Thoughts On American Horror Story: Freak Show

Once upon a time, I used to do recaps of American Horror Story (and Glee, for that matter), but I quit a few episodes into Coven, principally because I quit watching the show.  In fact, though it sits somewhere on the labyrinth that is my Netflix queue (I feel like there are films on that list that will never actually escape at this point-I hit my 500 film limit a while ago), I have little yearning to go out and finish the series.

However, I have heard such interesting things about Freak Show that over the last three days I decided to binge-watch the first seven episodes, and I have to admit that I’m pleasantly surprised.  While it lacks the gravitas of Asylum and the surprise of Murder House, it may be the best-plotted Ryan Murphy show I’ve ever seen.  People seem to be a bit turned off by the deliberate, and occasionally even slow pace, but this is Ryan Murphy we are talking about-he starts and ends “major” relationships in single episodes of shows.  The fact that he seems to have actually planned out and kept Freak Show relatively grounded in a coherent story is nothing short of a miracle (I say this knowing full-well that next week one of the freaks could end up being an alien).

As a result, I’m not going to get back into recapping Freak Show (maybe I’ll start again with Season 5), but I figured I’d go through the five things I love and the five things I can’t stand coming out of the first seven episodes (Obviously, spoilers ensue)

The Good

1. Finn Wittrock’s Dandy Mott: Honestly, this is enough reason to watch the show.  Wittrock (whom I have met, and really is just spectacularly dreamy in person, to the point that I met Andrew Garfield moments later and couldn’t stop thinking about how attractive Wittrock was) is wonderful as Dandy, a sociopath with the mentality of a child and the sense of morality of a barracuda.  His lines can be both ridiculous and frightening.  And Wittrock isn’t afraid to make Dandy weirdly intoxicating and oddly real.  Plus, the American Psycho homage was, well, something to behold.

2. The Pacing: I said it above, but the pacing of the show has been beautifully-restrained, and has only helped sell the story.  The Dandy plot, in particular, seems unusually deliberate for Ryan Murphy, as he normally would have had Dandy out killing someone in the first episode.  There’s also the giant question mark of which villains we should fear the most: is it Dandy or is it Denis O’Hare’s sadistic Stanley, out to profit from the deaths of the freaks?

3. Jessica Lange: Lange’s story is weirdly similar to last season’s (a once-powerful woman clinging to her fading youth and delusion), but this year she has a darkness that goes with it.  I love the way that she finds the complete lack of moral compass and sense of reality that is Elsa: this is a woman surrounded by the absurd, and she has pronounced herself a god, but there is absolutely no hope for her dreams, and we as the audience see the pointlessness of her life, but she doesn’t, which results in a sense of danger surrounding her.

4. The Darkness: The reality of this year, quite frankly, is that it might be the darkest and bleakest season so far of the series.  You see that in Elsa, who had any chances of stardom stolen from her when her legs were amputated during a snuff film (again, dark).  You see that with the devastating long sequence death of Matt Bomer’s Andy (and the way that Dandy and Andy serve as weird mirrors of each other).  You see that in the death of arguably the series’ most lovable character Ma Petite, when the death seems so unnecessary.  And of course, also in the last episode, you see that in the way that Penny is forced into becoming a freak by her father, who tattoos her face because she disobeyed him.  These are rough, difficult, permanent scars that are inflicted on these people in a way that twinges a bit more than usual for this show.

5. The Celia Weston Scenes: At first this was a bit of a downer for me, as was the entire Denis O’Hare storyline (at some point they’re going to explain the Viking joke, correct?), but this is yet another payoff of moving at a slower pace.  It seems that the Weston scenes may be building to something-perhaps that all of the freaks have died at Stanley’s hand?  That we’ll someday see some of our villains like Stanley or Dandy in her cavalcade?  There’s so much potential here, and building potential is not something Ryan Murphy does well, so this is definitely in the plus column for now.

The Bad

1. Angela Bassett: Hopefully we’re headed in a different direction with the Oscar-nominated actress, but at this point she seems to be woefully underused by the show, and is forced throughout the series to use the phrase “ding-a-ling” which seems a bit much.  Honestly, and I mean this in as nice of a way as I can because the horrible nature of the show has been a solid high point for the series (it’s received an infusion of The Leftovers), but did we really need Desiree to have her dream stolen so quickly with the death of Dr. Bonham?  Couldn't that plot line have continued a bit longer?

