Ryan Murphy saturation has reached such a peak, you don’t need to consider the current TV canon to find something to contextualize the morality questions posed in this week’s episode of AHS, you need only to look as far as Mr. Murphy’s newest project, The Politician. No spoilers, but the titular politician often wonders if he’s a good person or a person who does good things, and what the distinction is. This week on AHS, though there is a character insisting there are no inherently bad people or people who have done enough bad things to be irredeemable, that character helps break a convicted serial killer out of a mental hospital and kidnaps a woman before stealing her identity. So.
What seemed like a pretty big plot hole last week has been quickly filled; why Rita was only lightly stabbed by the crazed killer who was generally pretty quick and efficient when it came to slitting throats and cutting off ears. Not-exactly Rita as a mad scientist is one of the night’s better twists but undermined by the nonsensical reasoning behind her definitely not peer-reviewed experiment. She’s talked to the most notorious serial killers, gotten them to open up in new and exciting ways, and what’s going to help stop said killers for good is giving one of them the chance to kill again? The scientist letting the ends justify the means is a trope every bit as well-trod as the kissing camp counselors meeting an untimely end during a hook-up, but her reasoning just isn’t logical enough. If she’s able to watch him go on another murder bender first hand, what new insight could she possibly get, other than to notice fourteen years after the fact his slashing has probably slowed down a bit?
Of course, the fact that she didn’t offer any details when Mr. Jingles asked what drew her to the serial killer field might suggest her character will be given a double twist, and later this season the show will jump back three years into the past to reveal her lover was the victim of a serial killer while she was just beginning her initial research, and rather than actually stop the killers she just wants as many people as possible to feel the pain of losing a loved one to a spree killing.
Ray’s flashback was both too modern and too overdone. Maybe starting with the whole “I’ll confess a great secret to someone unconscious” meant it could never rise above its cliché overload beginnings. Somehow acknowledging frat culture and hazing can have deadly consequences seems like something that wouldn’t have been addressed in the early ‘80s. And maybe this stems from watching too many shows that push the boundaries of what humans can and can’t do, but it just didn’t seem like he really worked for it when the car with the actually not dead pledge was going over the cliff. Couldn’t he have reached in and grabbed the parking break? Even more overkill (pun intended) was the number of times the audience needed to be reminded Ray is the kind of guy that will leave his friends for dead to save himself. Forget survival of the fittest, he believes in survival, period, and each subsequent time he put himself first at the expense of others was less surprising and more unnecessary.
Maybe the best twist of all was Trevor proving he’s a pretty decent guy, and Xavier having a guilt-induced conscience that won’t let them leave even the less developed characters behind in the camp to die. Of course, it’s still early in the season, and there have been plenty of AHS arcs that slowly strip away the likability from every character (Cult, for instance). Plus Trevor did accidentally throw a prankster in a pit of spikes, probably to his death. As American Horror Story keeps reminding its viewers, seeing death can really change you.
On next week’s episode, tonight’s final twist will be tackled with the origin story of Montana and her Satan worshiping lover. Still unclear whether she wants him to murder Brooke or Margaret. It might all come down to who has a stronger jazzercize background.
Stray Observations
- Mr. Jingles doesn’t kill the sad teen boy who was happy just to play a messed up prank with his peers for the night. But it was still unclear whether it was the killer’s pity, compassion, or just bewilderment that saved him, at least for a little while.
- If fake Rita did talk to all those other famous serial killers, why choose Mr. Jingles for her prison break? The security at his mental hospital doesn’t seem great, but that probably wasn’t uncommon.
- It’s a lesson as old as Romeo and Juliet, and yet still needs repeating. Even if you think someone’s dead, check for a pulse. Double-check for a pulse.
- Trevor and company seem…surprised by the very concept of a flaming bag of poop. Was that a new prank in the ‘80s?
- If fake Rita really wanted to commit, she would have swapped clothes with the nurse, like every other TV character that ever assumed someone’s identity. Plus, that nurse’s dress looked very official.
- Ray’s headless corpse rode that motorcycle for an impressively long time. Can Trevor still claim the bike is a “fickle mistress” if it can be driven by the headless horseman?
- Once again proving that these characters have never seen a horror movie: “let’s split up,” is floated as a great plan, they block the doors and almost completely forget about the windows, and continue to think help on the outside can save them. There were already three Halloweens out by ‘84, some basic horror education should have happened.
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The evils and dangers of frat hazing are a pretty standard element of ‘80s slashers like Hell Night and Terror Train. This seemed like a pretty specific reference to those. I think Fake Rita saw the most recent Halloween movie and maybe misunderstood the point of the psychiatrist’s story? I wasn’t a big fan of Cody Fern’s acting on Apocalypse but his delivery of “If I kill you, I’m really sorry” made me laugh pretty hard.
I’m not sure if Cody Fern is really suited to Ryan Murphy/Brad Falchuk camp. I thought he was a stand out in the Assassination of Versace which was played (more or less) seriously and written by Tom Rob Smith. Still, he seems at leas someone better suited as the gay for pay aerobics instructor here than he was as the son of Satan.
Yeah a frat hazing prank gone wrong didn’t feel out of place for the genre to me, though the hazing we saw did seem more in line with what people hear on the news than the hazing in films like Terror Train (is it common to trick someone into getting into bed with a corpse?)
Agreed! Fern was incredible in Versace, but just has not cut it in AHS – neither last season nor this season.
Agree – I really did not like Cody Fern in Apocalypse, however I’m enjoying him here. I think he’s better suited as a sympathetic character than pure evil. Unfortunately, I was not able to get through Versace – the stuff with Lee Miglin. Too brutal, even for this AHS fan.
Versace was hard going in general. No shame there. Completely different from this show when you watch someone get their head chopped off.
Cody Fern was so wonderful in Assassination of Versace but yeah, he seemed miscast in Apocalypse. I’m quite enjoying him here!
Am I the only one who thinks he looks eerily like a young John Barrowman, at least with the blond hair? I keep having to remind myself it’s not. But hard agree, he was so terrible in Apocalypse, but very funny here.
So who rented the backhoe to dig that humongous pungi pit?
A tradition of wearing store bought rubber masks of a real life serial killer to prank a place that’s been closed for 14 years is all sorts of unbelievable.
Finding the real Rita would’ve been a better twist if we hadn’t already seen the flashback.The Terror: Infamy squandering its potential makes this look good.
Mr. Jingles is so famous that they sell lifelike rubber masks of his face but so obscure that the counselors never heard of the camp massacre before the campfire story in the first episode? That’s just sloppy.
To be fair, he’s probably way more famous in the town where he massacred the campers, which is why they sell masks of him there. I doubt anyone who wasn’t in LA was incredibly familiar with Richard Ramirez, even during his killing spree. They probably didn’t look up all the details of the little nowhere town they were gonna be counselors at, especially since they left the day after they heard about it, and google didn’t exist back then.
But that sloppiness feels quite apt and deliberate for a low-budget 80s slashers homage
If you’re expecting tight logical though from American Horror Story, you’re doing it wrong. Especially when they’re doing nonsense 80s slashers.
It’s time travel. They’re in some sort of vortex and in the middle of the massacre that the people in masks are commemorating.
“Trevor and company seem…surprised by the very concept of a flaming bag of poop. Was that a new prank in the ‘80s?”Probsbly more surprised that a serial killer just threw a flaming pile of shit at them.
Wtf happened to Fake Rita’s car while Real Rita was in the can? Also hi and bye Dreama Walker! (and you thought the B in Apt. was bad) Where’s Margaret, the cook and the ghost camper? Ray said something too modern at the beginning of the frat party scene but I didn’t write it down. In the preview Madison told (fake?) Richard Ramirez that she hates a poser in aerobics class which has to be Brooke.
Which is a shame, their friendship was a nice little human touch amidst all the chaos
I just hope it passes the Bechkill Test. Which is when a woman murders another woman over something that isn’t a man.
I don’t know if you just made this up or if it’s actually a thing, but I love it!
She obviously pulled into the woods or the side of the road somewhere. I mean it’s in the middle of nowhere.
