October Horror 2013: 17 - American Horror Story: Asylum

I don't know what I was expecting when I first went to watch American Horror Story.  I picked it up at the tail end of our 2011 viewing season (Which ended with The Last Winter, which also stars Connie Britton), and it surprised the hell out of me.  The show was weird, weirdly sexual, started off bizarre but reality based and then started throwing in ghost story elements.  And the amount of what they were able to get away with showing, considering it was a TV show on FX, was amazing.  Which isn't even to say it was gory or had a lot of nudity, since it didn't really have any of that.  But the situations were definitely more extreme than what normally is allowed on TV and the direction and shots they use allowed them to convey that a lot more was really happening than what they were showing.

That tradition keeps up in fine form in the 2nd season of American Horror Story, subtitled Asylum.  I like that they've gone for an approach similar to a stage theater company where the majority of their cast from the 1st season has returned, but they are now playing different characters in a totally different and unrelated story.  Season 1 was centered on a strained family moving across country into an old house with a horrific reputation that their realtor didn't disclose.  Season 2 takes place mostly in an asylum, called Briarcliff, run by the Catholic church in the 1960s.  Our main cast involves 2 nuns, a mechanic wrongfully accused of the murder of several women including his own wife, a psychiatrist, a lesbian newspaper reporter, a woman properly accused of axe-murdering her family, and a mad doctor played brilliantly by James Cromwell.

On the framework of the daily workings of a mental ward they hang a story that involves demonic possession, the Angel of Death, Nazis, feral mutants, freaking Aliens, and a serial killer who makes furniture out of his victims.  And an almost uncomfortable amount of sex.  Ooze is the word but not really in a good way.  And again, they do this on TV...all created by the guy who also came up with Glee.  Dang.

We were generally only watching 2 episodes of each series, but this show got incredibly compelling and we've watched all but 2 episodes.  The pacing seems to drag a bit towards the end of the series and one episode even includes a musical number that I'm not sure if it's brilliant way of illustrating a character's perceptions or just a ploy to eat 5 minutes.  There are a lot of plot lines to follow, and it's a very strange show...not confusing, just strange.  Season 1's story is much tighter and more focused than this which has a tendency to go all over the place, but it's still fun.  Well worth the time.