Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t watched the season finale of American Horror Story Asylum yet, I advise that you first, keep your expectations low, and second, stop reading this right now.
Let me preface this by saying I’m big fan of Ryan Murphy. I remember watching his first television endeavor, Popular, back in 1999 on the WB. I loved Nip/Tuck with all my heart, and in recent times I’ve become obsessed with Glee and an occasional watcher of The New Normal. Of his more recent projects, the one that I was the most excited about was American Horror Story.
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As a project, American Horror Story was a departure from the saccharine Ryan Murphy the world was getting all to familiar with through Glee, and was instead more in the vein of the gritty, twisted Nip/Tuck. The first season of American Horror Story was amazing–twists and turns every episode that left you wanting more and with character development that made you feel personally invested in their fates. I could hardly contain my excitement when the second season of the series, Asylum, was announced. Unfortunately, after watching the season’s last episode, Madness Ends, the other day, it’s with a heavy heart that I must tell you how disappointed I was. …It sucked.
The second season of American Horror Story is a classic example of too many story lines and too many ideas with no possible way of satisfactorily resolving everything in 13 episodes. Our trip into Briarcliff Manor and its conclusion delivers exactly the madness it promises, but not in a good way. What’s more, all the crazy stuff going on had no connecting thread other than the characters–which is a recipe for disaster. Characters are unstable to viewers (especially in a show set in a mental institution), and in order to really grasp the message a television series is trying to send, there needs to be a clear theme. Rather than just one, I’ve identified ten separate issues Ryan Murphy saw fit to undertake in Asylum:
- Adam Levine’s nonexistent acting skills
- Alien abductions
- The devil and possession
- A damning critique of Christianity through Monsignor Timothy O’Hara
- A serial killer and the fallout from impregnating a lesbian former asylum inmate-turned famous journalist/reporter
- The consequences of ambition
- The journey of the nun formerly in charge of Briarcliff Manor
- An exploration into the kind of Nazi experiments completed during WWII by one of the characters
- The fine line between innocence and debauchery
- Mommy issues, mommy issues, mommy issues
See the problem? We’ve got enough material for about 20 different shows right here. I don’t even know where to begin.
Was I wrong to expect to find out why ALIENS were ABDUCTING PEOPLE?!
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If you’re going to have alien abductions in a show, by the season finale I expect to know what the hell was going on. With American Horror Story, I didn’t get that. How can you end the season of a show without explaining something that a major impact on the show–Kit Walker got abducted, and both of his love interests who were thought to be dead were really on some spaceship gestating together. When these women return to earth, and essentially come back from the dead, they keep saying how their children are destined for great things. So I was expecting something amazing, like world-changing! …In Madness Ends we find out one’s a neurosurgeon and the other is a lawyer. Ryan Murphy, was that supposed be satirical?
Also in this season of AHS, we see a nice nun possessed by the devil, become super slutty, and then get killed. Then the Nazi doctor, whose story line is explored and then thrown away, decides to burn himself alive when he’s cremating her body because the innocent girl he loved was gone. And then there’s Sister Jude, who somehow got rescued twice by both Lana and Kit–or did I miss something?
I’m going to do a few more things completely out of character and kill a few more people now.
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Who surprisingly became the most important characters of the show were Lana, Bloody Face, and Bloody Face Jr. In Madness Ends, we find out Lana’s this famous reporter famous for exposing Briarcliff and ruining the reputation of Cardinal (formerly Monsignor) Timothy O’Hara, another one of the former higher ups at Briarcliff. In a sudden twist, the incredibly guilty and arguably the most sinister and delusional character of the show slits his wrists in the bathtub. …And why? Well, because Lana Banana ambushed him and bombarded him with accusations in a parking lot stairwell with a camera on Easter Sunday. Is anyone else confused by how unrealistic that is?
Then there’s the love child of Lana and Bloody Face, who Lana shoots right in the head. Um, Lana, with all the mommy issues going on in this show, he wasn’t going to kill you. He probably just wanted to breastfeed some more. Also, killing your own son? This bitch is heartless!
The one redeeming moment of Madness Ends turned out to be a disappointment like everything else. There was a flashback segment where they showed Lana’s first trip to Briarcliff and for a brief second I thought it was going to be revealed that Lana somehow orchestrated this whole thing to get her story and fame–and my mind was going to be BLOWN–instead the screen just faded to black Sopranos-style with that damn French music playing.
There’s Adam Levine being surprised his storyline actually gets some kind of resolution.
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Oh, but how could I forget, one thing did get resolved in the finale of American Horror Story Asylum: what happens to Adam Levine. Yes, that’s right, the one storyline no one cared about came full circle. Said storyline went a lot like this: “Here’s Adam Levine and Mrs. Channing Tatum. They’re hot. They’re having sex, now they’re getting hurt, and we’re going to make you wait until the season finale to make you understand what the hell is going on, even though you’re not remotely attached to these characters because they’ve had all of 25 minutes of screen time across the entire season.” Bravo.
So, no, I wasn’t at all impressed with the finale of the second season American Horror Story. I’m hoping the third season gets back to basics and recaptures the clear sense of perspective the first season had. Remember the Rubber Man!? That was great stuff.
