A collegiette is super busy and often doesn’t have the time to watch too much TV – totally understandable. But when you need a break from writing that 10 page paper, instead of turning into another episode of Jersey Shore, flip on my latest obsession American Horror Story.
This season American Horror Story: Asylum takes place at Briarcliff Mental Intuition run by Sister Jude (Jessica Lange). It is set in the 1960s. The show follows Sister Jude and her subsequent work with the different shifty employees of Briarcliff, including the disturbing Dr. Arthur Arden (James Cromwell) and Sister Mary Eunice (Lily Rabe), and of course the patients, including alleged killer Kit Walker (Evan Peters). Besides the resident and staff Sister Jude must deal with outsiders such as the curious news reporter Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) and the therapist sent from the state Dr. Oliver Thredson (Zachary Quinto). No one is who they claim to be at first encounter and everyone has a secret, each more dark and bloody than the next.
American Horror Story is the jump-out-of-your-seat-and-scream-at-the-television good. Every episode something happens that you would never ever expect. If you like suspense, you’ll love this show. That’s not to say that everything on the show happens completely out of the blue. The writers do a good job at giving you hints as to what is really going on in the insanity at Briarcliff, while not giving too much away. For example in the recent reveal of the killer Bloody Face, the writers gave clues to who it would be in previous episodes, but not enough so it made it blatantly obvious. And the scene in which Bloody Face was revealed was done slowly so that it the viewers were aware of it before the characters were.
The characters are my favorite part of American Horror Story. While we often like to place our characters into baskets of “Good” and “Bad” that’s almost impossible to do with this show. One week you’ll be rooting for one character, and the next week you’ll be rooting against them. The characters are all flawed and why they act the way they do if often explained in flashbacks. Personally my favorite character and the perfect example of this good/bad paradox is Sister Jude. She is a character who inherently wants to do good with her life and work at Briarcliff, but she has past mistakes and current indirections that stop her from fully achieving this. She’s fascinating to watch.
Visually the show is stunning. Everything from the different sets to the casts’ wardrobe makes it feel as if you are actually watching something from the 1960s. The show is shot with a dark overcast, that to truly appreciate you need to turn off all the lights. These visuals lend to the darkness of the show in general. While it can get explicit with sex or violence, it never feels as if the explicit material is placed on the show just to have blood and guts. The material is used to move along plot points or character development.
American Horror Story has everything you could want in a show: a suspenseful plot, intriguing characters, and great visuals. So instead of tuning into whatever reality show TLC is playing this week, tune into American Horror Story. You may be just a little scared, but you won’t be disappointed.