credit: American Horror Stories
It’s worth a sigh and a shake of the head to wonder whether American Horror Stories is going to get any better for the last part of season two or if it’s going to continue down the soft and comfortable road that it’s been taking since this type of horror isn’t really the edgy, gripping the armrest of the couch type of horror that AHS started out as. From the first episode of the second season, it’s been one letdown after another as the stories appear to be taking on a very sophomoric appearance and tone this time around, even if the episodes have made use of skilled actors and regulars that have been around before. This time around, the main character is someone that AHS fans can easily get along with since her job is one that definitely compliments the show but ends up being subverted, as one could have possibly expected. That appears to be the general idea this season, take something that could be diabolical or at least interesting and swaddle it in enough exposition to take the true edge off.
credit: American Horror Stories
The initial scene is disturbing enough, but it’s what one might expect from AHS.
Fear, terror, murder, all of it conspires to make AHS what it is, and in Sam’s case, it does feel that this could have traumatized her in a way that made the distance between life and death fade to nearly nothing in her eyes. Her job as a makeup artist in a mortuary might sound kind of morbid, but it does appear to be something that she’s passionate about and a job that she happens to believe in. Her ability to improve the look of those bodies that have undergone serious physical trauma so they can have an open casket funeral is quite impressive. But her solid relationship with the dead came from the fact that she spent several days with the corpse of her mother when she was younger before she was found. This would no doubt have a serious effect on a lot of people, but Sam has found a way to take it to a positive place, at least until she’s triggered.
What’s troubling is that the people she surrounds herself with are as fake as a three-dollar bill.
It’s kind of amusing to think that her glamor girlfriends and her fiance all think that her job in the mortuary is odd and disquieting. But when she meets a man named Charlie, who challenges the way she looks at things and even incites her to a bout of fake necrophilia, Sam’s world is turned upside down. Rejecting Charlie for his duplicity, which he states was well-intentioned, she spends the next several months changing her life in a very profound manner. Instead of the relaxed, comfortable makeup artist that attends the dead, she becomes a slick, Barbie-doll type of individual who is about to be married to her fiance, Jesse, and has left her former life behind. The fact that her friend reacts in a way that suggests that this is ‘not her’ is the type of hypocrisy that can set a person’s teeth on edge. However, once the day of the wedding comes, Charlie reappears and manages to ruin Sam’s wedding and her life by showing the taped evidence of her illicit act in the morgue, thereby ostracizing Sam from everyone who knew her.
credit: American Horror Stories
Charlie comes off as the guy who thinks he’s profound but is, in actuality, just a misguided savant who thinks he’s smarter than he is.
The philosophical nature of Charlie’s argument when it comes to his actions at Sam’s wedding might strike some people as the cry of someone who loves her with such depth that he’s willing to do and say anything to make her see that their connection is in fact something that’s worth the trouble. But the fact that Sam can’t get a job or speak to anyone, or even remain anonymous is a serious dark mark against Charlie that still feels as though it would be disregarded for some wayward sense of love and affection that some would see as ‘poetic’. A man ruined the life of a woman, and people would call that beautiful. That’s a small part of our society and one that too many people happen to think makes sense.
Is this show going to make it to a third season?
It’s still a little too early to tell, but it does feel likely that someone out there will argue for a third season, no matter that this one has been underwhelming from the start. It could happen that the last episodes will be enough to right ship, so to speak. But at this point, the show doesn’t really appear ready to do anything of significance.
Hopefully, the next season of the main show will redeem this anthology in some way.