…I will miss that catchy asylum French music, though.
I agree this season was ALL over the road. The only min of show I enjoyed is when Adam Levine got his damn arm torn off;) This show prob has one more shot, Ryan Murphy is classic for starting strong and just killing the show. The 1st three seasons of Nip Tuck were great, then I has 3 seasons of watching Matt getting gang banged and dressing like clown. Dr.Troy literally killeda woman on a rooftop via the old “shag & drop”. AND they killed Kimber;( WTH….nice post and as usual I agree with you!!
Yeah, I will admit Nip/Tuck did get a little weird for a while, and the ending was more depressing than anything else, but at least everything in that show came full circle. The Carver storyline on Nip/Tuck was pretty awesome though. And with their involvement with that Escobar guy. …Okay, so maybe I did just love it all.
I heard next season’s going to be a romance, so we’ll see where he goes with it. As long as there’s no aliens or cameo appearance by Adam Levine, I think we’ll be good.
I didn’t totally hate this season–but I agree, they had way too much going on and really never pulled the various stories together-each one just sort of petered out to its own unsatisfying conclusion.
There was a lot of mystery and suspense in the first season (Who was the Rubber Man? Who was really dead, who was really alive? What was going on in the basement? Would the Harmon family escape the house?) and there was none of that this season. We knew from the get go that Lily Rabe was possessed, there was never any doubt that James Cromwell was a Nazi, Zachary Quinto is revealed as Bloody Face mid season, etc., etc., and both Lana and Kip escape Briarcliff well before the season finale.
Still there were a lot of fine moments–Lily Rabe’s performance was just thrilling. I kinda look at the season as a missed opportunity. There seemed to be an interesting story here (a reporter looking to score a big story instead winds up trapped in a house of horrors insane asylum). I’m not sure why they felt the need to throw in Nazis and aliens and serial murder, especially since they didn’t really go anywhere with those story lines.
I might’ve been kind of harsh on it in this, but I didn’t HATE the whole season. Like you mentioned, there were a lot of great moments, but the conclusion of it all just seemed so lackluster when there was so much potential to go big. I think you’re really right about talking the timeline for things being revealed–a lot of the mysteries were resolved, usually through someone dying, long before the season finale.
I almost think it got to a point where maybe Ryan Murphy was feeling like he should throw in everything that he thought SHOULD be in a show centered around an asylum and started too many different storylines rather sticking to one and making it really good.
We’ll see what happens next season. I heard this one’s going to be a romance with Evan Peters and Sarah Paulson coming back. And, needless to say, Jessica Lange.
I adored this season, in fact better than the first! However, the aliens did make me face palm a bit. That was a bit over the top! But other than that, I thought it was fantastic!!
Okay, okay. You got me. I did love things about this season. There were a lot of great moments, and I thought the whole possession thing interesting. Oh, and the concept of death and how that shown–that was pretty damn awesome, too. I was just counting on some big, twisted finale that also settled everything, and I was a little let down when that didn’t happen.
I am going to have to trust you on this one. I don’t watch scary movies/shows, not because I’m scared but because um its uhhh storylines and uh scripts or something. Plus they aren’t bitter enough. Yeah.
Ha! Oh, this season was actually pretty bitter. Loads of resentment, too. It wasn’t a bad season overall, but I think it was just too ambitious and the finale was well below my expectations.
Finale’s have a way of doing that. I suggest they end on the penultimate episode. They are ususally better than the Finale’s.
I haven’t seen the second season yet, as I must wait on Netflix. I read this anyways and am now sad…I know I know, you warned me. But I so enjoyed the first season…though I felt a little weird for it lol
Oh yeah, it’s one those shows you don’t want to seem you like TOO much or people start looking at you a little differently. Don’t get me wrong, the second season wasn’t bad–there were great moments–but the finale let me down.
The ending of Nip/Tuck flat pissed me off. They separate, after all that, and Kimber? Girl was a crazy fucked up biotch, but tough as hell. And she just walks the fuck right off the boat? Hell no.
I wanted Kimber and Christian to live happily ever after. And how about Matt running off with oh fuck what was her name, that one brunette lady that was Julia’s life coach for a while? What was all that!?
I know! That woman was totally screwed up. Christian and Troy just needed to be. They were the only ones who would ever get the other, or put up with their crap.
I agree with you. The aliens thing annoyed me, it had a great storyline without the stupid alien storyline..
Also, I agree with you on the whole Cardinal’s suicide.. If she had gone to the papers about him and outed him, fair enough. But he had pretty much clear sailing and had gotten away with it all. So why did he kill himself? I agree that was realistic.
At some points it seemed that the writers just wanted to end the storylines quickly, and thus death was the quickest way to do this..
I have to admit though, I loved Sister Jude and her story <3
I wonder if the aliens were supposed to be part of the asylum thing… somehow? I don’t know. I just didn’t get it. Every idea was pretty decent, except the aliens, but I mean, it gets to a point where it’s like, there’s too much going on. I’d rather have one good story line than several that don’t get resolved well. I was rooting for Sister Jude, too.