I was positive at the beginning. The first episode was pretty decent.
Sorry my opinion is different from yours. And it's not like I'm spamming the thread. I comment once every week or two, after actively watching the show.
Sure, but when you post just to bash the show with a sentence or two, what's the point? It's fine if you don't like this season, but popping in only to say how bad it is and speaking in generalities adds nothing at all to the conversation. I've at least attempted to explain why I like what this season is doing. It's not just "best season ever" or "yaaaaaaaaasss queen" from me.
Just caught last night's episode and my girlfriend and I seem to agree that this season, and the show as a whole, has gone completely off the rails.
What was once a solid, chaotic, blood soaked tribute to horror cinema that used occasional visceral imagery to shock and chill has become nothing more than a pretentious, confused mess of dropped plot threads, absurdity, and pathetic attempts at being "boundary pushing" which comes off about as edgy as the inside of a Hot Topic.
Dropped plot threads? In this season? Try this, just for fun: Pick any character and think of one to three side plots that involved them. Vampire kids, estranged relatives, a jilted lover, unrequited love, a murder mystery, a lost child, a strained marriage, etc. Now ask yourself first if the stories were suitable for the character based on their history and motives, and second whether they were resolved in a coherent way that didn't involve out of character behavior or a deus ex machina.
I would be very surprised if you could come up with anywhere near as many dropped storylines as any of the previous seasons, or more than a couple instances where someone behaved totally out of character.
I get that sexuality and gore was utilized heavily in the show as a way to honor those themes found so heavily in classic horror films, but it's gotten to the point of hilarity. This is perfectly highlighted in the
in the season premiere which made me roll my eyes and feel embarrassed not only in myself for watching but in the cast for having to participate in such an idiotic, desperate attempt to seem adult and mature.
Murder House had a guy get a poker rammed up his ass, rape, and a lot of other shit. Asylum had grotesque medical experiments, institutionalized abuse, and a lot of other shit. Coven had torture, tongue cutting, eye gouging, drowning, coercive incest, an off-screen bleach enema, and a lot of other shit. Freak Show had a guy get all his limbs chopped off, quite a few more vicious mutilations and murders, and a lot of other shit.
American Horror Story has always pushed the envelope in a somewhat tasteless way. I honestly don't see how Hotel is very much worse in terms of exploitative and gratuitous content than the other seasons, with the possible exception of Season 1.
Ever since Coven, it's clear that the show only has an interest in controversy and attracting the teenage audience that tweet shit like "Yes Gaga, slayyy queen!"
AHS aims for shock factor and crowd pleasing moments. Those are integral parts of its formula that recur in every season. It is not a highbrow show. It never was, even when it was more staid and less grisly in Murder House, or when it took on serious themes in Asylum.
More power to those who enjoy it, I suppose. To me, and most of my friends who watch the show who all seem to be in agreement, the show seems sad and desperate, like a cheap imitation of the original two seasons that begs to be taken serious by cramming in as much shock imagery and violent sex that FX would allow.
Sad and desperate? That sounds like projection to me. The actors seem to be having fun, and the show has never been more confident in its storytelling or style. What's sad and desperate about Liz Taylor's story of self-realization and human connection with her son, Tristan, and Iris? What's sad and desperate about Countess's story of love, tragedy, and murder? She started out a timid naïf and evolved into a formidable maneater, an icy femme fatale who was revealed to have a carefully guarded core of sentimentality and overwhelming loneliness. I could go on.
Unlike prior seasons, Hotel doesn't suffer from loads of random weirdness crowbarred in without rhyme or reason. Hotel dabbles in many genres and subjects, and involves an equally diverse range of characters with strange quirks and conditions, but it's all organized, connected, and (word of the day) coherent. Vampire school children? Tied directly to the Countess, her choice to turn Alex, and Alex's profession. Drilldo demon? Tied to the hotel's murderous owner (who was established early on as a psychopomp of sorts who mentors murderers and has a certain affinity with supernatural evil), and Sally, whose emotional vampirism and predatory romantic entanglements have major consequences for other important characters. Don't forget, this is a world in which ghosts, witches, demons, and hell were already shown to exist in prior seasons. That a sex demon should show up and start attacking people isn't exactly a wild stretch in AHS's universe.
Again I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea.
Such a shame, but next season isn't getting my time. Not after three shitty seasons that have only gotten progressively worse.
P.S.
To those who will inevitably attack me for my negativity, I have the same right to voice my negative opinion as you do to express your positive opinions.
There's nothing wrong with negative opinions in themselves. I don't want anyone to be censored. It's just that when some posters are digging into the meat of the episodes while others are popping in week after week to take a runny dump all over the whole season without even suggesting alternatives or articulating an opinion of substance, the discussion is way less rewarding than it could be.
Even the True Detective Season 2 thread had some reasonably engaging conversations, because despite that season's almost universally negative reception, some viewers were taking the time to go further than labeling and dismissing. They talked about what the show was doing as a self-contained story, and in contrast to the previous season. They took the opportunity to develop and express well considered opinions that were worth reading.