Series What the other guy said.
Though slightly better than Coven, Freak Show is almost as bad when it comes to meandering plots. They do get the American Horror part right, but there still needs to be a story. Shit needs to coalesce.
We have perhaps the biggest cast of characters yet this season. Some of the titular freaks are played by people with actual mutations or deformities, and turn in very good performances.
In Jupiter, Florida of 1954, one of America's last freak shows is presided over by another fame-obsessed Jessica Lange character, Elsa Mars. While she claims to love them like family, Elsa's vanity is a powder-keg that could threaten them all. Even as the freaks decide they aren't enduring society's unfair treatment anymore and the town is plagued by a child-abducting Serial Killer.
This is indeed the silliest, most nonsensical season yet, which I guess is fitting given the subject matter: Florida freak show in the fifties. The show's blatant hokeyness used to compliment its disturbing horror, but with this and season three, hokeyness seems to reign over horror.
Freak Show did succeed in its exploration of how horrifically unjust and unstable post-World War II America was, as well as the psychology of various different murderers. However, its poorly constructed story, skewed character development, and general lack of direction make it very disappointing. Especially when the first five episodes were so terrific.
Points:
- Twisty was the best and scariest part of the season. Criminally underused.
- In spite of their characters, most of the cast turned in fun, powerful performances.
- That said, Evan Peters did his best, but he just did not have a very good role this year.
- Finn Wittrock was simply a revelation as Dandy, the faithful parody of just about every modern image of a psychopath. He was the reason I kept watching all the way through.
- A few nice tie-ins to Asylum, though they didn't add up to much.
- I personally didn't mind the musical numbers. They were fun, even if they were out of place.
Don't know if I'm coming back for the next round, honestly.
Series Dull and aimless
This series does little to improve on the flaws of previous seasons. Plot threads are introduced then dropped and characters are introduced largely at random. Neil Patrick Harris' character, as memorable as he was, has virtually no effect on the overall plot.
I've always found it irritating that even though the seasons only last 13 episodes, it always seems like they're written episode-by-episode, instead of the writers sitting down and plotting out the season before they start writting. I can understand that for a lengthy series, but for such a short one a practice like that borders on They Just Didn't Care for me. There are noticeable inconsistencies with the characters. Dell goes from having no redeeming traits at all to guilt ridden. A man who would kill a baby just because it was annoying him is not the kind of man who would feel guilty for the things Dell does later in the series. The reason it feels like inconsistency instead of complexity is because of just how extreme his character was. He's the most notable case of character inconsistency, but he's not the only one. I wonder how much of that can be blamed on the season having eight writers, which seems excessive for thirteen episodes.
Horror-wise, this is the least overtly supernatural of all the seasons, but their attempts at mundane horror often fall flat. Twisty was a great character, and I found the exploration of Dandy's character to be fascinating even though I couldn't take him seriously at first. Aside from them, there's not much in the way of memorable scares, and several episodes are boring from beginning to end.
I'd say this was my least favorite season of American Horror Story. Granted, it's not as much of a mess as Coven was, but at least Coven had a lot of fun elements to partially make up for its writing problems.
Series Precarious as Always
A few weeks ago I reviewed Crimson Peak, a film that explicitly states that it has ghosts in it, but it isn’t a ghost story. American Horror Story similarly continues in its exact same vein of being a drama with horror tropes, but not a horror (and it is still disappointing for it). This season, Freak Show, feels like a bit of a departure from previous seasons, in that whilst the regular cast show up again, cosmetically or digitally enhanced to resemble sideshow attractions, we get a load more new characters – some of whom have actually lived in somewhat similar roles in real life.
That was a good idea, Firstly, because it is always sucky when TV shows ask us to care about people with disabilities, only to deny such people decent roles. Secondly because some of the personal experiences of these actors seem to have worked their way in to the drama, giving a colour and verisimilitude the show has not had before. The show is at its best when it focuses on these people’s day to day lives as social pariahs, and at its worse when it focuses on recycled (unscary) horror tropes.
I’m not scared by evil clowns or mentally ill mommy’s boys. The former is tired, and the latter looks like a punch down at mentally ill people (sadly consistent with this show’s spotty presentation of mental sickness and the health profession around it). The big evil this time around is the cruelty and callousness of “normal” people. The show is pre-occupied with how they are simultaneously fascinated yet disgusted by sideshow freaks. There is the potential to extend this to a meta-level by holding a mirror up to us, the audience. We too are still morbidly curious and voyeuristic about people’s physical deformities, to the point that we’d watch million dollar tv shows about them for entertainment. Having only seen the first half dozen episodes, the show is yet to indicate such a degree of self-awareness, and I’ll be quite worried if it doesn’t by the finish.
Freakshow is one of the better seasons of AHS, but it still has some awkward issues with taste. It also has some god awful musical numbers in it to put up with, and some really annoying background music that seems to consist entirely of an endlessly croaking frog. If you can tolerate those, it is a decent enough distraction.