American Horror Story: Freak Show Thoughts? — Page 8

American Horror Story: Ryan Murphy

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I'm with Phyllis--I thought the early episodes showed some promise--certainly more than Covens, but I just caught up (while doing some work) on the last three episodes and the show absolutely has gone on to have too many characters with not enough story (or at least story beats played out,) that I could care less. Why are the twins still more or less acting as stupid with Elsa as ever? Ryan Murphy's new fat girl storyline is playing out as badly as one would expect such a story from Murphy, and I'm having to suspend disbelief too much even for a show like this (I mean it just happens that the cop is so corrupt that in one split second he'll accept a bribe from someone he has no reason to trust to even fulfill and just admitted to killing a ****load of people.) Dell's stuff is just a huge mess (he goes from instantly feeling redeemed and bonding with his son to not caring that the kid is wandering around drunk for what seemed like days, to suicide attempt that again seemed to be about his "freak" shame of being gay and not, oh, the fact that he caused a doctor to kill himself, and killed Ma Petite.) I have no idea if Murphyt hinks we are now suddenly supposed to be sympathetic to Emma Roberts' character. Nobody seems to question why this Hollywood Agent seems to constantly be hanging around and not actually doing anything for Elsa, bla bla.

Really though, why do I bother asking any of these questions.

With as little plot as the show has this season, and as self-referential as Ryan Murphy has become, I can't help but wonder how much of a Glee in-joke the character of Dandy is. Glee has long been criticized for (among hundreds of other things) suddenly and abruptly moving Blaine (who appears to be Murphy's own Marty Stu stand-in most of the time) to secondary lead, axing other characters and plot lines left and right to feature him more. So now, we have a character who looks not so much like Darren Criss as like the character Darren Criss plays, acts like him, dresses like him, and is literally murdering the more plot-centric characters left and right as he consumes the show. Given that Murphy's standard response to criticism is to satirize the problems people point out, and then make them even bigger and more intentional, it's hard to read Dandy as anything other than a "**** you, I do what I want" moment.

I'm pretty much done with this season already.

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^ Yes,we thought with all of the attention Stanley's junk was getting it was most likey heading to the museum.

Best episode of the season, so far. Heartbreaking, actually.

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So, wait... we're supposed to believe that Elsa makes it to Hollywood and actually becomes a star?

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what a heartbreaking episode!!

Naomi Grossman killed it as Pepper and Mare Winninghame was an absolut riot. The final part seemed from a completely different show (and it's obvious why) but was among the best this season. and ****ing Lily Rabe!! she's so amazing and I missed her so much on this show.

as for the "freak show storyline", Angela Bassett stole every scene she was in and see Emma Roberts trying to keep up with her is just sad. I'm sorry, but it is! I hope Angela Basset gets some recoginition come Emmy time, even though her best scenes are in later episodes.

and what's up with this season and spoiler-ish endings? on one hand it build suspense and it works, but on the other it's just too much spoiler! (isn't it?)

Well, at least Murphy finally did right by Naomi Grossman and gave her one hell of an acting showcase. It had zero to do with the season, which isn't that much of a tragedy, but at least it was involving thanks to Grossman and Lily Rabe. And not to mention Mare Winnigham was chewing as much scenery as humanly possible, which never hurts.

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In one way, it was a great episode. In another way, it was the worst episode of the entire series. It's all of a sudden a heartbreaking family drama series? Everyone loves Pepper and Naomi is an amazing person so I'm thrilled she got the chance to really act her ass off in this, but c'mon. This has NOTHING to do with this season. I can't roll my eyes back in my head far enough.

Well that was a TERRIBLE episode. At least Murphy found a part for Jamie Brewer (a ventriloquist dummy? *really*?)

And I thought Dandy had given up on the twins and instead was just focused on killing everyone? Oh well.

...two episodes left. sigh.

There was incredible skill deployed in Twisty's final episode, letting the audience see what brought him and us to such a horrible place. It was terrific. But it was the climax of the season and they still had so many episodes to go.

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How is it there are 2 episodes left and there are so many unresolved things and, worse, no clear overall arc for the season?

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