Will’s Honest Opinion – Make AHS Great Again! – 9-20-17

Every year around this time I wait with great anticipation for what I already know is going to be a major disappointment. The premise always seems promising, and like so many other fans of the series, I was hooked from the first season, and have hungered for more ever since. My once piqued interest, has slowly succumb to the now despondent airings I can only recognize for what I once remembered it for, and not what I currently hope it could be. Unfortunately, much like any franchise born from good intent, when jetted passed it’s first 2-3 entries, a malaise wears in. The series tends to devolve into a sensationally dull and lackluster outing; perpetually becoming more and more disparate with every new iteration.  Creativity makes way for monotony, and much like the film, ‘Multiplicty’, a copy of a copy strays further away from the original. The current version is now a mocking reminder of how great things used to be, and therefor, virtually unrecognizable by comparison. The show I’m talking about is ‘American Horror Story’, and it may be time for this show to finally give up the ghost.

I realized after starting up the newest season, ‘Cult’,  that there is a real problem with the show, and it’s fix isn’t much of a chore if done right. Pleasing the carping critics of passed seasons, the show can easily tweak a few story structure points and bring the show back to life again. The simple script writing dos and don’ts that show-runner and co-writer, Ryan Murphy could (in line with this season’s theme) use to “make AHS great again” are easy to implement.

To begin, let me start with why ‘AHS’ has gone from good, to bad, to terrible.

Season 1, offered one major element none of the other seasons attempted to, (at least not convincingly.) The first season has the ‘everyman’ character. Not just one either; but three. Dylan McDermott, Connie Britton, and Taissa Farmina round out the cast of a newly relocated family, trying desperately to start over in a new town. This works because there is literally a character for almost any audience member to identify with. If you don’t like one, you can skip to the next, and the momentum of a continuous narrative is never broken. Because these characters are grounded, the audience stays grounded with them. When something odd happens to one character, they have another grounded character to relay and relate to. (And so does the audience.) This is incredibly important when establishing a tone for a show; especially a show that is as over-the-top, and bat-shit crazy as ‘AHS’. Having established relatable leads also helps position the viewer in the viewpoint of it’s protagonists. While watching anything, general audiences need to feel engaged. Their own self reflective account of said events should seem identifiable should the viewer be presented with such possibilities in their life. This effect is impossible if the main characters of the show are all psychos, or marginalized to remedial side characters who are never around when the plot shifts or thickens. Inciting incidents for garish loud mouths tend to fall upon deaf ears.

There is another issue plaguing the scriptwriters of FX’s pseudo scare soap. A clear dilemma that restrains every season, (including the first), is an indolent and sometimes outright terrible job of relaying to the viewer exactly what the point is. An overarching plot needs to be established in the first episode of any season, of any show, ever.

Season One of  ‘AHS’ can skimp by, if only because the main characters are so strong, the slow burn of the reveal becomes playful.

And then season 2-7 happened…

Season Two, ‘Ayslum’ sort of gets there… eventually, but it’s difficult to determine who the main characters are early on, so the plot becomes muddled.

However, Season Three, ‘Coven’ actually lays out it’s thread upfront and the most efficiently. In the first episode it’s established that this is going to be a Hamlet-esque scenario that sees the players contending for succession of the new top Witch.  However, after the set-up, it gets murky. It then prolongs certain plot points, and takes too long to make good use of it’s time. (Like that Halloween special…)

Seasons 4 and 5, are a hot mess with no clear direction.

Moving forward, Season 6, ‘Roanoke’ dives back to the show’s roots and aims for a more grounded approach, but that attempt becomes detached when the characters in the show are played by “actor” counterparts for a “TV show” within the show. It’s a clever idea, but falls into ‘Blair Witch 2’ territory by trying to be too clever for it’s own good. By the time we know what the point is, we just spent a slew of episodes following a gaggle of characters we’ll never see again.

For comparison, every season of ’24’ opened with it’s initial threat in the first 15 minutes of the first episode of the each new season. This threat may change as the show moves into it’s mid-season arc, but the basis for the plot is revealed early on. ‘AHS’ almost never does this, and when it does, it’s so nebulous, it’s frustrating to sit through. It starts to feel as though time is being wasted with every new episode, especially if it nullifies the previous one. Even binge watching barely helps, because the initial ‘want’ to understand is sidelined by the sheer lack of coherent communication with it’s audience. The narrative becomes confusing, and if you don’t have strong, rational, normal, grounded characters to go on that journey with initially, you lose interest. Nobody wants to watch a show where the main character sees lunatic clowns and cries all the time. It becomes irritating and tedious.

Now that’s not to say that ‘American Horror Story’ and it’s various seasons have no plot whatsoever. It just shouldn’t take 5, 6 or 7 episodes to get there is all.

And this brings us back to Season 7, ‘Cult’. Not to go into too many spoilers, but so far it’s been 3 episodes and all we know is the nanny is nuts, the dysfunctional lesbians are having marriage problems because one is a complete psycho, and the couple across the street has no problem with nosey neighbor kids and blood stained walls. There are no grounded normal characters to follow. The chef restauranteur wife comes close, but she’s clearly the appendage of Sarah Paulson; Paulson’s character, who checked out of reality the night of Trump’s election win. (Which is scene 1 in episode 1 by the way.) There are some other characters to follow, but again, it never attempts to connect with it’s viewers. Instead it plays follow the lunatic leader as it guides it’s viewers down a path of red herrings and nonsensical horror tropes. “Clowns are scary”, because… sure…

In order for a show to maintain relevance and quality, it needs to uphold the previous season’s standards with whatever is the most current of it’s incarnations. It has to reach the same heights as before, if not more so as the show matures. If everyone’s favorite season or storyline was in a show’s first few years, and it can’t continue to produce interesting narratives, it’s time to either find a new show-runner or move on completely. This doesn’t mean a show isn’t allowed to have a few missteps along the way. Every show or movie series has lesser versions of itself in it’s catalogue. Season 3 of ‘The Sopranos’ is awful, but once it found it’s footing, it went on to be one of the best shows to date. With that said, I’m not too sure if ‘AHS’ will be so lucky. The series’ continual gaffs may relegate it to nothing more than a passé pastime; unless we’re all actually anxiously awaiting to one day see FX’s burlesque version of the Chernobyl disaster.

-Will Valle