American Horror Story

This show was...difficult to like. Mostly, I think, due to its continuous desire to throw a thousand plot lines against the wall and see what stuck. It's not that the show wasn't linear, but what bothered me the most was Murphy and crew just getting cra-cra because they could do it. It was a hot mess from week-to-week, and you were left with your mouth open, and not because they went there, but because they went there with no plan as to figure out why they went there. Which is what is going to make season two more difficult. I'll agree with some, that the show will need to shift away from the Harmon clan and The Murder House. Perhaps what we are seeing here in the final moments of the finale is another take on The Omen (why not, the ripped off so many other movies, why not this one as well?). It's my understanding that Lange (along with the rest of the main cast) all signed on for one season. And to be honest, after viewing the finale, I would be happy if the series DID NOT go on. They tied up so many loose ends, that it seems anticlimactic to return to the Harmon family and the house for another season of scaring people who move in (all you have would be a Ghost War, which is silly).

I will say the whole personal responsibility thing was a good idea. We've had a long history of blaming others for our misfortunes -especially the ones we cause our selves. While Ben was a complete ass when he was alive, death gave him a new insight. His parley with Tate was brilliant, and I admit its about time someone realized that Tate was evil and should not be thought of as some anti-hero. The series tried so hard for so long to make the audience to like Tate -that he was a victim of circumstance (he mentions he burned to death his Mom's boyfriend, but I;m not sure we ever got a full explanations as to why he did it), but in the end I think they did the right thing.

As for Hayden, my least favorite amongst a cast of characters that are all pretty annoying, I agree with her when she tells Tate to grow a pair. She's crazy as a box of hair, but she is does have one moment of clarity. Still, Tate mourns he'll get her back if it takes an eternity. And they have a lot of that. And if that remains a plot line for season two, then its going to get old very quick.

Jessica Lange, perhaps in more control than from the start, gives a good performance (the mirror speech reminded me of the evil queen in Snow White for some reason). She is delusional as the rest, and perhaps the craziest of them all, but I see Constance now as the mother of a killer who is, maybe, I don't know, the devil? Again, I sense that season two may shift towards Constance grooming little toe-headed Michael for greater evil. What we shall, perhaps, was prologue to another story (The Omen?)-a story that needed to be told to explain things that will happen later.

I don't know. In the end, I was left with mixed feelings. AHS is good when it does not show all the crazy stuff up close and personal. When it goes for the jugular, well, it makes it no better or worse than a Friday the 13th movie. Horror is not about cutting someone in half, or showing guts falling out, its what the mind sees, not the eyes.