Reviews
[TV Review] The “True Killers” Step Forward as “AHS: 1984” Racks Up the Body Count
Not everyone is who they seem to be as the past gets progressively murky and the bodies start to drop in the latest “AHS: 1984”.
“Promise me that you’ll make her suffer; that you’ll make it hurt.”
Sometimes it’s easy to identify who the killers are in a piece of horror—it’s the guy in the hockey mask or the person wielding the suspiciously long kitchen knife. In other circumstances, it’s anyone’s guess. American Horror Story: 1984 comfortably settles into the episode “True Killers,” which aptly exercises this exact question. Everything points to Mr. Jingles or Richard Ramirez as the series’ villains, but in “True Killers,” a jilted lover, scientist, and summer camp director are just other names for “murderer.”
A lot of the charm from this season of AHS: 1984 stems from how much obvious fun this season has with its many horror genre pastiches. A lot has happened over the course of the past two episodes and “True Killers” is content to just let its chickens run around with their heads cut off and see what happens. Much of the Camp Redwood staff is still split up during this episode, but everyone begins to fight back and attempts to shift the power dynamic at the campgrounds.
After the major news in “Slashdance” that Montana and the Night Stalker are in cahoots together, “True Killers” tries to explain their unconventional relationship. American Horror Story depicts this whirlwind romance between Montana and Richard as this reverentially sickening Natural Born Killers-style sort of situation. The previews for this episode indicated that the majority of this installment might be set in the past. However, “True Killers” shows restraint and reserves this diversion for the cold open. This glimpse into Montana and Ramirez’s past and how they met doesn’t just reveal their connection, but that Montana also has a pre-existing relation to Brooke. The best man that was turned into a corpse at Brooke’s wedding was also apparently Montana’s brother. This touch may feel a little convoluted, but this is American Horror Story. Besides, it’s helpful that Montana actually has an ax to grind with Brooke rather than it being fueled by blind rage.
“True Killers” splits its cast up into various states of disarray. There’s more conflict and sexual tension between Xavier and Trevor as they figure out how to stay alive during all of this. Camp Redwood’s quirky cook, Chef Bertie, also gets plenty of screen time this week as she tries to help counselors and placate murderers. It’s genuinely tense and surprising when Benjamin Richter casually eats a peanut butter sandwich, only to erupt in rage moments later. It initially feels a little convenient that the gruff cook looks to be instantly killed whereas Xavier is just rendered unconscious. However, Xavier’s attempted execution becomes one of the most gruesome scenes from the series’ entire run. Mr. Jingles takes a page straight out of Tales From the Darkside: The Movie’s frame narrative.
The damage that happens to both Xavier and Bertie is seriously gruesome. Their horrors officially push the episode’s gore factor into the cringe category. The always-reliable Jennifer Lynch does a great job with this episode’s direction. Additionally, it’s frankly much more interesting if Xavier survives this fate than if he were cooked alive. However, these recent developments make it look like Xavier won’t be making any kind of porn anymore, straight or gay.
The scene in Camp Redwood’s commissary explores a potential quasi-motherly bond between Chef Bertie and Mr. Jingles. “True Killers” goes even further in this area when it comes to the bond between Benjamin Richter and Margaret Booth. Flashes to the past indicate that there was a real tenderness to their friendship pre-Camp Redwood massacre. These doses of humanity that are delivered via flashbacks achieve much more than the glimpses into Montana and Richard Ramirez’s past. This relationship between “Benji” and Margaret is treated as the heart of “True Killers.” Then Margaret tears that heart out of its chest and stomps on it.
Mr. Jingles has repeatedly been a poor victim of circumstance, but AHS: 1984 discloses that this is to a greater degree than ever expected. It turns out that Richter’s not really a serial killer at all. He’s a convenient scapegoat. Many viewers have been suspicious of Margaret and her 1971 story since the start of the series. Not only is she not the sole survivor of this massacre, but she’s also the one responsible for it. It’s an elaborate twist that American Horror Story doesn’t really give any time to breathe. No sooner after she’s confessing her handiwork to Mr. Jingles is she shooting him dead. The previous episode of American Horror Story subverted expectations when it made Montana and Donna/Rita look like the masterminds of this operation. Now it’s clear that Margaret is even more responsible here and still has more of a plan to put together. It’s very Agatha Christie-like where basically everyone now has some duplicitous ulterior motive that’s brought them to Camp Redwood.