2. The Twisty Back Story: I liked the back stories on nearly every character on the show, with this exception.  Twisty the Clown was far more menacing, and in my opinion, effective, when we had no idea what was going on behind the mask.  I understand that his being a murderer without as much knowledge of what he is doing compared with Dandy’s ruthless evil is a solid juxtaposition, but why did we even need to know that evil can come from good as well as bad?  Why not leave his creepy, horrible clown as a creepy horrible clown that eventually inspires Dandy to become just as ruthless?

3. Patti LaBelle: What precisely was the point of hiring someone as famous as LaBelle to be in the series just to have her be killed off without any sort of character development?  If they had to do that, why not pick an unknown actor who is looking for a break rather than a platinum-recording artist?  Considering how much singing randomly goes on at the Freak Show, couldn’t we at least have had a song before she went?

4. Michael Chiklis: I don’t like Dell, and like all Ryan Murphy productions, he’s the character who I find could have been cut (every season has at least one plotline that doesn’t need to be there, and Dell the Strong Man is certainly that role this year).  Dell is unnecessarily angry and illogical (he’s already a pariah-why does it matter to his fellow carnies if he was also gay), and quite frankly I haven’t seen enough character growth or rationale to keep him around, and his actions in killing off Ma Petite were just awful.

5. Emma Roberts: I don’t get what the appeal is here yet.  Her character’s actions are always shifting, and she’s not a strong enough actress yet to really sell these scenes.  Her role should be more interesting, particularly since she may be the most moral person so far in the season, excepting Ethel (she’s one of the only major characters who hasn’t killed someone quite yet), but I don’t see the draw to her at all yet.

The Undecided

1. Gabourey Sidibe: I don’t quite want to list all three of the main African-American actresses as disappointing this season quite yet (even if they all three feel vastly underwritten at this point), but I’m hoping that Sidibe is at least somewhat fun next week.  Sidibe is great with comedy on the red carpet, and her one-liners are frequently hilarious in other films/shows, so hopefully next week’s episode, where it looks like she is a featured player, will be great.

2. The Crossover Element: Ryan Murphy has claimed that all of the series are related, but doesn’t seem to have an ending planned.  Either he’s flying by the seat of his pants (always terrible in his case) or he has a plan to link the seasons together in the future, which would be pretty incredible if done well.  We’ll see when Lily Rabe returns as Sister Mary Eunice if this ends up being completely awesome or not.

3. Sarah Paulson’s Story Arch: The twins, it should be noted, are incredibly watchable.  Paulson’s acting is sublime, and they are fascinating in the way they are similar and different.  However, their story has been stuck in park since the first episode, and there hasn’t been much growth in their plot.  Clearly they are gearing up for them to be separated, but can’t they do something else in the meantime?

And those are my thoughts so far on the season.  What about yours?  Are you watching Freak Show, and where does it rank compared to past seasons of the show?  Where do you hope to see the show progress in coming weeks?  Which of this season’s newbies do you hope becomes part of the “regulars?”  Share in the comments!

OVP: Actress (2009)

OVP: Best Actress (2009)

The Nominees Were...

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Helen Mirren, The Last Station

Carey Mulligan, An Education

Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia

My Thoughts: We arrive at our final acting race, the one that the collective Oscar-loving internet seems to most obsess over, Best Actress.  Like much of 2009, we were left with a pretty uniform list of women who were nominated throughout the cycle, and they were a pretty hodgepodge collection similar to your average Best Actress field: two former winners, two ingénues, and one woman who happened to be America’s Sweetheart (and had never been nominated before).  We’ll start with her.

Sandra Bullock spent most of the 1990’s being the third leg of a trio of women who happened to cumulatively be America’s Sweetheart.  Julia Roberts was the one that managed to make all of the money and score all of the awards love (she was a two-time nominee before she picked up her ideally timed win for Erin Brockovich).  Meg Ryan starred in the movies everyone seemed to like.  And then there was Sandy-the affable brunette that everyone seemed to love, even if she never seemed to get the respect the other two did.

Until, of course, The Blind Side.  Part of what helped Bullock to this first nomination was that The Blind Side (coupled with The Proposal) was a major comeback for her, and a financially ridiculous one.  These two films made $600 million combined in the worldwide box office that year, and Bullock became the first woman to headline a $200 million movie by herself.  All of this plus newfound love for her from the public made what was initially a longshot bid for a nomination become a stampede.