I do recall someone saying “what’s your damage” and I feel like ‘84 is a couple years early for that. (Obviously it was widely in the lexicon once Heathers came out in ‘88 but I’m not sure how early it was creeping into general speech)
Does this season look at all promising, or am I going to get baited again with like four good episodes followed by completely incoherent mess?
I say wait a bit longer. So far 99% of everything has happened in a single night, and the excuses for inflating the body count in an as of yet unopened camp is starting to get thin. This has been my biggest issue with AHS over the past few years, they start with a decent concept, then it starts to get old by the half season because they’re not doing anything new or interesting with it.
It’s a Murphy show, so you can expect it’s going to turn to an incoherent mess at some point
AHS always devolves into a nonsensical mess, but at least this season they’re aping a genre where that’s kind of the whole deal.
No! I want Billie Lord and sexy aerobics guy to make it! This version of Richard Ramirez has no charm. I didn’t believe their hood make-out, even though that actor has eyes and cheekbones to die for. I’m actively hoping his story line ends next episode.
I know this is AHS but what the fuck was even happening with Candy’s wig during the interview/in that lady’s office? No ghosts this episode?
A cut away for the nurse kill and no gruesome body on the spikes? This lacks the tits and gore I look for in an 80’s slasher. Tits is forgivable cuz TV, but I see more red in the shower dying my hair than what they got from that decapitation. I think the best kill we’ve seen was the rando peeping in the showers.
So many of the Zombieland rules would apply…CardioDouble TapBeware of BathroomsWear Seat BeltsNo AttachmentsTravel LightDon’t be a hero (later crossed out to be a heroLimber UpCheck the back seat
I think they’re in purgatory because they’ve all done terrible things and they have to “redeem” themselves and will keep cycling through again and again until they do. I was watching a breakdown video that pointed out that Ray already had blood on his shirt before the nightstalker stabbed him, there was a motorcycle sound outside already. In the originals promo, Ray is in the pit getting gasoline poured on him etc so he failed this first round and has to go through it again? Explains why that one camper who survived originally who ran out on everyone has to keep coming back because he keeps being a coward and why the two women who manipulated two killers keep telling them about morality and how they can redeem themselves.
“It’s his knife against my guns”- *Trevor pats his arms* Amazing.So far so good, this season.
That last be-heading reminded me of a kill from something out of the videogame Until Dawn, and it was beautiful. It was also kind of a nice genre touch that the episode teased the black guy would die first of the friends, but then he didn’t-but then he did!
Trevor is just the best. Line of the night was the “She’s fickle mistress. Easy on the throttle unless you’re a wild stallion” The deliver on that was just *kisses fingers*
Trevor is just the best. Line of the night was the “She’s fickle mistress. Easy on the throttle unless you’re a wild stallion” The deliver on that was just *kisses fingers*
Agreed Trevor = the best. That kill though? Where is the blood? To be fair, it was probably more blood than the 13 sins decapitations.
Horrible kinds of hazing have always been a thing. You just hear about it more.
I don’t know why critics expect characters to always make the best decisions when people in real life don’t. Not everybody would have thought about grabbing the parking break. That would have also been a big risk of Ray getting took with the vehicle and we already know he’s not that type of person.
I’m not sure what the complaint about Ray continuing to ditch people is. It’s not like he’s only going to be in danger a few times or all of the sudden have a change of character.
The killer probably related to the poor guy who eventually got thrown into the pit. Or knew he was a virgin and let him live per rules of 80’s slasher films.
Also, what makes you think Rita was telling the truth about talking to all those serial killers?
They were probably less surprised about a bag of poop than when it was happening.
Also, it was only Ray’s idea to split up, right?
Yeah, Rita was definitely lying about meeting all those serial killers. There’s no way that she met with Bundy and had him confess to two more murders. That was clearly her just trying to shmooze her way into the meeting Mr. Jingles.
who lets a grad student (?) talk to serial killers?
i found it really sad that the pranksters all got killed, especially the fat one. i don’t know what it is, but it always grosses me out when the show seems to get off on stabbing someone in the throat.
Just FYI, a YouTuber going by the name “Xavier Plympton” has apparently been compiling a soundtrack of songs used throughout this season of AHS. Presumably, it will be added to each week.
this is the weakest season ever. yawn.