Labels

-books -dates -Lists -Movies -Music -musicals and broadway 24 30 Rock 666 Park Avenue Alcatraz Alias America's Next Top Model American Horror Story American Idol Americans Are You There Chelsea? Arrested Development Arrow Awake Awkward Bates Motel Being Human Ben and Kate Bent Best Friends Forever Better with You Big Bang Theory Big Brother Big C Big Love Blue Bloods Boardwalk Empire Body of Proof Bones Borgias Boss Breaking Bad Breaking In Breaking Pointe Bridge Bunheads Camelot Carrie Diaries Charlie's Angels Chicago Code Chicago Fire Chuck Community Continuum Copper Cougar Town Cult Dark Tower Deception Defenders Degrassi Dexter Doctor Who Dollhouse Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 Downton Abbey Elementary Emily Owens MD Enlightened Episodes Event Fall Falling Skies Family Tree Felicity Finder Firefly Following Fosters Freaks and Geeks Friday Night Lights Friends Fringe Game of Thrones GCB Gifted Man Gilmore GIrls Girls Glee Glee Project Good Wife Gossip Girl Grey's Anatomy Grimm Hannibal Happy Endings Harry Potter Hart of Dixie Hawaii Five-O Hell on Wheels Hellcats Hemlock Grove Heroes Homeland House House of Cards House of Lies How I Met Your Mother How to Be a Gentleman How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) I Hate My Teenage Daughter In Treatment Intervention Jane by Design Jersey Shore Justified Last Man Standing Last Resort Life Unexpected Lone Star Longmire LOST Louie Lying Game Mad Men Make it or Break it Man Up Mindy Project Missing Mockingbird Lane Modern Family Mr Selfridge Napoleon Dynamite Nashville New Girl New Normal Nikita Nine Lives of Chloe King No Ordinary Family Off the Map Office Once Upon a Time Originals Outlaw Outsourced Pan Am Parenthood Parks and Recreation Perfect Couples Person of Interest Playboy Club Pretty Little Liars Prime Suspect Psych Raising Hope Real Housewives of New Jersey Revenge Revolution Ringer Rob Rookie Blue Running Wilde Saving Hope Scandal Scrubs Secret Circle Secret Life of the American Teenager Sex and the City Shameless Sherlock Smash So You Think You Can Dance Sons of Anarchy South Park Southland Suburgatory Supernatural Switched at Birth Teen Wolf Terra Nova The Fall The Fosters The Killing The River The Voice Touch true blood Twisted Two and a Half Men Two Broke Girls Under the Dome Unforgettable United States of Tara Up All Night V Vampire Diaries Veep Vegas Veronica Mars Walking Dead Web Therapy Weeds White Collar Whitney Whole Truth Wilfred Work It X-Factor X-Files Zero Hour

Thursday, December 13, 2012

American Horror Story- Season 2, episodes 7-9

By Rubenstein  Uploaded by MyCanon (Lily Rabe) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
At this point in the season, this show's ever-present problems are starting to wear on us. It's running too long, mostly because it's been in its climax almost the entire time. When you're always going 100 miles per hour on a show, it makes it hard to appreciate developments. We complain about build-up and quiet episodes, but we really do need a show to keep us at 20 mph before speeding up. You have to f***ing earn it, Ryan. If you want us to feel real horror, real devastation, and real fear, you have to work on us for a while, sit with us, introduce us to ideas, and THEN shoot your wad.



American Horror Story can't sustain this pacing because NO ONE can sustain this pacing and make anything besides loud, over-the-top schlock. This isn't a show we'd ever consider dropping though, because the acting and characters are too fun and it reboots every year. The yearly concept change breathes new life into AHS's tired body, making us curious to find out what Ryan Murphy thinks is scary this year.

We liked the angel of death, even though she's totally random. This season is too crowded. We've got angels, demons, aliens, serial killers, evil nuns, a Holocaust doctor, random psychos, and monsters. Come on. So when the angel of death showed up, we were like, "Fine, show. Fine. Just throw all the letter in the alphabet soup and stir. We'll eat it." Save some material for next year, why don't you? The Lana stuff in the last couple of weeks: Ugh.

We hate hate hate hate hate watching rape scenes and feel that they are unnecessary 99% of the time. We've probably seen or read hundreds of rape scenes in our time partaking of entertainment, and it isn't right. Then she had to get pregnant and try to kill the fetus with a coat hanger. We're 100% done with Lana and her plotline. It's too much, it's too sad, it's too hard to watch, and it's not handled with the sensitivity and humanity that should be afforded a character who went through what millions of women have had to go through. There's no way they could watch this show.

The biggest and most welcome surprise has been Sister Jude becoming a hero of sorts. From going after Arden, that chicken priest, and Eunice to apologizing to Lana, Jude is on the road to redemption. Well, as much as you can on this show. Since she started out so horrible, we were interested to see her turn into the protagonist, the biggest danger to the evil forces on this show, and the person we root for the most. The enemy of our enemy (our enemy being Nazis everywhere) is our friend. And Sister Jude is a complicated character.

As we and Israel Fernandez discussed in the comments of the Golden Globes post, Lily Rabe has been great this year. She's gotten all the best lines on the show, and she's managed to seem sexy while also being the worst. The Christmas episode was great mostly because of Lily trotting around being evil during the holidays, especially with her savage little tree. Ian McShane as the murderous Santa, Leigh, was pretty good. His performance would have been scene-stealing on any other show. But this show has so many big characters running around that Ian is going to be just another face in the insane asylum.

Grace is so pretty. Is she dead or did the aliens revive her? Since we expect everyone on this show to die a horrible death, her dying brought no emotion to us. There are no stakes. Since we saw her, pregnant, with Pepper (who the aliens made smart?!!), we guess she's probably not even dead. EVEN FEWER STAKES. But the show sure pushed the envelope with that crucifixion, right? Wrong. Before you can push the envelope, you have to put something into the envelope. For such a well-loved show, it sure is a shallow one. Howard totally deserved to die.

We loved seeing Brooke Smith last night as the therapist, but she was unfortunately killed off too soon. It's good to see her getting work though. She did a great job on Grey's Anatomy, even though no one liked her cold character. Kit is working with Arden to expose the aliens now? That doesn't seem like something anyone would actually do. Kit, what are you thinking? Is it just bad writing? We'll be back in January with the rest of you, because no matter how much this show is just an exercise in wasted potential, it's the train crash we can't look away from. And Lily Rabe. Yeah. Lily Rabe.

Dark Cousin: B-
Unholy Night: B
The Coat Hanger: C+

2 comments:

  1. I'm surprised to see the entire cast from the previous season are pulling off playing a different character. They all have a different feel!

    I think this season would have probably been better with a few more episodes to stretch out the show a little more.

    I don't know if I sent you this but it is the actress playing pepper
    http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BNjgyNTY0MTA5N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjEyMjM3OA@@._V1._SY314_CR48,0,214,314_.jpg

    I thought pepper really looked like pepper in real life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh wow, Pepper is beautiful. We'd heard they'd done quite the makeup job on her, but we hadn't seen the "before."

      Delete