Plot: An unrivaled 13th installment that will do justice to everyone’s most feared number. Bringing together an all-star cast, many of whom are reprising fan favorite roles, which iconic horrors will return to haunt the hallowed halls of 13 and what new terrors await? Light your candles, draw your pentagrams and prepare for a supreme surprise.
Review: Since it was first announced, the 13th season of American Horror Story has been hot in the media thanks to the return of virtually every major cast member from the last dozen seasons of the anthology including Jessica Lange. Well, not the first crossover event in the series (that honor falls to the eighth season, Apocalypse, that connected Murder House, Coven, and Hotel), American Horror Story: 13 plays like creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk are trying to go out with a bang. But, since Murphy has already revealed that plans are in place for a fourteenth entry, think of American Horror Story: 13 more as a band going on a greatest hits tour. That comparison is fitting as the new season does not really do much we have not seen a dozen times before, aside from having cast members like Sara Paulson and Evan Peters play different characters in the same scene. Other than that, this is just another entry that pales compared to the early seasons of American Horror Story,
As has become commonplace with Ryan Murphy Productions, advance screeners were not made available for this review, so I’m basing my assessment of American Horror Story: 13 on the first three episodes that debut tonight on FX and Hulu. Unlike prior seasons, this 13th volume consists of half-hour episodes rather than the full-hour entries we have gotten for the first twelve seasons. The shorter episode running time is an odd choice, especially seeing as there are two or three chapters debuting each week from now until the finale right before Halloween. This is also the longest season since Freak Show back in 2014, but it remains to be seen if the whole story lives up to the massive marketing push behind it. Based on the first three episodes, I can already say I am underwhelmed by the blandness of the story so far and confused as to how or why the stories are all drawn together. The opening trio of episodes is heavily reliant on Coven, Cult, and Murder House, with teases and shout-outs towards a couple of others. It also spends a great deal of time with the return of Jessica Lange as her first season character, Constance Langdon.
The season opens with a wraparound story centered on Benjamin DeSoto (Joey Pollari), a home hospice nurse who suffers from triskaidekaphobia, also known as the fear of the number thirteen. This is cosmically funny, as his girlfriend, Kira (Madelaine Petsch), is obsessed with the number thirteen, which puts their relationship in a precarious place. Early on in the first episode, the repeated appearance of thirteen begins to weigh on Ben, especially when he takes a night job caring for Mr. Nas, an octogenarian with weird nubs on his head that look like horns. Mr. Nas is cared for by Constance and the phlebotomist, Mr. Phibes (John Waters). As Ben cares for the elderly man, he begins to experience strange events that overlap with cutaway sequences featuring the coven of witches led by Cordelia Goode (Sara Paulson) and Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts), as well as murders committed by Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch). Everything revolves around thirteen in one way or another, some forced on us in heavy-handed fashion.
The first three episodes together clock in at less than ninety minutes total, further proving that the only reason they went with thirty-minute chapters was to force the season to consist of thirteen episodes. Little narrative progress is made, and the rationale behind focusing on Ben DeSoto rather than the legacy characters is still a mystery. While big names like Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, and Gabourey Sidibe do not appear in the first three episodes, we do see two characters each from Evan Peters and Sara Paulson, as well as Billie Lourd, Mena Suvari, Tig Notaro, and Jamie Brewer. There are so many references to the number thirteen that have nothing to do with the story itself that you could easily get trashed if you turned it into a drinking game and still would not miss much of what is actually going on.
While Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk are credited as writers on the opening episode, with Murphy directing, the subsequent second and third episodes are written by Ned Martel and Charlie Carver, with directing duties falling to Crystle Robertson Dorsey. Martel and Carver are credited on most of the season, with Murphy and Falchuk back as scribes on four of the final five episodes of the season. Jesse Peretz, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Adam Penn, and Gillian Robespierre share directing duties on the rest of the season, but outside of the return of the first season theme song during the opening credits, little of American Horror Story is all that scary anymore. The first three seasons were wonderfully transgressive and had some legitimately scary moments, especially the first season. Since Coven, the franchise has felt more intent on being kitschy and very queer, but not in a remotely original or whimsical manner. Like many of Ryan Murphy’s shows, both ones he is directly involved in or only as a producer, have done great work in celebrating the LGBTQ community and giving opportunities on screen and off to those who would otherwise not be able to share their voice, but this season is more tired than most of his efforts.
I’m all in for a really good scary story, even one that may not be terrifying if it can manage to be fun and original. American Horror Story 13 is neither of those things. It’s hard to watch this show and not feel like you’ve been there and done that, with even the character design and the jump scares feeling like repeats of things we’ve seen in the 12 prior seasons. As much as I enjoy seeing Jessica Lange back in a major role, as well as Sara Paulson and Evan Peters doing what they do best, this season of American Horror Story doesn’t feel as much like a greatest hits as it does a farewell tour. It’s entirely possible this could be a goodbye for all the legacy cast members, as the 14th season of the franchise will kick off with all-new cast members. One can only hope that, if anything, this season is going to put an end to the same old thing that we’ve seen. I hope Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have more up their sleeves than what is in these first three episodes, because if it’s just going to be this for another 10 chapters, I’m going to lose interest, and most audiences will as well.
American Horror Story: 13 premieres with three episodes on September 24th on FX.