I loved the first half of this season.
Kim was fantastic, perfectly cast, especially with the reveal of who her character ACTUALLY is. Conversely, Roberts was wholly forgettable as the doe-eyed actress who sold her soul for fame. But during the course of 8 episodes this women suffers through traumatic experience after traumatic experience. Thus, it simply does not make sense that she would play along with all these horrific experiences just for an Oscar. I mean, this achievement is something all gifted actors strive for, but over the course of the season it became so clear that she was selling her soul, or baby, for the Oscar that it was not believable that this character would go along with this endeavor.
She's a famous actress that's nominated for an Oscar and she's young, so there will be other opportunities for her in the future. Thus, why does she go along when it's so painfully obvious that she's walking into a trap? Again, not Robert's fault, as the character was written horribly. There's a lot of on-the-nose imagery in this finale where she goes through similar horrors, but holding her Oscar. Be careful what you wish for! (🙄).
Structurally, the success of this season hinged on the finale. They set up a million different mysteries that are left unanswered, then they end with l campy villains talking about their evil plans for 30 minutes which culminates in the most ridiculous dues ex machina I've seen in years to defeat the big bad at the end. No tension, no build up, a (dead?) character comes out of nowhere to assist the protagonist who easily kills the main villain, despite this villain just explaining for the past 15 minutes that she was centuries old and the most powerful being on the planet. (🙄).
Let's talk about the set design. They swing for the fences at the end, attempting to pull off a David Lynch-style fever-dream situation.
At one point, the villains stand before an amorphous pile of meat hanging above what looks like a sphere-shaped blood fountain.
The main villain waters a weird plant with blood.
There's an invisible monster that (sometimes?) can be seen by its claw hand.
It's a kitchen-sink approach to horror that makes it painfully obvious that the writer/director hired for this episode does not know how to effectively play in this genre space. It wants to be a little David Cronenberg, a little David Lynch, and steals quite a bit from Dune if you can believe it. None of it works, and the shallowness of the whole endeavor is insulting to fans who stuck it out for 8 episodes of build up to this flat fart of a finale.
Afterwards I vowed to be done with AHS as I've done so many times before. It always starts strong and loses steam by the last couple episodes. It would be far more effective to make these seasons 3-4 episodes long. Without so much "mysterious" filler, much of which this season was left unexplored (ie, the dolls), this season may have sustained the tension that was so effective in episodes 1-4.
