"Checking In" to AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL

Article first published as AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL Review on Seat42F.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY -- "Checking In" Episode 501 (Airs Wednesday, October 7, 10:00 pm/ep) Pictured: Kathy Bates as Iris. CR: Suzanne Tenner/FX

The acclaimed AMERICAN HORROR STORY is back for its new series, HOTEL. As fans have come to expect, AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL keeps much of the familiar cast, including Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson, Angela Bassett, Evan Peters, and Denis O’Hare, with some other Murphy favorites, like Wes Bentley, Cheyenne Jackson, and Matt Bomer, thrown in. This time, the setting is an old hotel in modern-day Los Angeles, and the scary begins right away.

To help viewers ease into the world, the premiere, “Checking In,” starts with a couple of ‘normal’ people (Kamilla Alnes and 666 Park Avenue’s Helena Mattsson) arriving at the Hotel Cortez on vacation. This is nice because it gives viewers an ‘in’ to experience the world of the hotel, without needing any prior knowledge. We find out what the girls find out, and the disturbing, weird bits happen slowly at first, but not too slowly, to give the audience time to adjust.

We need the time to adjust because AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL is probably the weirdest of the five seasons thus far. It’s less clear who the characters are and what is going on than in the first four years, “Checking In” keeping plenty of secrets. This is not a complaint, but it certainly feels like a bit of a different approach, as past seasons generally gave us at least a few main people whom we could understand right off the bat.

The closest we get to that in episode one is Iris (Kathy Bates), who works the reception desk. The reason she is at the Hotel Cortez is explored in the first hour, helped along by a flashback to the mid-1990s. I believe we’ll get others as time goes on, but most of the main cast, including The Countess (singer Lady Gaga), are much more shrouded in secrecy, and it will take some weeks before viewers will begin to understand them.

As usual, the entire main contingent does not show up right away. But those that are present are, without fail, very interesting. Wes Bentley makes a great hero (presumably) as police detective John Lowe. Sarah Paulson finds yet another completely different personality as Hypodermic Sally. Matt Bomer is magnetic as The Countess’s lover. Chloe Sevigny makes Alex Lowe anything but the typical housewife, and is already showing a lot of complexity. Denis O’Hare is particularly marvelous as Liz Taylor. And we get a disturbing scene with guest star Max Greenfield, who departs quite far from his role of Schmidt on New Girl.

Those people are the reasons viewers will want to tune in weekly for AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL. Creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have become experts at taking a bunch of very, very talented actors and letting them play parts that showcase their range and stretch their skills. It’s an absolute pleasure just to see the roles that these actors create, and even the most villainous of them find a way to make us care about them. “Checking In” only teases what this season has in store, but even with it being light on the mythology of the miniseries, it finds a way to hook the audience.

Will AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL be as great as Freak Show or the first season, my two favorites? My gut instinct tells me no, but it’s pretty early to make that judgment. I already like it a bit better than the worst of the bunch Asylum, which was still a very good batch of television installments. The important thing is that it is worthy of the franchise and kicks off the season in an intriguing manner.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FX.

"Edward Mordrake" Haunts the FREAK SHOW

Article first published as TV Review: 'American Horror Story: Freak Show' - 'Edward Mordrake' on Blogcritics.

“Edward Mordrake” is American Horror Story: Freak Show‘s two-part Halloween episode, airing last week and this one. In it, Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley, The Hunger Games, American Beauty), the ghost of a circus man-gone-mad, comes to Jupiter to evaluate the freaks that make up our cast, intent to kill one of them to join his damned crew. His troupe will not accept just anyone, though.

In a character-driven series, this is a great device to delve deeper into the backstories of many of the players. With each of the freaks Edward encounters, he makes them tell him their deepest pain, judging whether they are acceptable to join him or not. This leads to some really interesting revelations, as well as phenomenal performances, something the FX anthology show is known for.

In part one, the best actress award goes to Kathy Bates. Her Ethel Darling is a transformative role for her in an already celebrated career, understated and underused until this point. Ethel is ready to die, having gotten news from her doctor that she’s got terminal cancer, drinking to speed up the dying process while she tells Mordrake’s story to the troupe. But in spilling her own tale to Mordrake, she realizes she wants the short time she has left and she begs for mercy. Mordrake doesn’t take her, but Bates takes our hearts in a compelling, layered performance of a woman facing her own mortality.

In part two, the award goes to John Carroll Lynch as Twisty the Clown. He is delivering a truly creepy character this year, the clown being the only one to really be afraid of in the first four episodes. In “Edward Mordrake,” though, the clown actually speaks and justifies his actions. He is a simpleton who doesn’t believe he’s doing anything wrong. It’s a brilliant take and Lynch sells it, making us feel genuinely sorry for him, as well as happy that he has a place where he is finally accepted when Mordrake chooses him to join the band.

Honorable mention goes to Jessica Lange, whose Elsa Mars has a very dark and very bloody past, and whom actually is accepted by Mordrake before he hears the clown. Elsa is a pathetic character, one whose insecurities make her freakier than those in her show. She is also the one who summons Mordrake, accidentally or not, so there would be a certain poetic justice if she goes with him. She can’t, of course, because Lange’s contributions to American Horror Story are too valuable to write her out four episodes in. But I like that she almost is taken because that feels right.

I would be remiss without also giving a shoutout to this year’s break-out star, Finn Wittrock, who plays Dandy Mott. Dandy has less screen time in “Edward Mordrake” than in previous weeks, but he is the most chilling character in American Horror Story: Freak Show. Seemingly normal, Dandy is as twisted as they come, and his growth in just four episodes, from restless spoiled brat to ruthless killer, filling the shoes of the departed Twisty, has been amazing. We don’t need Twisty any more because we now have Dandy, who may just be ten times worse.

It is sad that Dandy’s transformation leads him to murder Patti LaBelle’s Dora, whose sassy attitude towards him is terrific. We barely know her and she will be missed. But it makes sense for the story.

The other major development in “Edward Mordrake” is that Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters) becomes a hero, single-handedly getting the townspeople to accept the freaks camped on their borders. This arc has been brewing since the beginning, too, with Jimmy intent on showing folks that the freak show performers are just like anyone else. He doesn’t make any headway until he rescues three children from Twisty, but once he does, the attitude change is quick, one father even shaking his lobster hand without flinching. Jimmy has accomplished his original primary goal.

That doesn’t mean Jimmy’s story is done. Like Lange, Peters is essential to American Horror Story, serving as arguably the primary protagonist this season, or at least one of the core few. His bitterness at the police for killing his friend and his budding romance with con-woman Maggie (Emma Roberts), which likely turns somewhat genuine after she sees him in noble action, should keep him busy. But it’s a bold choice for the show to make to wrap up his first plot early and allow his thread to make a significant detour here.

American Horror Story: Freak Show is excellent, fully deserving of FX’s best ratings ever, which it is currently pulling down. I like past seasons a lot, but this one is definitely in the running for my favorite edition. Its characters are excellent and its performers are even better, giving meaty material to actors who deserve it and own it. In the past, I haven’t covered this show on a weekly basis, and admittedly, I did combine this two-parter into one review, but if it stays this good, expect to see a lot more from me on it.

American Horror Story: Freak Show airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FX. Its run times vary, so make sure your DVR records the full length, as some weeks have aired almost half-an-hour past 11 p.m. and you won’t want to miss the endings.