Me to Freak Show about two weeks ago.
"Displeased" is not a strong enough word.
I think I mentioned how wary I was of this season when its theme was announced because of various reasons. However, the thing managed to win me over - not completely, but a good deal - with Twisty the clown and my second favorite scum of the earth* Dandy Mott. Their B-plot was so much more interesting than whatever was going on in the A-plot at any given moment; I barely cared what happened at the freak show but I was overly invested in the events at the Mott mansion.
Oddly enough, it wasn't until Dandy found Twisty's bus and joined him that he really caught my attention for himself. I was watching for Twisty and thought Dandy was going to be obnoxious and another boring character. Then when the girl ran into him in the woods as she was escaping the bus, I thought he was going to help her and be the hero of the story, because predictability is a key feature of this show.
Of course, Dandy proceeded to sling her over his shoulder and carry her right back to the bus with the homicidal clown, and I remember thinking "this just got interesting." His exact line was "You're going to have to do a much better job of confinement if we're going to have any fun." Thus 1950s Patrick Bateman was born.
Then they killed Twisty two episodes later, which pissed me off; why hype this killer clown so much if he's not even in half the season? But Dandy was still around, and somehow he became the best-written, most fascinating character of the season (and possibly of the entire show, if you ask me).
Before I go any further, I will admit that I think Finn Wittrock is very attractive, A+, 10/10, would watch in pretty much anything. But that's not why I liked Dandy so much; I liked him because he was literally the only one with any development whatsoever.
For everyone else, there was nothing. Even with their secrets and back stories, there was nothing about any of them that made me interested. I liked the actors well enough and there were moments where each character shone, but overall? Beyond their physical appearances, there was no meat to the vast majority of the cast. I was barely upset when most of them died because the show never gave me a reason to be upset. Oh, Amazon Eve is dead? What a shame; I really enjoyed those 20 minutes of screen time she had.
The show also has a problem of introducing too many characters and doing nothing with them. I loved Neil Patrick Harris' character (I nicknamed him Neil Sander Patrick Harris Cohen because of his uncanny resemblance to the Bioshock character) but he was used very, very poorly and introduced far too late. Why was Pepper even in this season? She served no purpose.
The penultimate episode set up the finale to be incredible, but the finale itself was a huge disappointment. We're just not going to acknowledge the fact that Dandy found Stanley with all his limbs cut off? We're going to have everything wrap up nice and neat with a little bow on top? We're going to follow the same exact pattern as the other seasons?
Obviously I'm pissed about them killing Dandy. Not that he didn't deserve it - he was an absolute bastard - but just once I'd like to see the villain get away with it on this show. It would shake up the viewers and keep them interested instead of falling into the same pattern over and over. That gets boring, just like typecasting your actors.
Ideally I would have liked to see Dandy win the Game of Thrones, but there was never really any chance of him getting out alive. This is American Horror Story. Still...I could dream.
The pseudo-epilogue, where we saw the surviving freaks watching Elsa's show in what we can guess are normal 1950s lives, really got on my nerves. Jimmy and the twins had a contrived romance to begin with and I really, really don't think they would logically have ended up together. Desirée's boyfriend was barely even introduced so I don't care about them together at all.
I think horror is an inherently tragic genre; very rarely do we get truly happy endings. There's always another monster or killer, always more danger. Victories are short and often Pyrrhic. American Horror Story seems to think that everyone has to have a happy ending, except the bad guys who are punished, always, without fail. Changing the show's theme once a year isn't going to be enough; the team needs to change other aspects too. Like maybe not casting Jessica Lange as a total bitch for once. I'd like to see her as the kindly grandma while someone like Sarah Paulson or Lily Rabe took over the "villain" role.
I'd also love for Finn Wittrock to come back; he carried this season and he carried it well. I wouldn't necessarily mind seeing him in a role similar to Dandy, but I'm afraid they'll typecast him and he won't get anything else on this show.
I'm just really disappointed in this season. I used to love AHS so much, but it's getting worse and worse. If Finn Wittrock and/or Jessica Lange aren't back for season five I don't know if I'll watch it.
And I didn't even touch on the awkward musical numbers. You're welcome.
I wish I could just copy and paste my entire Twitter rant here, but it's very incoherent and I was very angry while tweeting it. I think this is the jist of it though. I'll try and have a review of the new Fall Out Boy album up soon, along with a review of the first Oscar nominee I watched, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
*In case you were wondering, my favorite scum of the earth is Hannibal's Mason Verger, formerly played by Michael Pitt and soon to be played by Joe Anderson. If there was ever a great time and character for an actor switch, this is it.
No comments:
Post a Comment