FX: American Horror Story

[EricMontreal22]

My issue with that is then why was it the season Murphy decided to focus so much on slave torture and race issues? From the start he said he wanted this season to be lighter and more fun, but...

[Chris B]

It's a shame they had a good theme with the witches, but they didn't play it right. Honestly, I would've kept things 100% present day with no Frankenstein's and for Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett, I would've come up with more interesting characters for them. They tried to do too much and ended up wasting so much good story, as usual.

[EricMontreal22]

Agreed. It really suffered from one of Ryan Murphy's worst problems -- where he gets obsessed with random little story and character ideas and then loses interest in the sparkly things almost immediately. Let's do incest! OK, now let's delve into the history of New Orleans and their race culture. Wait howabout a Witch with a killer vagina! OK, enough of that WITCH HUNTERS!! Creepy ghost butler guy will get the sacrificed baby, no one will notice, right? Creepy incestuous religious fanatic! Etc. I mean really the ultimate story I guess was the search for the Supreme, which got brought up early on and then was barely even brought up again until the end.

[SouthOfSoap]

I'm not sure anything can be read into his using race issues and slave torture, other than it being a backdrop for "shocking" the audience. Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett were this season's Nazi and holocaust survivor. I don't think he was highlighting injustice or trying make a point/deliver a message. Is it poor taste? Definitely. Gratuitous? Oh yes. Offensive? That depends on the viewer. If one views it in a vaccuum, it's means nothing and should be taken as such. Just like everything else on this show, everything is resolved via death anyway (using horror licence as a justification) so what point could there be other than escapist nonsense? To try read anything deeper, is to give the show more credit than it deserves or it aims to be. It's all meaningless fluff and if one can accept that without being offended, it can be fun (but one may need a shower afterwards regardless...)

[glatwt]

I have to ask, was murphy the HBIC? this season cause as much as I love him, this season started out amazing but became somewhat........ horrible!!

[EricMontreal22]

Fair enough--and I largely agree with that.

My issue is two fold. He repeatedly said how he understood why many found Asylum (which worked for me, but I get it) too disturbing, Tim Minear was downgraded from showrunner, Murphy back in and he promised repeatedly how this season would be about fun and camp. That's fine, but while I think it's fair for a show like this to go into poor taste (as horror often does) and for shocks, but he also in his Ent Weekly weekly recaps stressed how important and powerful he thought his whole racism message was. So I do think he aims for more.

[SouthOfSoap]

I haven't read any of his interviews, so can't comment too much because I may misinterpret what he said. I do agree with you that Asylum was the better season - it was the least camp of all the seasons, played up the darkness of the setting as a strength and an undercurrent of abandonment in all its forms was present in its tone.

[EricMontreal22]

We agree there--it also managed to resolve (nearly) all the various plot and character threads, by some miracle.

[Antoyne]

I would say its the only season that has.

[EricMontreal22]

Absolutely, and I give Tim Minear as showrunner credit for that. Of course he was still on the writing team this year, but Murphy's shows otherwise when he's showrunner are notorious for just dropping stories.

[Vee]

I see I missed nothing giving up on this after Week 1.

[EricMontreal22]

Nothing at all. Maybe a few "outrageous" scenes, but. I mean there was barely even any nudity.

[DRW50]

Well at least they were wise enough to not bring Zachary Quinto back. Bleh.

[ChitHappens]

Thank God! What a boring awful actor

[EricMontreal22]

I hope he knows better than to come back. I've never been a huge fan, but after seeing bootleg videos and hearing all the praise he really is killing it in Glass Menagerie on Broadway and has some talent I never realized. Maybe he only works well on stage, or even in the role of Tom--a role that is so often played badly by the likes of Sam Watterston and John Malkovich (I think he is in Ryan Murphy's tv film of The Normal Heart--since he was in the recent revival--something I'm kinda dreading. How the hell did Murphy get that property after years of Larry Kramer refusing it to anyone?)