The pros and cons of season three of American Horror Story.
Synopsis
In New Orleans, a coven of witches run a school for young witches (“Bitchcraft“). Their number has dwindled over the decades, and now there are only four students (“Boy Parts“). Tradition holds that the most powerful witch of each generation, after passing the trials of the seven wonders, becomes the supreme witch(“Replacements” & “Fearful Pranks Ensue“). As the powers of the current supreme, Fiona, fade, a new supreme must be identified, but Fiona won’t give up her mantle without a fight (“Burn, Witch, Burn” “The Axeman Cometh” “The Dead” “The Sacred Taking” “Head” “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks” “Protect the Coven” & “Go to Hell“). In the end, Fiona’s own daughter, Cordelia, is declared the new supreme, and the school is replenished with an abundance of new students (“The Seven Wonders“).
Overall Review
This season was not very good. It lacked the spark the two previous seasons had, and the plot and characters were not particularly interesting or likeable. With Murder House, there was a lot of potential, but several missteps along the way. The creators found their footing in Asylum, a wonderful story with nuanced characters and a satisfying ending. Then Coven came along. It’s like they used up all of their ideas already and threw together a slipshod season just to have something to put out there. At least with all of its flaws, Murder House also had redeeming qualities. There was very little to praise about this season.
Pros
Though not very many, there were a couple of things I liked about this season:
- Fiona and Laveau working together. It took most of the season to get there, and it didn’t last very long, but my favorite part of this story was when the two rival witch queens put aside their differences and joined forces. I love enemies to friends storylines, and this was a great example of that. With their powers combined, they were a terrible force to be reckoned with and mowed down any threats they encountered.
- Queenie and LaLaurie. The relationship between an immortal racist and a young black woman was so interesting. Although Queenie had some missteps early on in the show, overall she became my favorite character. She doesn’t take crap, but also shows compassion and genuinely tries to rehabilitate LaLaurie. For a minute there, I think she almost got through to her, too. LaLaurie was never accepted into the flock by anyone else, so her unlikely semi-ally in Queenie helped open her eyes, at least a little, to the flaws in her racist thinking. In the end, however, LaLaurie ultimately reverted to her old ways, and when Queenie acknowledged that she was never going to truly change, she took it upon herself to put an end to her once and for all.
- Cordelia taking up the mantle. Although I personally feel Queenie should have been the supreme, they did do a good job hiding the true supreme up until the very end. Cordelia is downplayed throughout her life and the season, so no one thought to expect her to be the true supreme. In reality, the reason she never showed signs of how powerful she was all along was because her mother rattled her confidence in herself for decades. All she needed was a little push to unlock her true potential.
- Hank and the witch hunters. The gradual way they revealed Hank’s true purpose was fascinating. First you think he’s Cordelia’s loving husband. Then you find out he is a cheater… and a murderer! Then it becomes clear he’s a witch hunter secretly infiltrating the coven. But wait, that’s not all—he’s not even a good witch hunter. His own dad, the man in charge of the witch hunters, is not impressed with his work and has replaced him with someone else as his heir to the company. I also found it interesting that even though his marriage to Cordelia was a sham, he ended up falling in love with her anyway. In some ways, Hank and Cordelia’s stories are mirrored. Both are born into a long lineage, and both are disappointments to their parents. In the end, both prove themselves by accomplishing a great feat, though in Hank’s case it’s wiping out Laveau’s coven.
Cons
There were some serious flaws with this season:
- Setups that didn’t pay off. There were three particular instances of this.
- Magical ability sets. When the story starts, each of the students have a unique power. Halfway through the season, these unique powers drop out of the story and no longer matter. By the end, all of the witches have pretty much the same skill set, and even the ones that only certain individuals like Zoe or Queenie had didn’t serve any purpose to the culmination of the story. Why set it up to have differing powers in the start if by the end they are all the same? Either they should have delved more thoroughly into their specific power sets, or it should have been set up so that everyone has general powers at the start, not specific ones.
- Zoe. The first episode starts off by establishing Zoe as the main character. It is narrated by her, and she is the one we follow to the school. She is set up to be someone of significance. By the end she’s hardly in any of the episodes, and becomes just another witch in the coven. She wasn’t exactly my favorite character, but it’s simply bad storytelling to set up an expectation and then not follow through with it.
- Cordelia’s pregnancy. At the start, Cordelia is so desperate to become pregnant that she even performs a spell against her better judgment in an effort to help her conceive. That has zero consequences. Not only does she not become pregnant, but by the end I actually forgot that was even a plot point in the first place. Why did we focus so much on that if nothing came of it?
- O death, where is thy sting? Throughout the course of this season, we had no less than ten instances in which someone died and was brought back or appeared to be dead but wasn’t. I get that it was part of Misty’s power set, in particular, but eventually everyone could do it, and it got to the point where death no longer really mattered because you figured they were just going to undo it anyway. At least in Murder House death still held weight and had limitations, even if it wasn’t the end of a character.
- Disappointing cast and crew. Despite having several of the best actors from the previous seasons, in this portrayal they lacked the draw they’ve shown before. Although I didn’t care for most of the characters, that’s not a justification, because Constance was atrocious but still fun to watch due to Jessica Lange’s performance. This time around, I just didn’t care about Fiona outside of her pair up with Laveau. Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, and Lily Rabe also weren’t nearly as impressive this time around in comparison to their performances in Asylum. On top of that, I was excited to get a lot more Alfonso Gomez-Rejon directed episodes after his impressive work in the first two seasons. He directed almost half of episodes this time around, rather than just two or three, but I never felt the same sense of awe I felt with his filmmaking in the earlier seasons.
- Pacing. In Asylum, there were multiple simultaneous plotlines, all of them interesting and impactful, and they still managed to end the major storylines a few episodes early and spend two whole episodes fully exploring the aftermath of the horrors. Here, there were only a handful of storylines, but they dragged on and on. Although the major goal of the season was to declare a new supreme, they didn’t even start the seven wonders until the very last episode. That should have been a major arc, spanning several episodes, not relegated to a half hour at the end of the season.
- Themes. In Murder House, aside from the main storyline, there were several references to historical events and urban legends. Nearly every episode introduced some new side story, many of which were intriguing. In Asylum, all sorts of supernatural and horror elements were combined into a cohesive and fascinating tale. Here, the only themes seemed to be New Orleans history/lore, a subject matter that’s not as commonplace. While I knew Laveau was a real person and easily figured out that Papa Legba was established lore, I didn’t even realize until after I finished the season that LaLaurie and the Axeman were also historical figures. Even if you recognize all four of those characters going in, that’s a mere four characters compared to the myriad of characters, events, and elements interspersed throughout the other seasons so far. This season relied on your knowledge of New Orleans and your love of Stevie Nicks, neither of which I have.
Conclusion
The show really seemed to hit its stride with Asylum, but this season was worse than the first. There were tons of things that didn’t pan out or make sense, and most of the plot points and characters were annoying. Even the cast and director who were once so impressive were lackluster this time around. I really hope they can get back to their former glory and find their footing as we move on to the next season, because this was a huge disappointment.
Score: 5/10
Ranking:
- Asylum
- Murder House
- Coven