Last season’s Cult saw a horror-take on the current political climate, making the show’s title almost too true to home. It didn’t feel traditionally American Horror Story, but after Season 6: My Roanoke Confusion Nightmare’s show within a show within a… – wait, wtf is happening? – it was a little easier to get your head round.
For a while now, for Season 8, fans have been teased with a Murder House/Coven crossover, combining two of the most popular seasons of the show. And, clearly, that is a huge selling point for many a fan, as Leslie Grossman (this season’s Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt – a wannabe Instagram Influencer paying for everything with daddy’s credit card) has already had to tell fans to “be patient.” Because we’re ONE episode in and people are already complaining it hasn’t happened yet.
MINIMUM SPOILER WARNING – just in case.
The end of the world has happened, though. Hong Kong, London, parts of the Baltics, and Moscow have already been wiped off the map, and Los Angeles is next. But don’t fear, as our main group: the aforementioned Coco; her personal assistant, Mallory (Billie Lourd); her hairdresser, the flamboyant Mr. Gallant (Evan Peters) and his grandmother, Evie (some lady called Joan Collins – you might’ve heard of her) get whisked to safety in a private jet before the nuclear bomb strikes the City of Angels.
Only they don’t reach safety as such, as their jet doesn’t have a pilot, so crash-landing, they end up at an apparent ‘safe-zone’, Outpost Three. It’s a haven for the elite (the lesser are used as servants), and here we’re introduced to a couple of exceptionally brilliant teens, Emily and Timothy, and Adina Porter’s TV personality, Dinah Stevens.
Outpost Three is run by the gloriously creepy, yet sophisticated Ms. Wilhemina Venable (the first of Sarah Paulson’s many characters we’re to see this season). A former boys school turned into an underground bunker just in time for the end of the world, and as we find out later, the last remaining outpost post-apocalypse. Ms. Venable has her side-kick, in the form of Kathy Bates’ spectacularly evil, stone-faced, Ms. Miriam Mead – who really doesn’t play nice.
Eighteen months later and they’re all still stuck in the Outpost, with minimal food remaining. But then, on horse-back, comes our saviour, with news of another – better – safe site. And that saviour just so happens to be… Michael Langdon!
It was a very interesting start to the season. The new characters are what you want and expect from American Horror Story. The boring, almost unbearable, over-charactured ‘normies’, and the creepy, divine, interesting as well as horrifying para-normals. And their gothic, victorian-style costumes (purple for the elite, grey for the servants) just add to the feel. The set looks gorgeous from what we’ve seen so far – the poorly-lit, vampy lair setting the scenes perfectly. On the outside, the plague doctor-esque gas-masks amongst the smog add even more creepyness.
We haven’t seen much of him yet, but Cody Fern makes a great Michael Langdon, with again a very Interview with a Vampire look to our anti-christ.
While we haven’t seen every character from Murder House and Coven yet, episode one very much provided our stepping stone to those characters. Even without the previous season links, from the concepts we see in this episode, this would be a very interesting season, and very much the American Horror Story fans adore.
A lot can happen in 9 episodes, and no doubt it will. We’ll catch up again mid season, with hopefully some Murder House/Coven stories to talk about.
