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American Horror Story reviews: Season 2.
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Showing posts with label
American Horror Story reviews: Season 2.
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American Horror Story: Asylum was the Madonna and the Whore of TV shows. It wanted to tell unsettling, unimaginably awful stories based on true fact -- the lobotomies, the disturbed therapies, and so forth; and it wanted to feature outlandish tales of hooker lactation, Frankenstein monsters and murder babies. This has not been a steady journey. But Madness Ends is the first episode of late to actually bring forth a satisfactory conclusion. Meshing together both extremes of the show's identity to frequently powerful returns, this is a finale that winds up the most cohesive episode in months, bringing to a close what quickly became a messy second season.
For anybody even casually familiar with Ryan Murphy's work, you'll know that he likes nothing more than a cool idea. From his early satirical work with Popular to the initial color, pop and energy of Glee, he's an incredible innovator, somebody who can engineer strong, mainstream television complete with an emotional underbelly. What he lacks is follow-through, instead an eagerness to explore something new instead of sticking stories out, leaving numerous arcs from his various series feeling half-baked -- such strong openings, but a tendency to peter out.
Back when season two began, it was marked by a lack of character-driven structure. There wasn't so much one singular protagonist, or even one singular threat, but instead a disparate collection of horror stories. Each involved a dueling sensibility, usually two characters up against one another in a kind of war or tussle. Then events began to converge, there was crossover between the separate sagas, and characters began to intersect. But as we reach the end of the season, the show has once again decided to split off most of the cast. Instead of trying to have all the stories overlap at the same time, however, Spilt Milk is designed almost as a series of vignettes, each additional chapter seeming to bring things to a close.
The Name Game brought to mind American Horror Story's ability to just do whatever the hell it wants to do. Like Mary Eunice singing along to You Don't Own Me earlier this season, it's difficult for the show to disguise the fact that sometimes they just feel like doing something outlandish and nutty for the sake of it. Sure, they grant Sister Jude's musical number an explanation here, but in general the idea remains awkwardly tossed in. That Ryan Murphy decided to do it due to a random suggestion by Jessica Lange is either a wonderful testament to this show's flexibility, or a concerning indictment of how directionless a lot of season two could be described as, considering the scene could occur with such ease. I'm still undecided.
It's so easy to get swept up in this show that it's sometimes hard to recognize when things have hit a wall of sorts. Asylum is still fun and dense, but there's a repetitive vibe that kept perking up this week. It's almost like the show's violent, provocative imagery has become so routine that it's no longer surprising when we see it. Take the shot of Jude strapped to a bed in a Briarcliff medical ward. It probably ought to be shocking, but it lacks the immediacy that has made similar shots over the past eight weeks more poignant. It probably doesn't help, either, that this and last week's episode both seem to be reaching for delaying tactics. Just when we think we're moving forward, stories regress somewhat, or we get another cliffhanger ending. Most of the complaints leveled at American Horror Story this season relate to the sheer volume of stories flying all at once, something I've never really felt was a problem: a greater issue being the recent lack of surprises.
There's a reason why so many esteemed actors gravitate towards this show, and it's probably because it's one of the few places in which grandiose, theatrical acting is heavily pursued. Unholy Night sees Ian McShane guest starring as a deranged Santa Clause, and what saves the story from becoming just another of those direct-to-video holiday horror schlock-fests is that very same sense of theatricality. McShane chews the scenery here, snarling and wildly overplaying his character, but in the same sort of way that Jessica Lange did last year with Constance. It's very broad and comedic, but stinging with intelligence and occasional levity. I remember wondering a lot last season why actors like Lange and Frances Conroy were on a show where sleazy Persians had their penises chewed off, but now I sort of get it. There's that, but for an actor there's also so much additional opportunity here.
This season ought to be called How to Make an American Horror Quilt. I've already spoken of Asylum's patchwork sensibility, but every additional week only adds more and more details that are sewn onto this elaborate piece of fabric. And, again, nothing feels disorienting. I don't know if its just the ghost of Glee lurking over everything, but surely we're at a point where things should be suffocating? There's so much happening here, but not at the expense of great character work or engaging plot turns. This is a season with such a firm handle on these protagonists, their collected histories and feelings. And despite all this 'stuff' happening, the writers aren't falling prey to merely burning through events. The pacing this year is spectacular, just as teasing and ambiguous as it is steady and rewarding.
