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| Lady GaGa |
There's a predictability to how Ryan Murphy does an average season of American Horror Story. By coincidence, the quality seems to overlap with the amount of appeal horror has in any given week. In the first few episodes (October), it perfectly sets up an absurd and sometimes horrific setting that leaves mysteries to be answered. By the middle of the season (December), the quality is waning and horror is no longer as important. Then at the end (January), nobody cares because Halloween was months ago. In keeping with this tradition, Murphy unleashed his latest creation Hotel with a promise to make it less campy than the previous two (and arguably weakest) seasons in the show's run. Along with the departure of longtime favorite Jessica Lange and entrance of Lady GaGa (who, mind you, is the first actor to win a Golden Globe for this stuff), the show shifted into something different. The only issue is that maybe the show taking itself seriously is possibly worse than it being clueless.
It doesn't help that Murphy and his band of co-creators were also busy working on Fox's own horror-comedy series Scream Queens: which took everything about Murphy's worst tendencies and made it into a dizzying identity crisis. This is likely why the odd poor taste of humor that made American Horror Story's Coven and Freak Show seasons so aloof felt missing. At first, it made sense, as this season started with some of the most stylish and assured direction and set designs that the series has ever had. The first episode was crackling with immediacy. There was controversy regarding a strange character molesting another one. Even more, Lady GaGa's debut mixed sexuality with violence while set to She Wants Revenge's "Tear You Apart" in ways that got mothers very (and deservedly so) worried about their kids watching the show.
To say the least, the show had the promise of intimidation early on. By the time that the first episode ended on the apt but on the nose Eagles classic "Hotel California," things were looking good in the way that all Murphy shows look in that first foray. Then the plots began building up and soon a story set in contemporary Los Angeles at the haunted Hotel Cortez was now a century in the making with blood-drinking temptresses and a sassy supernatural known for her B-Movie career. The show was willing to be ridiculous in ways that reflected some of its most ambitious dreams. This season featured a brilliant homage to silent films, a kooky performance by Evan Peters, a great episode focused around serial killers having a party, and a lot of plagiarism-level references to Se7en. It's definitely a season that attempts to put the show on the right course and make it a "horror" show respectively.
The issue with that is that the series has never been great at being solely about horror. While each season is rich with supernatural themes that pop culture nerds will recognize, there isn't much in the way that's ever scary. Even at the show's best (Asylum), there's an underlying sense of absurdity and humor to it that is far more appealing. Part of the fun is to watch the show and wonder where Murphy gets his ideas from. However, it's rarely fun to watch the show succeed with them, because there's a certain inability to finish it correctly. After five seasons, viewers will be able to pick this out too easily. However, the downfall is usually a lot more entertaining than what Hotel had, even if it was doing a better job at the story.
What exactly makes the Hotel results worse than actually less successful seasons like Freak Show or Coven? It could just be the monotony of the formula by which this series presides. It's the rise of promise and the fall of disappointment year in and out. However, it mostly feels disappointing this time around because the show's tone was too assured and didn't require much of its players. While the hotel had an interesting set-up, the series characters were impossible to kill off and the arcs weren't really there. Most characters were deplorable and while it was willing to take LGBT culture into interesting directions, it served more as attention-grabbing filler than anything substantial in characters. It could be argued that this is always the case. However, most seasons at least have a drive to go somewhere, even if it's banal and stupid. This show just wanted to stay at the hotel. And that ended up being a problem.
It also didn't help that with a premise so insistent on being better than the series has been, it didn't learn that too many characters equals not enough time to focus on anything. Considering that many episodes were extended, there's plenty of evidence as to how this season at least felt more self indulgent than normal. The characters, as usual, were also unpleasant in the ways that fuel even the best seasons of the show. However, there's no cathartic ending for them all. The series wants to embrace its sadistic side, but stops short of giving it to them in favor of embracing a strange bonding that makes no sense. It could also just be that the show's pacing felt slower, as if to draw out tension in ways reminiscent of The Shining (but nowhere as good).
To say that Hotel isn't without its charms is dependent on how you've felt about every season before this. The familiar stable of actors give their familiar performances. Lady GaGa, who is nowhere near as endearing as Jessica Lange, is an applicable seductress character, but without any range or personality. To complain about the show's weaknesses is to play an old record that sounds familiar. The only issue is that they were a lot more competent this time around, and thus maybe sacrificed the tone that makes the show generally appealing. After five seasons, it is likely that this is about as well as we can expect going forward. The show may never be great, but it has enough gimmicks to warrant a brief drop by every now and then. The only issue is finding a good reason to keep falling for this year after year.
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5
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