So... I'm going to try something I've always wanted to do. I love American Horror Story and last year I kind of wanted to re-watch all the seasons 1 by one episode by episode. This week I'll watch Episode 1 of Murder House, Asylum, Coven, Freak Show and I already reviewed Hotel... but maybe I'll watch it again and see what happens. Idk how regularly I'll keep up with this one, but I'm going to try and if you guys like it, I'll keep up with it. If I get busy or if people hate it, I'll stop lol. This will probably be time Consuming
Murder House
Pilot
So this was really cool to re-watch. I always forget that we actually see Vivian walking in on her husband in the act. And the scene at the beginning where her doctor is comparing her to the house is a really good opening scene. I caught the reference to a mental Asylum in there pretty clearly... Its hard to say what the clue for Season 6 is because there wasn't too much dialogue. Maybe American Horror Story: Bad Yelp Reviews or something. Lol. No idea.
And some similarities I noticed... The scene with the bullying of Violet kind of made me think of the rape scene in the current season. It seems like there's rape or abuse at the beginning of every season. Twins are also used a lot, or just people who look alike this season. We have the Tattler Twins in Freakshow. I think this might be further detailed this season, I believe somewhere in Season 1 Vivian or Sarah Paulson's character references everyone having a twin... I think that has something to do with the seasons being connected. It also seems like most seasons start with 2 people together that have nothing to do with the show getting killed. This episode has the twins, Asylum has Adam Levine and Jenna Dewitt Tatum, Hotel has the two girls at the beginning... I don't know that Freakshow or Coven follow that format... but thats a pretty good classic horror movie moment. Like when Scream killed off Drew Barrymore in the first few minutes. Good pilot and good start to this mini series!
Coven
Bitchcraft
So I actually decided to go a little out of order and I watched this before watching Asylum. I may end up watching Asylum last because that was my least favorite season so far... and it might have been the one that scared me the most... so I'll do that last.
I thought this season was really fun and I just liked it. I really liked the music of the show, which just made me like it even more and I just thought this was maybe the easiest one to understand. It reminds me a bit of Freak Show because there was some narration in the beginning to give at least a small understanding of what was going on. I kind of wish that when they do the narrations, they at least keep up with it a bit more throughout the show. That always kind of bothered me.
Some connections: Gabourey Sibude's character was wearing a shirt that said Freak. I mentioned the rape and abuse connections. The cold open of this season has Kathy Bates torturing her slaves, so I guess thats kind of the "twins" connection. I like Sarah Paulson's role in this and I like Taissa Farminga too. And Emma Roberts is basically playing Chanel here too. Which is funny. The word freakshow is also mentioned. I really like Fionna, I think she's a lot like Lady Gaga's character in Hotel. It seems Gaga also has the power of suggestion and does cocaine and has a keen fashion sense. I think those are all the connections I can think of right now. I like this season, its the only season I actually own on DVD and I know this one gets a lot of hate... but its such a fun season. I like it.
Freak Show
Monsters Among Us
Okay one common thread I've noticed so far is some reference to how you're not supposed to be smoking and then they smoke. Specifically Jessica Lange's character. In Murder House she asked Vivian if she could smoke in the house, Vivian said no and Constance lit her cigarette and smoked. In Coven there is some reference to it while she's at the Doctor's office and I think she does her trick to make it okay... or maybe Cordelia yells at her. On Freakshow she lights up in a hospital and they say "you can't smoke here" and she says "it's Lucky Strike, they're good for you." I feel like there is a reference to it in Hotel also... just something interesting I noticed. There are probably a lot of meanings for that. It clearly shows that the characters don't exactly play by the rules.
I watched this episode sort of in chunks throughout the day... so I didn't quite make that many great observations other than the cigarette thing. Also Elsa Mars seems to have the same interest in singing that Sister Jude had in Asylum. Pepper is the same character here as she was in Asylum. The girl Twisty kidnaps is now on Scream Queens. I don't remember hearing about a hotel anywhere... there were references to Hollywood and the twins thought it was very hollywood.
I feel like there is some form of abuse in every other season. There's bullying in Murder House, there's sexual abuse in Hotel and Coven. This one I think had verbal abuse. There were some big hints at child neglect. I remember thinking nothing really clicked for me this season when I started watching it because I felt like there were just too many people all in different things and they introduced them all too early. Thats something that I think I'll have a better appreciation for in Hotel because they didn't introduce many characters in the pilot. I hope that means they won't kill them off too easily too. I really liked this season too... but it did have faults that I think Coven is fixing.
Hotel
Checking In
I feel like this season kind of got it right with the first episode. They didn't overuse Lady Gaga, but they gave a great and exciting intro to her character. I don't know where its going, so its a little hard to compare this to all the other seasons... but I think this got it right. There are lots of characters this season, but they don't introduce them all right away. We can kind of tell what mysterious things are going to be answered, but we're still intrigued by them. And also this is a little different because there isn't really a character that we're seeing this World from. I guess its the cop character... but it's not like how we enter the world of Freakshow through Bette and Dot, We enter the Coven through Zoe, We see the Asylum from Lana and we get the view of the Murder House from The Harmon Family. This is sort of a mystery... and I like it that way. Re-watching Coven I felt like they over-explained some things. This I thought was pretty good. I didn't notice a smoking part, but there was one part where Danny from 30 Rock was offered a drink of something from Lady Gaga and he says "I'm on a cleanse" and then she says "Not now" and that kind of reminded me of the smoking gags. Its a smart thing to do to introduce us to the world.
Asylum
Welcome To Briarcliff
This was a pretty good premiere. This season is my least favorite, and also the season that scares me the most... but there are a lot of actors in this season that aren't in any other season. Chloe Sevigny and Lizzie Brochere are really good in this season. I don't like the alien stuff... but it was kind of cool that they connected the alien experimentations with Dr. Arden's torturing methods. That made sense to me... but it is a kind of obvious connection. I feel like they tried to tackle a lot in this season and it didn't pay off that well... but the series has gotten a lot better since then... so its come a long way.
Favorite Premieres So Far
So I think I'm going to do a little contest every week for my favorite something about each episode or each season. It'll probably mostly be favorite episode overall, but I also might do favorite characters from each actors and other things like that. I'm going to exclude Hotel from this one just because it'd be hard to compare that too others just because its not done yet.
Knowing where everything is going I think my favorite premiere is Coven. I feel like that ended nicely, it answered all the questions from the Pilot... The Pilot wasn't too confusing or hard to follow, and I know this is a lot of people's least favorite seasons... but its one of my favorites.
Although saying that... the Pilot was really good too when you know how the seasons are going to end. That season did a great job of not overdoing anything and tying up all lose ends and answering all the questions. Plus that was the only one that sort of had a little something after the story was wrapped up to make it a little more suspenseful and that was pretty cool. Plus I love Connie Britton and I thought she was great. And I love Evan Peters, but that was the only character of his I thought worked well. They should totally do a movie of Catcher in The Rye and have him as Holden. I know he's too old... but he'd be perfect!
Now putting Blinders on and pretending I don't know what's going to happen throughout the season, Freakshow is probably my favorite. I thought that was a fun season and it was a good balance of really scary and really fun. Twisty is just terrifying and not knowing that he's going to die in a few episodes just makes it really exciting. I think while watching it for the first time, I probably liked Hotel or Coven best... just because I looked at my Facebook status updates from when I was watching it, and apparently I was falling asleep during Freakshow and didn't really know what was going on. I had a busier schedule while watching Freakshow than I did with Hotel or Coven... but I certainly don't think I could fall asleep during hotel! I think I did stop paying attention a little bit during Coven, but I watched the Encore right after anyway because I liked it so much. So maybe Freakshow wasn't my favorite... but I did really like that season and I'm happy to re-watch it!
Murder House
Pilot
So this was really cool to re-watch. I always forget that we actually see Vivian walking in on her husband in the act. And the scene at the beginning where her doctor is comparing her to the house is a really good opening scene. I caught the reference to a mental Asylum in there pretty clearly... Its hard to say what the clue for Season 6 is because there wasn't too much dialogue. Maybe American Horror Story: Bad Yelp Reviews or something. Lol. No idea.
And some similarities I noticed... The scene with the bullying of Violet kind of made me think of the rape scene in the current season. It seems like there's rape or abuse at the beginning of every season. Twins are also used a lot, or just people who look alike this season. We have the Tattler Twins in Freakshow. I think this might be further detailed this season, I believe somewhere in Season 1 Vivian or Sarah Paulson's character references everyone having a twin... I think that has something to do with the seasons being connected. It also seems like most seasons start with 2 people together that have nothing to do with the show getting killed. This episode has the twins, Asylum has Adam Levine and Jenna Dewitt Tatum, Hotel has the two girls at the beginning... I don't know that Freakshow or Coven follow that format... but thats a pretty good classic horror movie moment. Like when Scream killed off Drew Barrymore in the first few minutes. Good pilot and good start to this mini series!
Coven
Bitchcraft
So I actually decided to go a little out of order and I watched this before watching Asylum. I may end up watching Asylum last because that was my least favorite season so far... and it might have been the one that scared me the most... so I'll do that last.
I thought this season was really fun and I just liked it. I really liked the music of the show, which just made me like it even more and I just thought this was maybe the easiest one to understand. It reminds me a bit of Freak Show because there was some narration in the beginning to give at least a small understanding of what was going on. I kind of wish that when they do the narrations, they at least keep up with it a bit more throughout the show. That always kind of bothered me.
Some connections: Gabourey Sibude's character was wearing a shirt that said Freak. I mentioned the rape and abuse connections. The cold open of this season has Kathy Bates torturing her slaves, so I guess thats kind of the "twins" connection. I like Sarah Paulson's role in this and I like Taissa Farminga too. And Emma Roberts is basically playing Chanel here too. Which is funny. The word freakshow is also mentioned. I really like Fionna, I think she's a lot like Lady Gaga's character in Hotel. It seems Gaga also has the power of suggestion and does cocaine and has a keen fashion sense. I think those are all the connections I can think of right now. I like this season, its the only season I actually own on DVD and I know this one gets a lot of hate... but its such a fun season. I like it.
Freak Show
Monsters Among Us
Okay one common thread I've noticed so far is some reference to how you're not supposed to be smoking and then they smoke. Specifically Jessica Lange's character. In Murder House she asked Vivian if she could smoke in the house, Vivian said no and Constance lit her cigarette and smoked. In Coven there is some reference to it while she's at the Doctor's office and I think she does her trick to make it okay... or maybe Cordelia yells at her. On Freakshow she lights up in a hospital and they say "you can't smoke here" and she says "it's Lucky Strike, they're good for you." I feel like there is a reference to it in Hotel also... just something interesting I noticed. There are probably a lot of meanings for that. It clearly shows that the characters don't exactly play by the rules.
I watched this episode sort of in chunks throughout the day... so I didn't quite make that many great observations other than the cigarette thing. Also Elsa Mars seems to have the same interest in singing that Sister Jude had in Asylum. Pepper is the same character here as she was in Asylum. The girl Twisty kidnaps is now on Scream Queens. I don't remember hearing about a hotel anywhere... there were references to Hollywood and the twins thought it was very hollywood.
I feel like there is some form of abuse in every other season. There's bullying in Murder House, there's sexual abuse in Hotel and Coven. This one I think had verbal abuse. There were some big hints at child neglect. I remember thinking nothing really clicked for me this season when I started watching it because I felt like there were just too many people all in different things and they introduced them all too early. Thats something that I think I'll have a better appreciation for in Hotel because they didn't introduce many characters in the pilot. I hope that means they won't kill them off too easily too. I really liked this season too... but it did have faults that I think Coven is fixing.
Hotel
Checking In
I feel like this season kind of got it right with the first episode. They didn't overuse Lady Gaga, but they gave a great and exciting intro to her character. I don't know where its going, so its a little hard to compare this to all the other seasons... but I think this got it right. There are lots of characters this season, but they don't introduce them all right away. We can kind of tell what mysterious things are going to be answered, but we're still intrigued by them. And also this is a little different because there isn't really a character that we're seeing this World from. I guess its the cop character... but it's not like how we enter the world of Freakshow through Bette and Dot, We enter the Coven through Zoe, We see the Asylum from Lana and we get the view of the Murder House from The Harmon Family. This is sort of a mystery... and I like it that way. Re-watching Coven I felt like they over-explained some things. This I thought was pretty good. I didn't notice a smoking part, but there was one part where Danny from 30 Rock was offered a drink of something from Lady Gaga and he says "I'm on a cleanse" and then she says "Not now" and that kind of reminded me of the smoking gags. Its a smart thing to do to introduce us to the world.
Asylum
Welcome To Briarcliff
This was a pretty good premiere. This season is my least favorite, and also the season that scares me the most... but there are a lot of actors in this season that aren't in any other season. Chloe Sevigny and Lizzie Brochere are really good in this season. I don't like the alien stuff... but it was kind of cool that they connected the alien experimentations with Dr. Arden's torturing methods. That made sense to me... but it is a kind of obvious connection. I feel like they tried to tackle a lot in this season and it didn't pay off that well... but the series has gotten a lot better since then... so its come a long way.
Favorite Premieres So Far
So I think I'm going to do a little contest every week for my favorite something about each episode or each season. It'll probably mostly be favorite episode overall, but I also might do favorite characters from each actors and other things like that. I'm going to exclude Hotel from this one just because it'd be hard to compare that too others just because its not done yet.
Knowing where everything is going I think my favorite premiere is Coven. I feel like that ended nicely, it answered all the questions from the Pilot... The Pilot wasn't too confusing or hard to follow, and I know this is a lot of people's least favorite seasons... but its one of my favorites.
Although saying that... the Pilot was really good too when you know how the seasons are going to end. That season did a great job of not overdoing anything and tying up all lose ends and answering all the questions. Plus that was the only one that sort of had a little something after the story was wrapped up to make it a little more suspenseful and that was pretty cool. Plus I love Connie Britton and I thought she was great. And I love Evan Peters, but that was the only character of his I thought worked well. They should totally do a movie of Catcher in The Rye and have him as Holden. I know he's too old... but he'd be perfect!
Now putting Blinders on and pretending I don't know what's going to happen throughout the season, Freakshow is probably my favorite. I thought that was a fun season and it was a good balance of really scary and really fun. Twisty is just terrifying and not knowing that he's going to die in a few episodes just makes it really exciting. I think while watching it for the first time, I probably liked Hotel or Coven best... just because I looked at my Facebook status updates from when I was watching it, and apparently I was falling asleep during Freakshow and didn't really know what was going on. I had a busier schedule while watching Freakshow than I did with Hotel or Coven... but I certainly don't think I could fall asleep during hotel! I think I did stop paying attention a little bit during Coven, but I watched the Encore right after anyway because I liked it so much. So maybe Freakshow wasn't my favorite... but I did really like that season and I'm happy to re-watch it!
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