A lot of blood gets spilled in “True Killers,” so it’s only appropriate that this entry digs a little deeper into the concept of how Camp Redwood seems to be some scared ground where the blood of the deceased “runs eternal.” The previous episodes of this season definitely took their time with the rate of major fatalities. Now that the camp’s “special properties” are clear, everybody starts dropping like flies. Once the floodgates are open, the murders can’t stop happening. Ramirez is still keen to use this detail to pull off something major and possibly even live forever. Ramirez gets his wish, albeit the hard way. American Horror Story: 1984 definitely runs the risk of depleting any suspense since individuals can’t technically “die” in a conventional sense. However, this season is building to something bigger where the first round of fatalities at Redwood are merely the prelude to what’s next.
If there’s any element of AHS: 1984 that’s already become repetitive it’s the amount of running through the woods that happens, especially with Brooke. This is, of course, a byproduct of the genre, but in “True Killers,” all of this running actually leads to some creativity. There’s a wealth of tricky woodland booby traps that are designed to take out targets and nearly do exactly that to Brooke. This brings deranged Donna back into the fold, too. Also, after Donna lets the cat out of the bag with her big murderous secret she seriously can’t shut up about it! What a difference an hour makes…
The conclusion of “True Killers” culminates in a heightened meeting between not just Brooke and Montana, but also Richard Ramirez and Benjamin Richter. After so much separation, having everybody back together devolves into a bloody free-for-all. There’s a lot of fear on display, but it’s pretty darn cute when the Night Stalker takes a second to stop his slashing so that he can fanboy out over Mr. Jingles. He’s honored to be ended by such a staunch “campfire legend.” Satan, Ramirez’ Dark Lord through all of this, probably even smiles at the gesture.
“True Killers” keeps the hectic momentum for American Horror Story: 1984 going. It’s an entertaining installment that plays with its audience, provides many reveals, and helps move the season’s story forward. However, it’s also the first episode from this year that feels like it stalls for time and resembles filler in some capacities. This is usually around the time where American Horror Story starts to go off the rails, but this time these shortcomings don’t feel as indicative of the entire season about to collapse. If anything, it feels like this season is ready to show its true hand. These shifts represent that American Horror Story is prepared to move onto the next act of its story, not that it’s run out of ideas.
Reviews
“AHS: Delicate” Review – “Little Gold Man” Mixes Oscar Fever & Baby Fever into the Perfect Product
‘AHS: Delicate’ enters early labor with a fun, frenzied episode that finds the perfect tone and goes for broke as its water breaks.
“I’ll figure it out. Women always do.”
American Horror Story is no stranger to remixing real-life history with ludicrous, heightened Murphy-isms, whether it’s AHS: 1984’s incorporation of Richard Ramirez, AHS: Cult’s use of Valerie Solanas, or AHS: Coven’s prominent role for the Axeman of New Orleans. Accordingly, it’s very much par for the course for AHS: Delicate to riff on other pop culture touchstones and infinitely warp them to its wicked whims. That being said, it takes real guts to do a postmodern feminist version of Rosemary’s Baby and then actually put Mia Farrow – while she’s filming Rosemary’s Baby, no less – into the narrative. This is the type of gonzo bullshit that I want out of American Horror Story! Sharon Tate even shows up for a minute because why the hell not? Make no mistake, this is completely absurd, but the right kind of campy absurdity that’s consistently been in American Horror Story’s wheelhouse since its inception. It’s a wild introduction that sets up an Oscar-centric AHS: Delicate episode for success. “Little Gold Man” is a chaotic episode that’s worth its weight in gold and starts to bring this contentious season home.
