TV Retrospective: "American Horror Story:: Cult"

Scene from American Horror Story: Cult

The one ongoing theme of 2017 TV has been the United States Presidential Election of 2016. For shows like Broad City, it's played for comedy by suggesting that women lost their sex drives. In the world of American Horror Story, it's more than a joke. It's an exploration of a mentality as the series spends Cult looking at the insanity that comes with divisive elections. In some ways, Ryan Murphy's prose is a rehash of the terms everybody already knows. The president is a sexual harasser; Hillary Clinton won the popular vote; all of this is giving rise to dangerous forces. In that sense, Cult is a response through hyperactive horror and camp, elevating buzz words into powerful statements. In some ways, it reinvigorated the series by continuing to strip away the gimmicks of its former season with a story more prescient. After all, last year was metaphorically a "horror story" for fragments of America. It was an engaging season that tested the limits of decency with its most complicated story yet, and it's just as successful in the end as any other year.

The opening scene is a familiar one to those who lived through November 8, 2016. The world was officially divided. Those who celebrated picked on racial groups and covered their faces in grounded Cheetos. Everyone else formed psychological disorders and feared for their lives. While the election is the starting point for the series, it inevitably builds to something less signified by this one event. It is more obsessed with American history and what descending into madness has looked like. Over the course of the season, Evan Peters not only plays anarchic antagonist Kai, but several cult leaders including Charles Manson. On the liberal, Clinton side are a variety of people lead by a lesbian couple (Sarah Paulson, Alison Pill) who only want to raise their son in a humane world. In some ways, it's an ambitious depiction of 2016 America, if just because of how rarely a group gets represented with such odd casting choices as Chaz Bono playing a Republican. 

Cult is part of the long tradition of stunt casting with a familiar troupe. What starts off as a home invasion story with several horrific clown costumes quickly evolves into a study of cults. The politicians were merely figures who were used as scapegoats for their violence. Murphy, who has done more eloquent work on American Crime Story, goes for a vulgar look at America and suggests that everyone is to blame. While Peters tends to play characters more deserving of the hatred, the series inevitably ends with Paulson donning a hood associated with violent female activists, suggesting that despite being a holier than thou figure within the story, she is just as prone to cult status. It's a bold move that shows a Darwinian approach to this violence that's inevitably disturbing in its ambiguity. Why does it matter that Paulson is a member of SCUM? There's no time to discover it, in part because the show is over and she is now a figure with power; thus giving rise to the cult mentality.

As much as the show has always been about shock in its violence and sexuality, Murphy feels like he's going for something deeper than your average season. Not since Asylum has a season felt prescient to a topic. However, it doesn't feel nearly as successful in part because the show feels like it's more reveling in the disturbing elements than providing clear answers. Maybe the ending is supposed to suggest that cults are inescapable, or that it's impossible to spot a member. Still, for a season that relied on violence and deception along with its own rewritten history of American cults, it suggests a cyclical nature. The election may have been perceived as going to the greater of two evils, but Murphy suggests that the lesser of two evils is still evil. Whether or not the show is meant to take sides in the Democrat and Republican debate, Cult was meant more as a lightning prod of ideas in which nobody was sacred. The world is toxic, and it's impossible to not espouse ideas that are entirely agreeable. In the end, all that works is violence. As seen in Kai's character, it may even drive people crazy. For others, it is a slow and unnoticeable decline into nasty behavior. 

The show avoids being entirely dated by avoiding centering around a two side debate. While it is the starting point, it still manages to convey other themes that come with the cult of personality. This may fall on the more eccentric side of the issues, but Murphy revels in the perversity of it all. By channeling his season into something based in reality, he is forced to confront his demons in more abstract and interesting ways. While it may not be the most successful season, it's at least tighter and more interesting than some of the more gimmick-based seasons like Coven or Freak Show. Cult is not without its flaws, but it still works as a whole thanks to clever reinvention and a top performance by Peters, who manages to play a crazy, demanding cult leader/s with strong conviction. Even if this show has a formula, at least the cast know how to mix it up in interesting ways, and that's enough.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5