SALON

Thursday, Dec 15, 2011 3:26 AM UTC

Where can “American Horror Story” go from here?

In a creepy, nasty, psychedelic, super-bitchy episode, FX's horror opus let its ghosts take center stage

By

Topics: American Horror Story, FX, TV,

Where can Vivien Harmon (Connie Britton) prepares for a big event on "American Horror Story." (Credit: FX)
The following article contains spoilers for "American Horror Story" season one, episode 11, "Birth." Read at your own risk.

“Just because we’re dead doesn’t mean we don’t have wants … desires,” said Tate, the pouty, bratty, forever-teenage rubber-suit-wearing, mom-of-the-house raping, suicide pact-making … sorry, I feel like there should be about 12 more adjectives in there, because the ghostly Tate, like most of the characters on FX’s aggressively lurid “American Horror Story,” requires them. But let’s stay focused on Tate’s statement, because it’s key. Yes, of course! He and the other ghosts have wants … desires. And one of the many amazing things about the show is how, over the past few episodes, it has subtly moved the ghosts to the center of the narrative, to the point where the ever-dwindling number of living characters have started to seem like the supporting cast on a show that they were ostensibly the stars of. (Of course, now that they’re all dropping like flies — even money on Constance to bite the dust by the end of season two — they get to be at the center of the story again.)

I’ll spare you a detailed recap because if you didn’t see the episode, you shouldn’t be reading this article in the first place — and besides, appreciation and speculation is more fun. As written by Tim Minear and directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, it was perhaps the show’s spookiest episode to date, campy and trippy (check out all those dissolves!) yet straightforwardly horrific, in the art house/grindhouse vein of a 1970s Ken Russell or Dario Argento picture.

First, the appreciations: Chad’s insouciant “You gotta love this house!” was a trailer-made laugh line because it said what many of us were thinking. I do indeed love The Murder House, which as far as I’m concerned has already earned a spot on the list of great cinematic nightmare real estate, along with the Bates Motel in “Psycho,” the Dakota in “Rosemary’s Baby,” the academy in “Suspiria,” the starship Nostromo in “Alien” and the hospital in Lars von Trier’s original Danish miniseries “The Kingdom” (which “AHS” is resembling more and more with each passing week). It’s a dream space, even more so than the rest of the locations on this batshit-crazy series. Once you settle into the show’s super-bitchy Grand Guignol groove, you get used to the fact that pretty much anything can happen, and start to look forward to the latest outrage in much the same way that you might have looked forward to the less ghastly twists that used to fill out old-fashioned weekday soap operas, the kind that the broadcast networks don’t make anymore. (CBS called “Dallas” a nighttime soap back in the day, but it was a “Little House on the Prairie” romp through sun-dappled meadows compared to this.)

What else was there to like? Oh, come on, what wasn’t awesome? I loved the torchlit flashback to the Roanoake colony, where supposedly 117 dead souls tormented the living until they were dispersed by a magic word, and I loved how Violet tried it on Chad and it didn’t work. (I was reminded of Barlow the vampire’s great line in Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot”: “Give me a bite … I love garlic.”) We got some explanations (via the medium) as to what in the Sam Hill is going on up in that house; apparently it’s a conduit to the dark beyond, and it’s spreading evil and misery out into our world via tormented ghosts that serve as its permanent residents and ambassadors. Or something. Like it matters! The escalating shocks and turn-on-a-dime segues from melodrama to catfight humor are the real draw here — that and the cast, which would probably be more widely appreciated for its dazzling tonal control if the show weren’t part of an inherently déclassé genre. The thickening mythology is intriguing, too — and grimly funny. There’s a pyramid scheme aspect to the way that the ghosts keep murdering the living, driving them to suicide or killing them off as collateral damage in other outrages. They’re forcibly recruiting for the house, swelling the ranks of the tortured dead. The way Violet described it in her tearful confrontation with Tate, the young man essentially killed her mom by raping her and impregnating her with a demon-spawn. (If I were Violet, I’d break up with him, too.) All that on top of Tate’s other, past murders. I gotta hand it to the kid, he’s a hard worker; if this were “Glengarry Glen Ross,” he’d take the Cadillac away from Ricky Roma.

As Constance, Jessica Lange should win not just a best supporting actress Emmy, but a special bonus award for keeping a straight face when Chad answered her terse, “Man should not lie with man, it’s an abomination!” with “So’s that hairdo.” That was a good one, but I liked the dialogue in the climactic scene with Constance, Moira and Hayden even better. Moira: “She’s the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen.” Constance: “From blood and pain come perfection.” Moira (appearing at the back of the kitchen): “Hey, bitches … You wipe that slime off my baby yet?” Now that Vivien has given birth in the most psychedelically nightmarish delivery sequence since “Rosemary’s Baby” — the dolly-backward away from her blood-drenched corpse had an Argento-like mournfulness — where can the show possibly go from here? The previews for next week’s episode set up a multi-tentacled undead custody battle over the two babies, and showed Ben threatening Constance and putting a gun to his own head. My money’s on Ben becoming the final regular cast member to join the ranks of the spirit world, thus paving the way for new arrivals in the Murder House next season. With the body count somewhere in the double digits, the latest buyers should be able to pick the place up for a song.

I’m a bit perturbed that executive producer Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s FX series apparently claimed most of their enthusiasm this year, leaving their exuberantly silly and occasionally brilliant Fox network series “Glee” to founder this season and eventually succumb to the stupidity and half-assedness that were always nipping at its heels even during strong weeks. But this outcome was creatively and perhaps biologically inevitable. As the doctor explained, all the necessary nutrients were devoured by the larger fetus.

Matt Zoller Seitz

More Matt Zoller Seitz.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 14 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations