Article first published as AMERICAN HORROR STORY COVEN Review on Seat42F.
FX’s AMERICAN HORROR STORY begins its third outing this week. Subtitled COVEN, this year’s story is about witches. There is a school in New Orleans where young girls with special powers can be sent for training. With the reputation and wide-spread knowledge about the facility, and the existence of magic in general, slipping away, senior witches have differing opinions on what direction in which to take their kind in the modern age.
FX’s AMERICAN HORROR STORY begins its third outing this week. Subtitled COVEN, this year’s story is about witches. There is a school in New Orleans where young girls with special powers can be sent for training. With the reputation and wide-spread knowledge about the facility, and the existence of magic in general, slipping away, senior witches have differing opinions on what direction in which to take their kind in the modern age.
There are many different, distinct
stories introduced in the first episode, “Bitchcraft.” The first is that
of Madame Delphine LaLaurie (Kathy Bates, Harry’s Law), a cruel
mistress who lived hundreds of years ago. She has a collection of
tortured souls in her attic, and will not hesitate to punish, even for
things that are not her victim’s fault. She is one scary person. She is
also obsessed with youth, a quality that not only applies to her in this
cast.
Bates is fantastic, as one might expect,
creating a character both chilling behind closed doors, and refined and
polite in public. She builds the layers of the part carefully,
smoldering anger and power below the surface, and definitely grabbing
viewer attention every second she is on screen. It is not clear how she
will fit into the larger tale, as the connections are not drawn until
the end of the hour, but they are done in a clever and surprising way.
Besides Bates, fans of the anthology
series will know right away to expect great things from Jessica Lange
and Sarah Paulson, playing wealthy widow Fiona Goode and potion-making
headmistress Cordelia Foxx, respectively. After all, they’ve shared
scenes in past years, and have already developed interesting and
memorable characters for the franchise. They appear poised to do the
same again in AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN.
Lange’s role this season seems to allow
her to be more wild and free than we’ve seen her previously. This is a
woman not only with confidence, as Sister Jude had, but with the ability
to back it up, as neither of her other parts possessed. One can see
just how much fun the actress is having, and that really adds to the
enjoyment.
Paulson plays things closer to the vest,
less brave than last year’s Lana. Yet, she still gets delicious drama
with Lange, knowing as these writers do that the two play well off of
one another, and using that to their advantage. As mother and daughter
this time around, Fiona and Cordelia have a complicated history, and
while we’ve seen the two performers at odds on screen before, this time
seems different. It’ll be interesting to see how far this volume veers
Lange and Paulson away from the previous.
We also have the girls at the school.
The main protagonist seems to be Zoe (Taissa Farmiga, who was in season
one), a girl who doesn’t understand her skills, and whom has
accidentally killed. Sent by her grandmother, Myrtle Snow (Frances
Conroy), to the school, Zoe has a lot to learn, but is also quick to
figure things out. She’s a very strong presence, surprising for someone
with so few screen credits. It’s certain she’ll hold her own.
Zoe’s classmates are Madison Montgomery
(Emma Roberts, Nancy Drew), a famous movie star, Nan (Jamie Brewer), a
clairvoyant, and Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe), a human voo-doo doll. While
Queenie and Nan are not main characters, I do like the dynamic of the
group as a whole, a twisted bunch of misfits, and so hope they recur
often. The four girls already have a good chemistry, especially between
Zoe and Madison, not necessarily a pleasant relationship, but an
entertaining one.
AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN is the year
of the woman, with only two men, Evan Peters and Denis O’Hare, in the
main cast. Besides those listed above, Angela Bassett (Betty and
Coretta) makes quite an impression in her guest spot, and Lily Rabe
delivers an impact in a small part that will surely expand in other
installments, though it’s far from obvious how that will happen. With
all of these wonderful females, I can’t imagine a better grouping for a
witch story.
This season also proves to be more
brutal than the first two, with some very graphic sex and violence,
sometimes combined, in the first episode alone. Each season of AMERICAN
HORROR STORY has its startling and cringe-worthy scenes, but to see so
much, so early makes me think there is a lot more in store. It may not
be particularly scary, at least not yet, but it certainly pushes the
boundaries of the genre, as well as what can be seen on basic cable.
“Bitchcraft” impressed me a lot. My
hopes were high, given the quality of earlier installments and the
resumes of those who signed on for COVEN, but the shock factor still got
to me, and Farmiga, in particular, showed something unexpected. If this
episode is typical for what the year has in store, it may be the best
season thus far.
AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN premieres Wednesday, October 9th at 10 p.m. ET on FX.
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