Well American
Horror Story always brought great visuals – and the opening scenes of this
incredible hotel certainly upholds that while being very creepy as receptionist
Iris “welcomes” two new guests to the hotel.
As I’d expect from American
Horror Story it also does some excellent job at being extremely creepy,
along with a really chilling Shining homage. It definitely sets the tone! Right
up to the screaming man sewn into the mattress.
I say it again, this show is good at atmospherics.
Iris claims ignorance but is not exactly upset as she
moves her horrified tourists to a different room, (room 64) until the police
arrive (or so she claims). When one of them is killed and eaten by some evil
children.
And now the police are called in but for an entirely separate
crime (and, it looks like, a different hotel) for a couple who have been
murdered while having sex – and still in position. Except the man isn’t dead
though he has had his eyes and tongue removed. Uh… the police are leaving him
there while they collect evidence and not getting the guy to a hospital?
Seriously, all the crime scene detectives are calmly going around checking
evidence while the victim whimpers on the bed with a corpse on his groin.
It probably says a lot about me that I’m willing to
accept a lot of randomness but this implausibility bothers me.
We have John Lowe and Detective Hahn checking the scene
while completely ignoring the victim. John seems to have some Sherlockian skill
going on.
John goes back to the police station both look at brutal
crime scenes and talk to his adorable daughter over the phone (though his wife
doesn’t want to talk which suggests that he has at least some hallmarks of the
detective with a troubled family life.
John gets an apparent call from the killer claiming he’s
going to repeat the crime – in Room 64 of Hotel Cortez, where the tourists are
staying
Or were since a new guy books into the hotel and since he
gives Iris attitude she puts him in Room 64 – and is claimed by… dear gods is
that Sarah Poulson playing 80s reject? The credits name her as “hypodermic
Sally” which bodes no good, but the guy checks into his room to take drugs and
hallucinate a maid proud of her body cleanup skills and a figure wrapped in
plastic who turns him over and pulls his trousers down – the figure has a drill
on their groin. American
Horror Story and rape… again.
John arrives at the hotel to check out room 64 and Liz
Taylor is called to take him to room 64 (while talking cryptically in the lift)
where the man is being brutally raped when Sally enters the room to demand the
man say he loves her before he dies.
John enters the room and it’s empty – but he still lays
down on the bed for a nap while someone gasps under it. He wakes to creepy
vampire children doing their Shining bit because why not?
On to the Countess Elizabeth and Donovan, getting ready
in fabulous clothes, make up, jewels with a side of cocaine. Despite the
elaborate clothes they go to watch an outdoor screening of an old vampire film
(Nosferatu?) quickly attracting the attention of another couple to encourage
them to come home with them with not-so-subtle flirting. One beautiful orgy
later and Elizabetha and Donavan slit their throats and drink the blood. It’s
very very very very very messy
Vampires – hey they’re good fun sexy naked vampires.
Afterwards they call housekeeping
Anyway back to John who goes home to his loving daughter
and snarky doctor wife (who has a wonderful anti-vaxxer rant which all right
thinking people should praise and applaud her for! Go doctor!) I don’t think
things are perfect with the couple. The child is apparently sharing ominous
dreams with her father but before they can get into this he gets a message from
his wife Alex, asking for help.
He rushes to the scene, leaving his child, Scarlett in
the care of an easily distracted cop. A child who doesn’t know better than to
go wandering. Lots of spookiness as they both enter a building and Scarlett
finds two disembowelled men which, by the phone call, are the work of the same
killer that left the poor guy with no eyes or tongue
Time for a flashback to 2010 with John, Alex, Scarlett
and their so-far-unseen son Holden who disappears at the fair when John is distracted
by his phone
Back to the present and Alex is duly terrified of a
killer hunting them, exposing the rifts in their relationship – a rift caused
by her loving her husband but constantly seeing her missing son in his face.
Back to the hotel the two tourists have been locked in
glowing cages (cages made from neon lights) while Iris lectures them on their
drug use before pouting a nasty blended concoctions down their throats until
Sally shows up and they argue (Iris apparently judges everyone around in the
hotel but can’t leave because of Sally who she blames for forcing her to endure
the hotel). She leaves Sally with the women who entertains herself letting one
go so she can try to escape. She reaches the door where Countess Elizabeth
slits her throat and Iris apologises for her getting loose. Elizabeth is not
impressed.
Time for a new visitor to hotel – only this man, Will
Drake (and his son Lachlan) has bought the hotel, much to Iris and Liz’s shock
who never knew it was for sale. The new owner heads up to the pent house to
open the curtains, much to the annoyance of Donovan asleep on the sofa, naked,
and unsurprisingly hating the sunlight.
He goes to express his anger to Elizabeth who is both
indifferent and who apparently knows Will Drake, the fashion designer. I think
he’s the one selling the hotel to the artistic designer (Donovan continues to
disapprove) while she entertains the Lachlan. She takes him to the awesome
playroom with giant Tetris walls of the vampire kids (three of them). The
youngest child is called Holden which is certainly not a coincidence.
We learn why Iris is at the Hotel – she’s Donovan’s
mother and works there so she can see him every day. He doesn’t share her
affection.
Flashback! 1994 with Iris stalking Sally (Liz was on the
hotel desk then) and checking into the hotel with Donovan. She follows all
worried that Sally’s giving him drugs. They are taking drugs together in the
hotel, and Donovan’s health is clearly not doing well (especially since she
ignores his concerns about sharing needles)
I think drug addiction is going to be the theme of this
season. There’s something to dread.
He collapses as Iris barges her way in. Sally leaves, high
and uncaring – until Iris pushes her out of a very high window and she falls to
her death on concrete. Iris staggers back to the room to find Elizabeth with
her son, enthralled (rightly) by Donovan’s jawline.
Back to the present and John decides to leave home while
the killer is caught to try and protect his family. Of course he moves into the
Cortez hotel. He gets Room 64.
I say it again, American
Horror Story is the master of the visuals – the setting is amazing, the
costumes awesome and even the choreography of simple movement (Elizabeth and
Donovan work so well together). The camera angles and directions are pure art –
and I expect nothing less from this show, it has always been a visual joy (and
I’m not just talking about Matt Bomer. And yes, Matt Bomer makes a glorious
vampire). And I do miss some genuine evil vampires rather than the angsty kind
we get so many off.
John has a daughter he insists on talking to and, even with
a clearly busy schedule, makes time for. Maybe I’m just so used to the whole cliché
of the hardboiled detective with a broken, tragic or non-existent family life
but I found this quite surprising. But not as much as him completely ignoring
the victim while gathering crime scene evidence.
However this is a show we’ve spoken on repeatedly for its
problematic elements and it’s already opened with a brutal gratuitous and even
sexualised rape (and of a man presenting with a lot of gay stereotypes, and it’s
not the first time American Horror Story
has used the idea of anally raping a gay man to death… ye gods what does it say
when a show has more than one instance of this?!) This doesn’t give me much
hope that the complex stories of addiction or any marginalised people are going
to be well treated in this show. We’re already deep in the gratuitous shock for
shock’s sake scenes.