The actual performance, though, isn’t as bad as you think it is.  Bullock’s got a truly human side to her acting, and has incredible timing.  This isn’t a comic performance, but it is a performance that requires her to have a comic sensibility-she needs to be able to land insults, maintain an energy, and make this woman both believable and not a caricature.  I feel like she does that-people on the coasts may not realize with this, but women like Leigh Anne Tuohy exist every day in real life in Middle America.  The film itself glosses over some of the finer points (Quinton Aaron is not a strong actor), and occasionally Bullock cannot sell the source material (she’s given a lot of schmaltz to get through, and I think Meryl herself would have struggled with the “he’s changing mine” speech), but this is actually quite fine work.  It’s just not what Oscar usually decides to honor and the film is not good.  That, I believe, is the source of most of this bellyaching.

Few people complained, for example, that Meryl Streep is also in a movie that is spotty at best when it comes to its plot and acting.  Meryl is divine as Julia Child, getting not only the voice down (as is her raison d’etre), but also her spirit.  I loved the way that Meryl’s Julia remains so remarkably consistent-there are moments where the character succumbs to doubts (that rough scene where her sister is pregnant, and we find that Julia clearly wanted a baby but for some reason has never been able to have one), but as a whole she remains blissful and powerful.  Meryl can get nominated for just about everything, but I like that she can get a performance that is light and even comedic into the conversation.  She manages to make Julia Child not only come alive, but also become a movie character and not just a personification onscreen.  The film itself holds her back occasionally (I would have liked to have seen a little more growth in her relationship with Paul), but this is a delicious light soufflé.

We move away from two of the biggest stars of the past decade and on to a woman making her screen debut in 2009: Gabourey Sidibe.  One of the funnier aspects of this race was that SO many people seemed to think that first time actor Sidibe was simply playing herself onscreen, that this wasn’t much of a stretch, when anyone who follows Sidibe on Twitter or has seen her interviewed knows that she’s the complete opposite of Precious.  Sidibe finds layers in her young woman that a more nuanced actor might not have.  I love the way that she pushes the things that she really wants, and the way that she annunciates her truest feelings, keeping the rest hidden.  Think of her breakdown when she realizes that she’ll never have a real boyfriend and has been diagnosed with HIV.  This is a haunting scene because we see Precious, so stoic and unaffected, break down in a way that seems to come from within-this is a girl that has had to bury any hopes and dreams under years of abuse, and only believes deep within that she can still achieve them.  The focus in this film has always been on Mo’Nique, but it is really Sidibe who gives the film wings-she manages to be both a real human being and blank enough for us to be able to see the many nameless Preciouses that we encounter every day in her lifeless eyes.

Carey Mulligan joined Sidibe as the other major newcomer of 2009’s field.  Though she had been in other films prior to An Education, her work here feels like we’ve never seen her before, and Jenny needs that sort of freshness.  Mulligan infuses her with a lifeblood that courses through the earlier scenes as she finds the jolt of being impetuous so intoxicating.  Jenny and Precious could not be more polar opposites (wouldn’t you love to see an alternate universe where the actresses would switch roles?-I honestly think both would knock the other’s just as far out of the park), and Mulligan also nails her performance, here giving it the added lack of knowledge.  Other actresses may have emphasized the way that she is experiencing new things, that this experience is informing her future actions.  With Mulligan, we get the sense that Jenny doesn’t know what her education is providing to her, just that it’s a worthwhile piece of time.  By the end of this movie, she’s given us a confident portrayal of a person-perhaps wiser, perhaps now an adult, but definitely someone deeply real.

I haven’t forgotten about Helen Mirren, but her nomination does feel like an afterthought, doesn’t it?  As Sofya, Mirren does what she does best onscreen, giving chemistry to other actors, utilizing that sharp British timing to yell at the servants and basically everyone around her.  Mirren is an oddly similar actor to Bullock in her latter career-so much of her comic work is precise because of her timing, and there’s no denying that she gets the job done.  But this isn’t really a great performance, and she tows the line into simply playing herself even when the part doesn’t demand it.  And let’s be honest-like several other actors nominated in 2009, she’s hampered by a banal, boring film.  The Last Station is dreadfully slow and unnecessary, and not even the joy of seeing Helen Mirren is going to change that fact.  She improves the performance, but there’s nothing special here, and you’d be forgiven for only remember the other four nominated women.

