Austin
Since: Jan, 2001
02/01/2016 00:00:00
Agreed on all counts.
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Style slitting the throat of Substance and drinking its blood...
... while cool music plays.
With Hotel, American Horror Story gets closer to crafting an actual story than the previous two seasons. While it is still bogged down with flaws, the pros outweigh the cons this time.
This year we are greeted to the Hotel Cortez in Los Angeles. A grand art deco palace, the Cortez was originally built in the 1920s to feed the nefarious owner's addiction to murder. In 2015, It now feeds the Countess, a mercurial diva made immortal by an ancient virus compelling her to drink human blood. Needless to say, it is home to many ghosts and ghouls, and attracts just as many weirdos.
The second story is about Detective John Lowe's hunt for The Ten Commandments Killer — leading hm to delve into the hotel's dark history — while desperately trying to hold his family together. His story slowly merges with the other.
There are three things the creators seem to be going for now: 1) style over substance, 2) larger than life characters and 3) black comedy over dramatic horror. They have succeeded massively with the first. The second and third, not so much.
It's a shame too, because Hotel began with perhaps one of the most unique lineups of characters this show has had. However, they all quickly devolve into shallow, amoral murderers, as with previous ensembles. And then they're all given an Esoteric Happy Ending.
I will say this, the show knows how to hook you with a season premiere. It's just the resolution where it usually fizzles out; even the more well-rounded finales like Murder House and Asylum had flaws. This one might be the most contrived and unsatisfying, though. Coven had a better ending.
Some pluses:
Despite all of the fun it offered, the pacing is way off, there's no one to root for, and, In the end, nothing really comes of any of the potential they built up for the entire season.
In summation, a hugely entertaining season with a rather lame ending. I'll probably be back for next year, though.