshow circuit, like Lobster Boy. He was a really big attraction back in the days that sideshows were popular. I like how they’re inducting the conjoined sisters Bet and Dot into the world of sideshow, and I think that Sarah Paulson will have fun playing two girls who are such opposite characters. Jessica Lange is playing Elsa Mars, older woman with a weird accent who is cruel and coldhearted, but deeply longs for something to guide her and give her life meaning…again. It’s a part she obviously plays well, but this song and dance is starting to get old, for me at least.
This season looks really promising, on a whole. I wonder if the guy who wanted to buy the Siamese-twin sisters, Bet and Dot, and his mother will have any true significance to the storyline. Personally, I think he’s just a pompous rich boy who’s too accustomed to getting everything his heart desires, which could easily make conflict between him and Elsa, subsequently making the show more interesting. Let’s not forget the significance of the glance shared between Jimmy Darling, the Lobster Boy, and Dot. There is totally going to be a love affair there and it is going to be complicated and wonderful.
This season is living up to our highest hopes and we both can’t wait for the next episode.
Here it is, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. It is the first episode ofFreak Show. Because my apartment-style dorm doesn’t have a cable cord for my television, I had to wait a day longer to watch the newest installment. It was entirely worth it.
First things first, I think that the clown is the scariest thing to come from American Horror Story, and so does Izzy. It was the first time I’ve ever seen her speechless, and that is saying something. Actually, she didn’t say much the entire episode—probably because she knew her questions would go unanswered. I apparently screamed so loudly that I scared one of my other roommates (Rachel) into checking on me more than once. She was laughing at me when she did. Thankfully Izzy stood up for me, explaining with many swears that the clown was terrifying and that Rachel shouldn’t be laughing at me, or her. Not only is he a kidnapping, murderous clown, he wears a mask that looks like it’s fused to his face and he is fast. He ran up on that girl in the field so impossibly fast that it seemed rational to scream. “You guys are insane for watching that show,” Rachel said in response. She laughed at our antics and left so we could continue to watch in delighted horror.
I really like the overall plot for this season. I like how they included real people who were in the sideshow circuit, like Lobster Boy. He was a really big attraction back in the days that sideshows were popular. I like how they’re inducting the conjoined sisters Bet and Dot into the world of sideshow, and I think that Sarah Paulson will have fun playing two girls who are such opposite characters. Jessica Lange is playing Elsa Mars, older woman with a weird accent who is cruel and coldhearted, but deeply longs for something to guide her and give her life meaning…again. It’s a part she obviously plays well, but this song and dance is starting to get old, for me at least.
This season looks really promising, on a whole. I wonder if the guy who wanted to buy the Siamese-twin sisters, Bet and Dot, and his mother will have any true significance to the storyline. Personally, I think he’s just a pompous rich boy who’s too accustomed to getting everything his heart desires, which could easily make conflict between him and Elsa, subsequently making the show more interesting. Let’s not forget the significance of the glance shared between Jimmy Darling, the Lobster Boy, and Dot. There is totally going to be a love affair there and it is going to be complicated and wonderful.
This season is living up to our highest hopes and we both can’t wait for the next episode.