Other Precursor Contenders: All five women competed for Best Actress with HFPA (with Bullock winning in Drama and Streep winning in Comedy).  That left only one additional nomination for Drama, which would go to Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria.  The other comedic contenders included Marion Cotillard in Nine (category fraud?), Sandra Bullock in The Proposal, Julia Roberts in Duplicity (does anyone remember this movie?), and Streep once again for It’s Complicated (as Colin Farrell pointed out, very greedy).  The exceedingly boring SAG Awards (Melanie Laurent is the only original idea you could come up with?!?) went with the same winner and nominees as Oscar, but BAFTA had some original ideas, cutting Bullock and Mirren and putting in Saoirse Ronan for The Lovely Bones and Audrey Tatou for Coco Before Chanel (for some reason they skipped Blunt, who was probably in a distant sixth place with AMPAS).

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I would have kept three of Oscar’s choices, but made room for Tilda Swinton, so alive and crazily lived-in in Julia and Penelope Cruz in Broken Embraces.  I know that some have accused this of being minor Pedro, but that didn’t stop her glamorous obsessed-about woman from being another cosmic turn in her impressive 2006-09 period.

Oscar’s Choice: Holding off on Meryl’s third Oscar for two years, they instead decided Sandy Bullock needed to be called Oscar Winner, much to the chagrin of the collective internet.

My Choice: I’ll go backward as I have wrestled with this decision for years.  I’m going with Mirren in fifth place-she’s too forgettable to get past the more memorable Bullock, who is just above her.  In third would be Streep, giving her Meryl best but with a performance that never hits great like the remaining two.  Part of me wants to go with Mulligan, who gets the less showy part and does marvels with it (she’s a totally underrated actor), but Gabby’s amazing debut is just too overwhelming.  She gets my gold, with Mulligan just behind.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Did you fall for Sandra like AMPAS, or were you wrestling between Gabby/Carey like me?  Was anyone a Helen Mirren cheerleader?  How did Emily Blunt not steal her traction for a more popular Academy film?  And what woman gave the best performance by an actress in a leading role in 2009?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2009: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2009

Past Best Actress Contests: 2010, 2011, 2012

American Horror Story: The Replacements (#3.3)

In one of those truly annoying moments where technology fails us, I didn't get to see the final few minutes of this episode because my DVR malfunctioned.  Thankfully the internet is working just fine, so I double-checked Wikipedia to see that we end this week's episode with Fiona murdering Madison.  Considering how often people come back from the dead on this show, I suspect that Madison will be returning (Emma Roberts did get above-the-line billing), but what an ending that would have been had my DVR not turned off in the process.

In the meantime, three episodes in, I've sort of come to terms that I'm not going to love everything about this season, but that there are a number of things that are well-worth investing my time, principally the superb acting coming from Jessica Lange and Lily Rabe.  Both of these women are AHS vets, and each got an excellent showcase this episode.  Rabe, the neglected witch with a heart of gold and I suspect a set of "supreme" powers of her own (notice the title of this episode is plural-there's probably a couple of women who could be the next Supreme), showed that she's also dangerous.  The scene where Zoe took Kyle away and Rabe's Misty couldn't handle it-she's a ticking time bomb, and I have every confidence that Rabe is about to get her best season on this show ever.

Lange, on the other hand, has just seen a slow rise, and I cannot wait to see where her character goes next.  While in the first couple of episodes it felt like she was just headed into the direction of a generic villain, you can feel the way she's trying to grasp onto relevance, onto youth.  It's hard to say if it's out of self-interest solely or if there's something specific she needs to do with her life (considering the harrowing places Asylum took us, my hunch is the latter).  Either way, Lange even made Emma Roberts' Madison interesting this week, and I am genuinely curious if Lange will now feel better or if she'll continue to fall and one of the other girls (or Misty or Delia) will begin to feel the power of the new Supreme.

The moment in the episode that I'm positive the entire internet universe imploded over, of course, was the bestiality scene between Gabby Sidibe and the minotaur.  Her Queenie, being pronounced a virgin earlier in the episode (you knew that wouldn't last-it is TV, after all), decided that she wanted to have sex with the Minotaur (who may or may not be in love with Bassett's Marie-a thought worth pondering considering he basically is at her mercy for all-time).  The Minotaur attacked her after seemingly being into the idea (seriously-do writers on AHS have to test positive for a drug test in order to be hired?), so we don't know where this led, but she's too important of an actress to not have gotten a bigger sendoff.  I also loved Sidibe, who had such solid chemistry with Mo'Nique and Laura Linney in previous roles, getting a great scene partner with Kathy Bates (whose overacting I'm just accepting as a fun gift, along with Angela Bassett's and Patti LuPone's and shall move on from trying to expect something subtle).

