American Horror Story: The horror of returning characters

Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story (AHS) has returned for its eighth season and it promises a massive crossover between season one (Murder House) and season three (Coven). But is this really a crossover or just a series of references and guest stars?

Due to the fragmented narrative of this season so far, I think it’s better to think about the first six episodes in two sections, the apocalypse (episodes one-three) and before the apocalypse (episodes four-six). The first three episodes are excellent pieces of television, with a return to form for AHS after last year’s disappointing Cult season. Episode two features some amazing plot twists that really turn the suspected narrative on its head; from a brutal surprise murder to a reveal that one character is actually a robot, the plot twists are random and amazing.

The first three episodes also create some of the best AHS characters in years from Evan Peters’ hairstylist Mr. Gallant and his cold hearted, delightfully evil grandmother (Joan Collins), to the villainous Miss Venable (Sarah Paulson) who punishes any form of intercourse with death purely to mess with the survivors’ heads, and two lovers (Kyle Allen and Ash Santos) who cannot be together due to Miss Venable’s dictatorship.

All characters are given extensive backstories and the plot develops as a psychological drama during their torture in the bunker by Miss Venable; for the first time in a few seasons these characters are actually likeable. This makes episode three’s shock twist even more heartbreaking – the entire cast is wiped out by Michael Langdon (Cody Fern), which completely destroys all the characterisation and plot points that have been building over the first three episodes and almost renders them slightly pointless.

Audiences loved what was essentially a character drama driven by its cast and I think with recent seasons, this sense of character has been lost.

At this point, the season returns in episode long flashbacks to before the apocalypse even happened, and perhaps the season should have been called ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse + Emma Roberts goes back to Murder House’. We are reintroduced to season three’s witches as they have their first meeting with Michael Langdon after he is adopted by a coven of male witches. This is where the series begins its jigsaw puzzle style attempt to fit together four separate seasons into one coherent plot. It attempts this by using as many references and calls back to previous seasons as possible, from bringing back guest stars such as Gabourey Sidibe to reprise her role as Queenie, to returning to season five’s setting of the Hotel Cortez and simply repeating well quoted dialogue from previous seasons.

Quite frankly, all these puzzle pieces struggle to co-exist and fit together. It seems like Murphy has favoured referencing previous seasons and returning to fan-favourite material over writing a plot that actually makes much sense. The returning characters don’t really do anything and seem to hinder the flow of the plot rather than actually contributing towards furthering it.

Even in relation to episode six in which Murder House finally returns, the crossover seems to struggle to juggle the overwhelming amount of material it is tasked with returning to. Firstly, the word crossover should be used lightly as only Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts) from season three actually crosses over to season one, so this was never going to be the full blown crossover that fans were promised. Furthermore, the episode just seems like a return to a cast who don’t really want to be back: both Connie Britton and Jessica Lange return but they feature on screen for less than ten minutes.

The first three episodes are excellent pieces of television, with a return to form for AHS after last year’s disappointing Cult season.

It seems like these last three episodes have been Ryan Murphy’s unneeded farewell tour for all his previous seasons, Lily Rabe’s Misty Day is serenaded by Stevie Nicks as she disappears into the sunset only ten minutes after being pointlessly resurrected from Hell. All the small plot details from season one are resurrected as Tate and Violet get back together, Vivian and Ben get back together, Constance is reunited with her dead children and Frances Conroy’s maid is reunited with her mother. Murphy seems to be waving goodbye to all these characters in the space of a 40-minute episode and trying his best to dish out as many happy endings as he can. It’s just a shame the other 37 murder victims weren’t so lucky.

I think AHS was always so popular because of the different location of every season and I think with Apocalypse, Cult and even Roanoke, this location aspect of the show was lost. Murphy used to choose a setting and then build the characters into the setting, giving them their own horror tropes, which is why such fan-favourite material was created. Audiences loved what was essentially a character drama driven by its cast and I think with recent seasons, this sense of character has been lost. Hopefully the last four episodes will change my mind because, for all its faults, I’m still going to be watching AHS for many seasons to come.