Through the mercy of an unreliable streaming site, I was able to watch American Horror Story: Apocalypse’s premiere last night. As a fan of the show, I was interested to see how it would handle such a theme that has been hinted at since its debut season. And, of course, as a huge fan of the third season—Coven—I was eager to watch this new season since it’ll feature characters from that season and from Murder House.
Scene from the AHS: Apocalypse season trailer.
I have to say, I was rather disappointed.
One thing that should be established before going further is that over the years, American Horror Story has seemingly lost its focus on characters; the new additions—aside from a few—all seem like parodies of what the show original set out to present: a somber look on horror stories.
Unfortunately, I find the new characters tend to add an attempt at comedy when it’s not necessary, causing the tone to deter from the season’s thematic focus. And this was present in the premiere episode, titled The End.
Set in an underground bunker for survivors of a nuclear apocalypse, the episode introduced an ensemble of characters that spent most of the episode complaining about the quality of their bunker; which was a given, since a place in the bunker came at $100 million a ticket, so they had a right to complain about its archaic technologies and rationalized food cubes (yes, food cubes).
Actress Billie Lourd as Mallory
Nevertheless, personally I would’ve liked if the episode had set a more serious tone since its beginning and made a bigger effort into establishing the plot. The theme of survival of an apocalypse was there, but it felt lost amongst the characters’ comedic banter.
The best part came towards the end, with the introduction of an anticipated character from Murder House. A lot has been theorized on this character, and with their appearance (partnered with the use of music, something AHS always uses perfectly) we got a feeling that seemed taken out directly from the show’s early seasons.
It was only the first episode, so I’m going to give the season a chance to prove itself and will also look forward to watching the episode again to see how I feel about it then. I’m interested in seeing where the season goes and have hopes that as it progresses, the tone becomes more concrete and the characters start complementing one another instead of feeling like isolated personalities.