This time around, American Horror Story took a slightly different approach to its season. Instead of one ten-episode season, that in years past has puttered out by the end, they split it into two distinct storylines. Hence the title, Double Feature, for the season.
In it’s first “chunk,” American Horror Story more specifically named itself Red Tide. Appropriate, since there was a lot of blood. Maybe even for AHS standards. An young family moves up to Provincetown to be by the sea in the dead of winter. They go because it’s quiet and Harry needs to get a script done, while his wife, Doris is hired to redecorate the house they are staying in. Meanwhile, their daughter Alma, strives to be the best violinist. The main theme of this first half of the season seems to represent the lengths that people will go to in order to be the best their is. In this scenario, some creepy writers (played deliciously by Evan Peters and Francis Conroy), give Harry a black pill that will help him achieve all of his greatness in record time. The only caveat is that he will need to consume human blood in order for it all to work out. There was a very nasty scene involving some ground beef before he figured it out.
Another caveat to this pill is that your truly need to have talent for it to work. That explains all the zombie-like crawlers around town. It’s clear someone in this main cast was going to be doomed to that fate, but Alma sealed her mother’s when she egged her on to take the pill. Let me just tell you what, that little girl was the freaking worst! Her and Harry’s assistant, Ursula, sadly make it to the end of this tale, and Ursula ultimately wants to bring these pills to market, regardless of who it does or doesn’t work for. She wants the best talent and is willing to ruin people’s lives for it. Overall though, this is perhaps American Horror Story’s best outing since Asylum (in my opinion).
The next half of this season was named Death Valley, and expertly flashed between Eisenhower’s time as president along with some present-day twenty-somethings. What they both have in common are aliens. Really deadly and relentless aliens. They first show up to Eisenhower and ask him to help them create a new hybrid race so they can survive. While he struggles in each episode about what to do, his hand is basically forced from the get-go. In exchange for his willingness to help, the aliens provide us with new technologies, like TV dinners and the microwave. It was fun to see what all inventions and major events (like landing on the moon) they attributed to the aliens. It turns out Eisenhower’s wife, Mamie, sort of sucked. I don’t know if she did in real life, but it was hilarious every time Sarah Paulson got to say, “people are going to remember me because I brought back celebrating birthdays, Halloween, and Thanksgiving!” She also said a line about Jackie Kennedy that had me wheezing.
All of that past action of course is paramount to what’s happening in the present day. Four very spoiled twenty-somethings are abducted in the desert, impregnated, and then abducted again. They are all carrying hybrid babies, but lots of carnage is involved in the process. Plus, they’ll be trapped there forever. In the end, the perfect hybrid is created, and it’s announced they will start populating Earth, replacing all humans. It’s an interesting debate that gets thrown out. On the one hand, Kendall is fighting for the human race, but on the other hand, Calico thinks that maybe it’s time to cull the Earth and give a different race a chance. I agree that we want to give people the benefit of the doubt and the chance to change and do better, but at the same time, there might not be a planet if we wait long enough to do anything. Also, people are unkind and just ugly. I don’t know…maybe I’d side with the aliens in this debate.
All in all, this was a very unique approach American Horror Story took this time around, and one that probably won’t be forgotten anytime soon. I’ll be curious to see what the next season will look like. If it will adopt this same formula or revert back to its normal format. I’d say Red Tide edged out Death Valley, but both were insanely creative storylines. In my opinion, Red Tide was their chance to sort of take Hotel and give it an interesting twist. Everything about the setting gave that story such an eerie quality and I loved it, truly. Death Valley was a cool concept, but the flashback scenes were definitely more entertaining then the present-day ones. Definitely worth the watch if you’ve avoided this show the past few seasons!