American Horror Story: Apocalypse ✭✭✩✩✩
Are these the end times?
It’s always worth checking out the premiere of American Horror Story, being an anthology drama that can overhaul itself after any bad seasons. I watched the first five years of AHS but gave up halfway through season 6, Roanoke, which was experimental in terms of the format (being a show-within-a-show) but had little else to recommend it after a terrifying start. I also sampled some of season 7, Cult, which exaggerated current political concerns (government paranoia, mental health), but just seemed to lack a clear enough identity for me. And now, here comes Apocalypse, which appears to have the best and clearest “hook” of AHS since season 5’s “haunted hotel” setting: the end of the world.
Things begin promisingly, with an opening sequence that swiftly and dramatically introduces us to a range of characters you instantly understand because they’re loose stereotypes.
There’s preening airhead millionairess Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt (Leslie Grossman), her personal assistant Mallory (Billie Lourd), hairstylist Mr Gallant (Evan Peters), and Gallant’s glamorous grandmother Evie (Joan Collins, looking amazing for a woman of 85).
Coco receives a call informing her of an imminent nuclear missile strike, as the city descends into chaos around them as they all rush to a private jet before the bomb hits L.A.
Elsewhere, UCLA student Timothy Campbell (Kyle Allen) is taken away by members of a doomsday society called “The Cooperative”, because his DNA will be valuable in rebuilding humanity, where he meets a young woman called Emily (Ashley Santos) before they’re both transported to live inside Outpost 3. Unfortunately, this sanctuary’s run by the domineering Wilhelmina Venable (Sarah Paulson) and Miriam Mead (Kathy Bates), who run the outpost under a strict caste system: the privileged who paid $100M for a place here, or are genetically valuable, are termed “purples” and dress accordingly, while the servants are “greys” thankful not be outside dying in a nuclear winter.
There’s certainly some fun in this opening episode, “The End”, as it’s rare for any season of American Horror Story to begin on a dud note. It’s fast-paced, surprisingly funny considering the subject matter, there are some satirical swipes at modern society echoing the insane class system of Outpost 3, and obviously a few surprising moments. Although this is possible the tamest episode of AHS I can remember, perhaps because the idea fuelling the story is so preposterous and illogical it’s difficult to take seriously.
When you’re dealing with haunted places and murderers, it’s easier to make that stuff scary, but because Apocalypse brushes up against reality it makes things difficult to swallow. Maybe this is why the obvious place for AHS to go next, outer space, never seems to be arrived at. Co-creators and writers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk don’t have much time for the level of realism it would require, and that slightly eats away at Apocalypse.
Another notable thing about this season is that I knew it would be combining elements of the first season (Murder House) and third season (Covenant). The obvious link is that Outpost 3 is clearly the all-girls private school that was secretly teaching young girls to become witches, so the show has returned to that New Orleans location at some point in the future. I was waiting for something from Murder House to pop up but missed how one mysterious visitor to the outpost, Michael Langdon (Cody Fern), is the son of Tate Langdon (Evan Peters) and Vivien Harmon (Connie Britton) from the first season of AHS.
Sorry, but it’s been seven years since AHS began and I don’t rewatch episodes, so I had no idea about this connection. I have a feeling I’m not alone, but the two seasons will presumably connect in more obvious ways eventually because Britton and Dylan McDermott are reprising their roles as the married couple who bought a haunted house. Other characters from those seasons will also be coming back, as Taissa Farmiga, Gabourey Sidibe, Emma Roberts, Lily Rabe, Frances Conroy, Stevie Nicks, and — most excitingly — original MVP Jessica Lange, are set to recur on Apocalypse.
So if you’re really into this show and haven’t been shaken by the less assured Roanoke and Cult stories, the eighth season is going to be providing a lot of fan-service. But that’s maybe a sign the show needs to end soon. It’s already used up the best horror tropes and setting (well, apart from Space), and now we’re in a situation where seasons are becoming patchworks of other seasons and characters are to be recycled.
AHS has always provided fun connections between the seasons, meaning the whole show is taking place in the same fucked up universe, but it’s reached the point where the show has started to eat itself.
None of that would be an issue if AHS could still do what it was once surprisingly good at doing: scaring you. It never sent me to bed for a nightmare or two, but there were some indelibly grotesque and psychologically troubling moments in the first five seasons. The closest thing we came to in “The End” was a naked man being shot in the head after a decontamination shower, but it was otherwise an episode more geared around being darkly humorous. Maybe it was a more lighthearted start so as not to scare any newcomers away, or we’re just becoming accustomed to things that might have given us chills when AHS began. Or maybe the writers have started to feel that this ensemble is fun to write for, and they have less appetite to go for the jugular.
Cast & Crew
writers: Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk.
director: Bradley Buecker.
starring: Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Adina Porter, Billie Lourd, Leslie Grossman, Cody Fern, Emma Roberts, Cheyenne Jackson & Kathy Bates.
