American Horror Story: Cult - Season Review
ATTENTION! SPOILERS FOR AHS: CULT FOLLOW! BEWARE!
AHS: Cult Overall Rating - 6/10 Stars
My original thought this season was “Hey, maybe they actually thought it through this time.” But AHS: Cult is business as usual, give all the heavy lifting to the strongest actor and hope for the best. The rest will figure itself out, right? Wrong. So, how can you expect a show that peaked in it’s 3rd season find a revival in it’s 7th?
Ryan Murphy proved to have a few good ideas for AHS: Cult:
Like the terrifying world we live in. Capitalizing on the division of the country seemed a bit dark, even for AHS… At least that’s what I thought at first. But fear in the real world embodied by the Trump v Hillary divided nation turned out to be more captivating than Roanoke and Hotel, which was a win for me.
Then there’s Evan f*cking Peters. His ability to embody a charismatic cult leader, a psychopathic killer, and a human being in pain all in the span of 45 minutes kept this season alive. A big part of the reason I continued watching was to see him play Charles Manson in the penultimate episode, and he did not disappoint. That being said, one character can’t carry a whole show. And he didn’t…
There was a surprising performance this season from Billie Lord, who’s impressive introduction as cold-hearted Winter showed me she’s a great addition to the cast. Reading her was impossible, which contributes tremendously to keeping the mystery alive - something I believe thrives within the horror genre’s once trailblazing series. I hope she comes back next year.
But should I even watch next year? Along with those good ideas came some pretty bad ones…
Like Sarah Paulson’s role this year I could really do with out. Her performance as Dot/Bette in Freakshow and Billie Dean Howard in Asylum were unlike any other I’ve seen before. Compare that to this season, where she just… screams; then does something stupid and cries about the consequences. I understand her role wasn’t written as strongly as her past seasons, but please actually give me reason to want your character to live? That’s up to you as an actress. Then to top it all off, when Ally seemed to be getting her life together, it turns out she was just turning into the person she spent all season defying. Great way to cement my opinion that she’s a piece of shit.
Or how about the issue that seems to happen through out the whole series: the writers seem to forget about terror and fear, and become wrapped up in the convoluted characters’ storylines. Once those clown masks came off it became a slasher show again. And I understand wanting to create ambiance around Kai’s cult by referencing others from the past, but did we really need an entire episode devoted to the conspiracy of the women behind the Zodiac killer? Probably not. Especially when it wasn’t all that scary in the first place. I had high hopes that the finale would bring the show full circle, but once again I was disappointed.
Have I gone back and forth enough for you? Good. Then you probably feel how I did after watching this season. Sometimes it was good, others it held the exact same pitfalls that continually derail the show. They did a better job at scaring me than in recent years, but they still weren’t able to bring it home.
So where does this leave AHS: Cult? Overall I’d say it’s ranked #4 out of all the seasons. In my opinion, the list goes… 1. Asylum 2. Murder House 3. Coven 4. Cult 5. Freakshow 6. Hotel 7. Roanoke But regardless of how good viewers found this season, FX has already signed on through season 9. I just hope the next two years are higher on this list.
Photos courtesy of FX
