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I watched the show and I'm not quite sure what's being referred to. Are we talking about the "Dixie" moment?

Well everything this show does is offensive in its stupidity. I didn't see that scene as particularly out of keeping with the rest of the show.

I wouldn't say it's everything, it's just that what is clever is like buried treasure underneath all the garbage.

The new season of American Horror Story will focus on the 2016 election and will star Lena Dunham. Truly terrifying.

I read she's just in one episode.

A mass shooting sequence was cut from the broadcast version of this week's episode of AHS. An unedited version of the same episode will air on VOD and streaming platforms.

Season 8: Apocalypse is ramping up to be quite the crossover. Aside from the regular Paulson/Bates/Peters group, other notable returning cast members include Jessica Lange, Dylan McDermott, Connie Britton, Taissa Farmiga, Frances Conroy, Lily Rabe, and, yes, Stevie Nicks.

Even the return of the rubber suit and lines like "I haven't had this much fun since the Folsom Street Fair" aren't enough to bring me back.

Exciting to see that Joan Collins is joining the show!

colinr0380 wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 12:02 pm Exciting to see that Joan Collins is joining the show!

Been a bit of a disappointment, actually. No fault of her own, just given no characterization, cheap wigs, and assigned badly written “foul-mouthed old bitch” dialogue. Ryan Murphy’s writers must get bonuses based on how many profanities-substituting-for-wit they can get their actors to say.

Honestly, though, I detest this show and always have. I’m only watching this season because my husband is interested in Apocalypse narratives, but it feels particularly cheap and tossed-off, like every script is a first draft. It’s particularly galling to watch gifted actors like Sarah Paulson, Jessica Lange, and Kathy Bates trying to hold scenes together opposite wooden posts like Cheyenne Jackson, Emma Roberts, and Taissa Farmiga.

Which are damn damning words coming from someone with an Andy Milligan avatar!

"profanities-substituting-for-wit" is the best description of American Horror Story I've ever heard! And it applies both to the dialogues and to the, well, visual profanity that happens all the time. I watched the first four seasons back in college because everyone did (and so did a girl in which I was quite interested back then) but as soon as I graduated, I stopped watching it "cold turkey" and never went back. It's not even because of violence (hell, I watch a lot of war movies, in which violence tends to be present for some reason) but because it's butchery porn, blood and guts for the sake of blood and guts.
It's sad, because apocalyptic scenarios are a thing I usually like, be it in movies, books or games, but having the theme covered by AHS is like loving BBQ'd beef and be served a vegan version of it.

But let's be honest and recognise one undeniable merit of AHS: proving that no matter which story about ghosts, witches, cults or whatever they ame up with, nothing is as horrific as an ill-intentioned human.

New season looks interesting

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 12:46 am New season looks interesting

What looks interesting about it?

The kink factor, not going to lie

In what way? I'm genuinely curious for more specific signifiers that are compelling you to post about it

I still harbor resentment against this show for the hackneyed twist in the penultimate episode of the Hotel season, prompting me to bail before the finale in what may be the only example ever of me not finishing a TV show/movie- certainly that far along (...twelve hours of my life I can never get back). So if this new season is potentially doing something unique, I'd love to hear more about it

I’m just going by the ads to be honest, I stopped watching this show after the third season so I can’t really engage with you on anything that came after until these ads with these erotic and strange designs popping up as promotion.

Alright I guess I'll google the ads and make my own inferences then

I watched the first two episodes and it feels like more of the same AHS to me. My problem with the series is each season starts strong but struggles to sustain itself for the rest of the run. I think American Horror Stories, the episodic spinoff, is a lot stronger because it plays to the writers' strengths - high concept horror, cardboard cutout characters that don't overstay their welcome.

I'd also recommend Murphy's American Crime Story over this series, and I usually avoid docudramas like the plague. I think it helps that the characters didn't originate from Murphy's writers' room and are just exaggerated versions of historical figures.

It's not easy for me to compliment this series or Murphy, but I've always admired his audacity to messily tinker with interseason storylines in American Horror Story, seemingly without inhibition. The mid-season pivots are almost never fruitful, and seasons wind up feeling about five episodes too long (because they're essentially two or more arcs incongruously sewn together, forcing a flow into sidewinding narratives we didn't sign up for and wouldn't have bothered to if advertised), but there's something enticing about how boldly he breaks the rules and issues surprises (i.e. killing off main villains at the halfway mark, unveiling new horrors not primed until they're revealed) that has lured me into finishing seasons and signing up for more the next year- each time to increasingly disappointing returns (what's the definition of insanity again?) That was, until Hotel's ultimate derivative twist took down the house of cards, and I was freed from the cycle of engaging with a mirage of creativity

I think I've finished four of the show's seasons yet I haven't missed the premieres of any of them (horror will always be a draw for me, no matter how poorly it's executed). I thought the summer camp season was really strong since it was just playing with different tropes and Murphy & co. didn't change up the dynamic much from the start. I agree that the seasons are always a few episodes too long. There's always a late season twist but then the writers run out of ideas of where to take things next and it comes to a drawn-out unsatisfying conclusion.

That's why I think American Crime Story works better. Those seasons are as historically accurate as one could hope for (the grand jury testimony for the Clinton season was lifted straight from the transcript) so the writers' hands are tied as to where they can take things.

I think their narrative winding and curious yet mind-boggling squeezing of ideas worked really well in the Asylum series, which is the only great one. The carnival one, on the other hand, was a total head-scratcher that decided to abandon John Carroll Lynch in favor of a lame NPH storyline