American Horror Story Freakshow takes its final bow

Just  clowning around...

This ‘Freakshow’ is surprisingly mundane and the only horror is in the writing.

 

Another season of American Horror Story has come to an end. This year’s Freakshow continues a steady decline that began last season. The show still has its quirks, its moments that makes it fun, trashy television but this year felt slightly neutered. Whether this was through the budget or just storytelling is hard to tell. The season started off promising enough with Sarah Paulson playing the two-headed Bette/ Dot and John Carroll Lynch (who I will always see as Drew Carey’s cross-dressing brother from The Drew Carey Show) as the bed-wettingly scary Twisty the Clown. This year had the potential to be something truly dark and deserving of the “horror” moniker. Even the musical number that began this season (David Bowie’s “Life on Mars”) was fun and didn’t seem as forced as last year’s weird Stevie Nicks music video. Somewhere between that enticing start and this week’s finale the show lost its way.

Generally the characters this season were by and large terrible people.

Where last season people said the show lacked any real consequences, once multiple characters have come back from the dead it is hard to care about what happens to them, this season seemed to over correct by killing someone every episode. The problem though was the writers never took the time to let us like any of these people before they killed them off. Generally the characters this season were by and large terrible people. Just about everyone either murdered or aided in the murder of someone over the course of the show but no one ever showed any remorse or regret over it. When those same people meet a bloody, violent death it’s hard to feel sorry for them.

The writers were too busy tying past seasons into this one to develop the characters.

A few times we’re given people to feel bad for but here again, they aren’t fleshed out, they’re two-dimensional props and we are being forced to care about them. Two examples of this were Meep “the geek” and Ma Petite, the “worlds smallest woman.” We were supposed to care about these two because they’re weak, they’re cute, and they … well we never really knew anything else about them so that’s it. The show used their characters as superficially and selfishly as a freak show would. Maybe if we had gotten some real back story or some more interaction it would be easier to care for them instead of because we’re told to do so. While we weren’t getting background on characters who were important to the plot, the writers were busy tying past seasons into this one. For the first time this year we have confirmation that all the seasons take place in the same world. One of the Nuns from Asylum came and we see how Pepper the pinhead ended up there. So now that we’ve had “Pepper Begins,” an Avengers-style crossover must be next right? But really unless there are further plans to expand on this, what was the point other than to confuse people while taking important time away that they could use to flesh out their characters?

It wasn’t just the lack of connection to characters that took away this year; the effects work was all over the place. The “twins” Dot and Bette were especially hit and miss, while having a two-headed character is going to be challenging, and to their credit many different methods were employed to achieve it, the results were mixed. Moments where they shot the heads separately juxtaposing their personalities to one another started off as clever, even entertaining, but there’s only so many scenes you can have ping ponging between shots of two heads coming from the same torso before it gets tired. Scenes that used CG and practical effects went from the completely convincing to laughably bad, more than once a shot from behind clearly showed one head bobbling on a rubbery neck.

Finn Wittrock’s strong performance should secure him a place in future installments of the series.

On a more positive note there were some great visuals this season. The freak show itself came off like a Tim Burton fever dream and the opening credits sequence this season might be the creepiest yet. The aforementioned Twisty was a terrifying clown design and whenever he was on screen he stole the show. The only negative was how quickly they resolved his story. It would have been nice to have him throughout the season. Then there is Dandy the rich psycho. He was basically a murderous seersucker wearing  version of Blaine from Ryan Murphy’s other show “Glee.” If any one character had to be labeled this season’s “Big Bad” it would probably be him. He got to be the creepy momma’s boy, a psychotic apprentice, as well as a spoiled brat. Outside of freak show owner Elsa Mars, Dandy is probably the character we spend the most time with and learn the most about this season. It would be surprising if Finn Wittrock, who plays Dandy, doesn’t become one of their recurring actors in future seasons after such a strong performance this year.

So many good ingredients make it such a shame that the end product was so lacking. A fantastic cast, great guest stars, plus a weird twisted setting but there just wasn’t enough focus to have things come together. As quickly as plotlines and characters were introduced another plot is wrapped up neatly and another character is killed. One week the local townsfolk hate the freaks, the next week they cheer one as a hero, but wait! The week after that they hate the freaks again. Last season might have been a little too generous on resurrections but it still had fleshed out characters who felt like real, though out there, people.

Let’s just hope they can make a return to form next year.

Seasons one and two of American horror Story were fantastic,  season three was pretty damned good, and now season four is just ok. Hopefully next year creators Falchuk and Murphy can stop or reverse the drop in quality or else American Horror Story will end up like their other collaborations Nip/Tuck and Glee, shows that peaked early but then dragged on until they became parodies of themselves. It’s still fun to watch, which is more than can be said of a lot of shows, but where it used to be well written trashy fun it’s just plain trashy fun now. With the format of a new story and set of characters every year, a turnaround is easy to manage. Let’s just hope they can make a return to form next year.

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Photo Credit: FX

5 Comments on “American Horror Story Freakshow takes its final bow

  1. Who is this critic and what did he watch?? He is so wrong and represents perfectly what is wrong w/ the basic concept of professional criticism! I thought AHS Freakshow was amazing!! Brave, unique and only possible in America!! To achieve that quality of acting, writing and effects on a weekly TV show is mind bogglingly difficult and its a shame that some wet blanket critic is allowed to hyper criticize and split hairs on something that is meant as casual, escapist entertainment!!!! That critic couldn’t pull off a show of that quality w/ all the time and money in the world!! I despise critics like that!! Thank you AHS for a fun ride and I look forward to next year w/ bated breath!!!!

  2. I agree with Kevin…. I understand the characters and how they made the show complete. There are a few points where it seems like the critic was watching with his eyes shut-lol. My favorite one so far was the Coven season, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed each series and can’t wait until the next begins-and also, Jessica Lange is an AMAZING actress. (One more very important thing not to be forgotten ….She has absolutely gorgeous legs!!!)

  3. I tend to agree with the critic here as it relates to the likeability of the characters; for the most part they were all pretty evil as opposed to evil “happening to them”. So when they get killed off it isn’t particularly epic.

    Still love the show…

  4. I agree with Kevin and Jim. What does “Glee” actually have to do with “Freakshow? What was so hard to understand about the characters? All of the writer’s allusions seemed to come from a young and shallow person with no understanding of the history of freaks. Maybe the writer is better at covering shows like ” American Idol “.

  5. What in the world was Brandon Coulson (Critic) watching??? It sure wasn’t American Horror Story: Freak Show. I had never watched a single episode of A.H.S. before this latest season. Not because I didn’t want to, I just never really had an opportunity to. But, when I watched Ms Paulson during an interview on the TODAY Show last Fall and she described her “Bet & Dot” two-headed freak character, well, let’s just say….I was intrigued to tune-in and see what this “Freak Show” had to offer. And, am I GLAD that I did!!! What a stellar cast of actors and actresses! From the wonderful Jessica Lange to the amazing Kathy Bates and everyone else. The storylines gripped me from the very first episode and I couldn’t hardly wait for each new episode. The truth of the matter is, this type of “Freak Show” really did exist back in the day. Can you imagine just how estranged, lonely, outcast and full of pain these freak show performers must have felt? I can, thanks to the somewhat truthful storylines of the A.H.S. “Freak Show” series. I even had my husband watching it….which is a difficult task considering that he basically only watches ESPN Sports Center!! Now, I can’t hardly wait for the next season of American Horror Story to begin. I say, bravo & well-done to American Horror Story: Freak Show!!!

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