In Which I Spend the Greater Part Complaining About a Show I Actually Like

I miss Connie Britton

In addition to sampling the new fall lineup, I've also been catching up on some shows I missed due to my lack of a television. Among the treasure trove of seasons past that is Netflix, I found the second season of American Horror Story: Asylum. I absolutely loved the first season, Murder House, as it did that difficult thing of making a legitimately scary show funny and enjoyable without being overtly corny. I was hoping the second go around would be just as, if not more amazing.

Alas.

Asylum is not that solid followup to an arguably flawless first season, and I think I know why that is for me. It's not the acting; that's damn near perfect. An increase in Jessica Lange screen time is just about the best decision any show can make (even if she is not, up to that point, even a part of said show). It's not the ambiance, that's still scary as hell. Plus, they kept that super creepy music for the intro which I believe is now the soundtrack for every terrorizing dream I've had since. So what is it?

It's the story. It's just not plain and simple enough, and in order for things to really be scary they have to be understood and have some point of base in fact and familiarity. Take this: were I to sum up the first season of American Horror Story I would say "a nice family moves into a house haunted by all the people who have ever died there." Easy. Simply. Scary as shit. So now I'll do it for the second season - "a young man is accused of killing a string of women, including his wife, and is sent to an asylum where a crazy-maybe-Nazi surgeon is experimenting on the inmates and also possibly there's an alien there and also I'm pretty sure one of the nuns is the devil and then there's Jessica Lange."

Even this kid is confused...and he's in the show!

Huh?

A couple things. First, taking something that is already scary (like an insane asylum) and making it...um...scary seems easy but in fact it's not. It kind of ruins the element of surprise; there's this expectation already that this is a creepy place so making it even creepier is difficult to do. Second, the concept is too ambitious. You've got aliens, which is a hard enough sell on their own, but now you've also got the devil himself (herself?) and to top it off there's a serial killer on the loose. And there's a Nazi doctor creating deranged, flesh eating monsters out of the patients. That's a lot.

I'll have what she's having.

It all lacks the subtlety and the impeccable timing that the first season had. It's all very in your face and hyper-sensationalized, hyper-real, hyper-sexual. Even the opening, with that music that is like the auditory representation of skin crawling, is too overdone. Murder House started out with seemingly mundane old (and yes, creepy) photos of small children, babies, mixed with fetal pigs in jars and some flames and then the pictures were a little more sinister, babies now in coffins with eyes closed, surgical instruments. It developed; it gave you that feeling that what you were looking at might otherwise be unimportant old pictures except you just know that there's something awful about them. In the opening to Asylum, there are people jumping out at you, walking backwards up the stairs, a nun crawling on top of an unwilling surgery patient. It's just so overt that there's no room to imagine all the ways this might become super scary because you've been presented with all the possibilities at once and when you know that what you see is what you get then you relax a little. No surprises here.

I've only just finished episode six, so to be fair there's a chance all these separate and seemingly convoluted plot points will seamlessly transition into one interconnected web of horror and gore and super scary stuff. I'm actually willing to stick around for this probability. Also, the show itself may feel like a mess in its entirety, but the parts are more than the sum. The acting is good, great even, and thank the gods for original programing that really puts in the effort to deliver something that illicits some kind of emotion, even if it doesn't always deliver the screams.

I'll keep watching, mostly because I do think it is a good show and a great concept for a series, but also because my standards are apparently dismally low. And you know, I have to give credit because this last episode "The Origins of Monstrosity" was actually really good. There was that amazing twist that feels so rewarding because they gave you every opportunity to figure it out beforehand. And then the reveal was like "Bam! Didn't see that one coming, but I should have. I really should have." That's the greatest kind of twist. I take it all back. I love this show.