American Horror Story: Freak Show

The fourth season of American Horror Story is not horror. If you want real horror, watch the first two seasons, or a little movie called The Conjuring.

That aside, let me get to the real meat of this review. What separates American Horror Story: Freak Show from some of its previous seasons is that, although it's riddled with gore, the creeping, invasive feeling of something lurking from behind the shadows is just not there. For whatever reason, they try and humanize the villains, giving them some sort of "evolutionary arc".

But if there's one thing we've learned from Star Wars, it's that when you show the origins of a villain, that character easily loses what makes them the most menacing-- their mystery. Darth Vader was goddamn terrifying before we saw his past. All we knew about him up 'til the '90s was his old name, and that his head looked like an egg. The rest was up to our imaginations... then we saw him as a little punk with a bowl cut.

As a kid, I felt like Jar Jar right here.

Another major problem with Freak Show is the musical numbers. I mean, Jesus-- I know it's by the same makers, but if I want to watch Glee, I'll watch Glee. I once had a girl insist on us watching that show together a few years back, and let me describe it for you now-- it's one hour of filler.

You probably know I wasn't a fan of American Horror Story: Coven, so if you're wondering why I'm watching this new season, it's because I've got a heart of gold and I always give people and things chances. Hell, I give too many (people and things) too many chances. That's because deep down, I expect everyone to try their hardest to do their best.

But it's clear by now that American Horror Story is nothing more to its makers than a nine-to-five grind. They under-utilize their cast, ignoring characters for episodes on end. Malcolm-Jamal Warner guest starred in the last episodes for mere seconds!

Aside from all that, the series is becoming way too meta, assimilating into pop-culture as a "must-be-iconic" show for being "edgy", caring less and less about the content they create. The show ignores major plot points for so long, the audience forgets and loses interest by the time they even tease at resolving them. The show is pretentious, predictable, and chickens out of killing characters by bringing them back to life, which Ryan Murphy (one of the producers) specifically said they would stop doing and I quote: "This season, once you die, you're dead. There's no supernatural thing to bring you back like last year."

Of course, being them, they resolved that little issue by bringing characters back as ghosts and even-- I can't believe I'm saying this-- projections from the minds of other characters.

Still, I am curious to know what happens next. I'm weird like that-- I still enjoy watching the show, even if it is mostly filler.