Origin stories are generally a double-edged sword. For every Godfather Part II, in which flashbacks and past misdeeds only help enrich a narrative universe, there's a Star Wars: Episode I -- where mystical concepts are elaborated upon in such a way that it all becomes laborious and overly confused, reduced to a bunch of scientific particle hooey. Horror is another genre that frequently says too much a lot of the time. Is there anything scarier than somebody just being psychotic? Regardless of a tangible explanation, the idea of a person going out of their way to maim and terrorize others is terrifying enough on its own. Only that's not good enough for Ryan Murphy, who carefully details a lot of Bloody Face's history this week, along with most of the rest of the cast.
American Horror Story's first season sometimes awkwardly meshed together spooky campiness with emotional drama, the show struggling to fully embrace the themes of family and infidelity that seemed to only surface when the writers remembered that they were there. Instead, we got a lot of aggressive horror; blood and intestines all over the place, and character-driven drama sometimes left on the back-burner. All of that is something that has seemingly been acknowledged this season, Asylum intent on tying both sensibilities together in a far more cohesive structure. The horror is still elaborate and chilling (Part 2 is arguably the nastiest, scariest episode in show history), but the characterization is bringing the season to a whole separate level of wonder. It's become a series where fully developed characters are experiencing horrible things, instead of a show about horrible things freaking out a shallow ensemble.
American Horror Story is beyond ordinary television. Not so much in terms of writing, but very much in terms of the sheer amount of ideas on offer and how we at home respond to them. On any other show, throwing so many elements into the pot would come off as overstuffed, especially when almost every episode jumps between all of these disorienting storylines at the same time. But watching this show is an experience in itself, since you're unable to just sit down and try and pick holes in it, instead you allow it to just wash over you. We're so used to this kind of storytelling now that it doesn't matter if random, batshit elements are occurring simultaneously -- it's the narrative equilibrium at its core, and it's like no other show around. Probably ever.
American Horror Story, as fun a show as it is, sometimes agonizingly exists within the individual moment. The very best serialized dramas follow a traditional arc through-line, but also allow enough breathing room to tell smaller, less arc-driven stories. There's nothing explicitly wrong with how Asylum is operating right now, particularly the thriving sense that this is all headed somewhere sensical (a step up from the sometimes exasperating first season), but it's settled into a groove wherein every episode tells the next additional chapter of a longer story. So an array of showy subplots are merely teased out piece by piece with every passing episode, which makes it a difficult show to watch objectively.
It's funny that there isn't so much a singular protagonist this season. As a result, last week's premiere seemed to travel down various tangents as it went along, bouncing from a story about Kit, the incarcerated maybe-murderer, to a story about Lana Winters, snooping reporter locked away to keep her quiet. Then there was Jessica Lange, so dominating the screen but not so focused upon that she instantly became the show's lead. Tricks and Treats introduced Zachary Quinto as a do-gooder doctor disgusted by the regressive treatments at Briarcliff Hospital, and it was yet another ingredient being added to the mix. It's not at all a complaint, but it's been a little hard to entirely latch onto one clear lead so far. Whereas last season saw the Harmons very much at the center of things, Asylum seems far more eager to bounce around between a tight ensemble -- even if it remains at least atypical to not have one character who really anchors it all.
Despite the presence of nuns and aliens and innards, it feels a lot easier heading into American Horror Story than it did last year. Sure, most of it is because we've gotten used to the dogged tenacity of the writing team to keep things outlandish on a pretty consistent basis, but it's also helped by the knowledge we have now that we didn't have when the series first began. Season one opened with only a vague sense of where the show was going, FX dodging questions about the series' length, leaving many of us at home unsure whether or not we'd be stuck in that murder house for years. In the interim, however, we learned that American Horror Story is in fact an anthology series, every season dedicated to a new story, a new location and new characters. So there's suddenly a lot of breathing room, at least in terms of creative vision, one that presumably isn't hampered by mystery about the future.
Back when season two began, it was marked by a lack of character-driven structure. There wasn't so much one singular protagonist, or even one singular threat, but instead a disparate collection of horror stories. Each involved a dueling sensibility, usually two characters up against one another in a kind of war or tussle. Then events began to converge, there was crossover between the separate sagas, and characters began to intersect. But as we reach the end of the season, the show has once again decided to split off most of the cast. Instead of trying to have all the stories overlap at the same time, however, Spilt Milk is designed almost as a series of vignettes, each additional chapter seeming to bring things to a close.