It’d be one thing if “Little Gold Man” just featured a brief detour to 1967 so that this season of pregnancy horror could cross off Rosemary’s Baby from its checklist. AHS: Delicate gets more ambitious with its revisionist history and goes so far as to say that Mia Farrow and Anna Victoria Alcott are similarly plagued. “Little Gold Man” intentionally gives Frank Sinatra dialogue that’s basically verbatim from Dex Harding Sr., which indicates that this demonic curse has been ruffling Hollywood’s feathers for the better part of a century. Anna Victoria Alcott’s Oscar-nominated feature film, The Auteur, is evidently no different than Rosemary’s Baby. It’s merely Satanic forces’ latest attempt to cultivate the “perfect product.” “Little Gold Man” even implies that the only reason that Mia Farrow didn’t go on to make waves at the 1969 Academy Awards and ends up with her twisted lot in life is because she couldn’t properly commit to Siobhan’s scheme, unlike Anna.
This is easily one of American Horror Story’s more ridiculous cold opens, but there’s a lot of love for the horror genre and Hollywood that pumps through its veins. If Hollywood needs to be a part of AHS: Delicate’s story then this is actually the perfect connective tissue. On that note, Claire DeJean plays Sharon Tate in “Little Gold Man” and does fine work with the brief scene. However, it would have been a nice, subtle nod of continuity if AHS: Delicate brought back Rachel Roberts who previously portrayed Tate in AHS: Cult. “Little Gold Man” still makes its point and to echo a famous line from Jennifer Lynch’s father’s television masterpiece: “It is happening again.”
“Little Gold Man” is rich in sequences where Anna just rides the waves of success and enjoys her blossoming fame. She feels empowered and begins to finally take control of her life, rather than let it push her around and get under her skin like a gestating fetus. Anna’s success coincides with a colossal exposition dump from Tavi Gevinson’s Cora, a character who’s been absent for so long that we were all seemingly meant to forget that she was ever someone who was supposed to be significant. Cora has apparently been the one pulling many of Anna’s strings all along as she goes Single White Female, rather than Anna having a case of Repulsion. It’s an explanation that oddly works and feeds into the episode’s more general message of dreams becoming nightmares. Cora continuing to stay aligned with Dr. Hill because she has student loans is also somehow, tragically the perfect explanation for her abhorrent behavior. It’s not the most outlandish series of events in an episode that also briefly gives Anna alligator legs and makes Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian kiss.
“Little Gold Man” often feels like it hits the fast-forward button as it delivers more answers, much in the same vein as last week’s “Ava Hestia.” These episodes are two sides of the same coin and it’s surely no coincidence that they’re both directed by Jennifer Lynch. This season has benefitted from being entirely written by Halley Feiffer – a first for the series – but it’s unfortunate that Lynch couldn’t direct every episode of AHS: Delicate instead of just four out of nine entries. That’s not to say that a version of this season that was unilaterally directed by Lynch would have been without its issues. However, it’s likely that there’d be a better sense of synergy across the season with fewer redundancies. She’s responsible for the best episodes of AHS: Delicate and it’s a disappointment that she won’t be the one who closes the season out in next week’s finale.
To this point, “Little Gold Man” utilizes immaculate pacing that helps this episode breeze by. Anna’s Oscar nomination and the awards ceremony are in the same episode, whereas it feels like “Part 1” of the season would have spaced these events out over four or five episodes. This frenzied tempo works in “Little Gold Man’s” favor as AHS: Delicate speed-runs to its finish instead of getting lost in laborious plotting and unnecessary storytelling. This is how the entire season should have been. Although it’s also worth pointing out that this is by far the shortest episode of American Horror Story to date at only 34 minutes. It’s a shame that the season’s strongest entries have also been the ones with the least amount of content. There could have been a whole other act to “Little Gold Man,” or at the least, a substantially longer cold open that got more out of its Mia Farrow mayhem.
“Little Gold Man” is an American Horror Story episode that does everything right, but is still forced to contend with three-quarters of a subpar season. “Part 2” of AHS: Delicate actually helps the season’s first five episodes shine brighter in retrospect and this will definitely be a season that benefits from one long binge that doesn’t have a six-month break in the middle. Unfortunately, anyone who’s already watched it once will likely not feel compelled to experience these labor pains a second time over. With one episode to go and Anna’s potential demon offspring ready to greet the world, AHS: Delicate is poised to deliver one hell of a finale.
Although, to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, “How do you expect to be a good conclusion if this is what you’re chasing?”
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