Somehow, though, this wasn't the creepiest sex scene in the episode.  That prize went to the incestuous relationship between Kyle and his drug-addled mother (played by one-time guest star Mare Winningham).  Kyle, who is now back to life with a far more rocking set of abs and apparently a significantly enhanced...body part that you can see after showering, can't talk but clearly was terrified when Zoe returned him to his mother.  His first word ("No!") came after he murdered his mother (somewhere, Tate Langdon is smiling and wondering "why didn't I think of that?") and we saw Zoe (who has moved into the position of least favorite character on the show) screaming in terror.

I'm going to end there, though the comments are there if you want to discuss Delia's fertility issues or the generic hunk next door (it's a Ryan Murphy show, so he'll be getting a nude scene at some point this season, so start honing those screen-grabbing skills).  Until next week (when we'll have zombies, apparently)...

American Horror Story: Bitchcraft (#3.1)

Now entering Ryan Murphy’s School for Gifted Youngsters (McKinley High, you’ve been replaced).  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are in season three of American Horror Story.

I haven’t had the chance to re-watch some of the past seasons of the show, but I can tell you that, compared with some of the past seasons, I’m a teensy bit more nervous than I was after watching the premiere episode.  There was an incredible lot to like about the first episode.  Jessica Lange’s latest incarnation, Fiona, for example.  Lange has incredible presence, and manages to use her sexuality as a brandished weapon (though not as literally as Taissa Farmiga's Zoey).  The fact that she is the “Grand Supreme,” the most powerful witch of her era is a given the moment she click-clacks onto the screen.

The only other cast member that manages to equal her in this episode, though in a far more subdued way, is Sarah Paulson and her Cordelia.  Paulson, the great treasure that we’ve discovered from this series (am I the only one really feeling that she’s about to get her first Oscar nomination for Twelve Years a Slave?), shows what years of emotional abuse from her mother Fiona have done to her.  She’s clearly a mousy but powerful witch who spends most of her time tending to plants and instructing the young girls.

The rest of the episode wasn’t really my cup of tea, though there’s certainly potential all around (I promise that next week this will read less like a review and more like a recap, but this is my first encounter with these characters, after all).  The new cast members didn’t really catch on with me.  Gabourey Sidibe I love to death, but she was given less than nothing to do in this episode.  Emma Roberts, who is her inferior as an actress, gets a more robust role (she’s in the opening credits) and as a faded teen star (hmm…potentially life imitating art?) she shows a casual indifference to life that should be good for some chilling scenes later in the season, provided that she takes after her more talented costars.

Two actresses that we’re all more than aware can act that I also wasn’t feeling quite yet?  Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett.  From what I’ve heard I’m in the minority here (particularly with Bates), but I thought both of them played far too high into the rafters.  This is something I’m not as concerned with quite yet (like I am with Roberts) because both of these actresses can rise-and-fall a character as necessary and they were surely heightened to impress the craziness of their time (their scenes were nearly two centuries ago).  Once they come back to the modern era, I suspect that they’ll be able to join Fiona and Cordelia in a less scenery-chewing way.

The episode was oddly structured as well.  Taissa Farmiga’s voiceovers throughout the episode seemed eerily reminiscent of Kristen Stewart’s Bella Swan monologues in the Twilight saga.  Her power to make men’s head explodes when she causes them to orgasm was a clever joke at the beginning of the episode, though part of me wonders if this is going to be a decision the writers regret if she can’t eventually get with Tate…err Kyle (who else had Murder House flashbacks during that party scene?).

One of the best things about this episode, though, was the wonderful actress love-in this episode received.  Evan Peters and Denis O’Hare aside, this looks to be an entirely female-oriented season, something that I would have thought impossible on FX in the past, and if nothing else, it’s going to be a Bechdel grand slam (though the reverse Bechdel was passed, I doubt it will be very often).  I haven't even mentioned Jamie Brewer, Frances Conroy, and soon-to-be-spotted Patti Lupone-it's a wonderfully female-driven season, and I couldn't be happier.

All-in-all there’s more than enough to get me back week-after-week, but I just felt there was something off throughout.  What did you think?  Is there a particular actress or performance that you were drawn to (for me Lange and Paulson seem the best so far, but I’ll reserve judgment until I get to know the gang a little better)?  Did you also feel the Twilight overtones?  And what direction do you see the season headed?