Reviews
“AHS: NYC” Review – “The Sentinel” and “Fire Island” Kill Their Boogeymen But Can’t Conquer Their Demons
A busy pair of American Horror Story: NYC episodes wipe the slate clean only to show that some tragedies can’t be so easily erased.
“What are our lives going to be like when we’re not hunting serial killers?”
A sentinel is defined as “a soldier or guard whose job is to stand and keep watch,” which is consistent with American Horror Story’s exploration of the concept. However, Whitely equates his powerful sentinel to an object of intense pride. “The Sentinel” and “Fire Island” are a pair of American Horror Story: NYC episodes that really get to the root of that word. These installments are a strong reminder that pride is a sin and not always something to admire and celebrate. These satisfying episodes live in this murky territory and they help push this season of American Horror Story towards a powerful conclusion.
“The Sentinel” and “Fire Island” examine the true weight of guilt and the life that it can take on. These are angry episodes of American Horror Story: New York City. They look at guilt and penance and pride, but they’re also furious installments that linger on acts of violence and trauma while characters recoil and seethe. The hunt for the Mai Tai Killer reaches its climax and Gino feels entitled to help Patrick in the serial killer’s takedown since he’s arguably been equally traumatized by this figure who’s loomed over both of their lives. The Mai Tai Killer accumulates a whole lot of hostages, which prompts both soulful reflection and brutal survival tactics. Denis O’Hare’s Henry is limber enough to not have to go all Gerald’s Game to escape. However, he does have to take a page out of the original Saw instead.
Additional insight into the Mai Tai Killer’s mind continues to add valuable complexity to this character. He stresses over not just finding parts for his Sentinel, but the right parts so that it’s the perfect totem to make his point. It needs to be a genuine beacon of hope. All of this morphs into the most morbid case of FUBU as Whitely explains why gay men–including a transfusion of his own blood–have to be the victims that make up this Sentinel.
What’s particularly fascinating here is that Whitely doesn’t view himself as perfect by any means and he even admits that parts of him need to be scorched to the ground. However, it’s the guilt of Patrick, Gino, Henry, and all of these co-conspirators that becomes the real antagonist of these episodes. Whitely is dead, but his rage and crusade are still very much alive through Patrick and other furious, overlooked members of the city. In fact, Whitely becomes a strange martyr–a Pennywise-like social phenomena that represents something bigger–that helps these victimized communities stand up and fight back. It’s actually quite powerful.
In a season that’s been full of surprising restraint and concise decisions, “The Sentinel” continues this trend by quickly icing one of the season’s boogeymen rather than letting him bring his twisted Frankenstein’s Monster to life at New York City’s Pride Parade like the previous episodes prophesized. It’s considerably more creative to wrap this material up and allow this anger and violence to fester in new forms rather than drag out the same idea. Who needs a human jigsaw puzzle when there are plenty of hollow men that now roam the city after Whitely’s murders?
Three more episodes of the Mai Tai Killer wouldn’t have seemed like overkill, but his absence gives what’s to come a limitless freedom that’s even more exciting. The ripple effects of Patrick’s “win” and Whitely’s fall triggers some of the season’s most compelling material that shows who these characters truly are. Gino and Patrick survive their encounter with the Mai Tai Killer, but they’re zombies who might as well be put out of their misery. Patrick suffers the most of all and he feels like his world has no center, but everyone continues to suffer and live in fear even after the Mai Tai Killer is six feet under ground.
“The Sentinel” provides many answers, which allows “Fire Island” to successfully masquerade as an epilogue to the season. Gino and Patrick try to believe that they’re in their “happily ever after” phase while they’re actually still caught in the middle of something much deeper. ”Why is this happening to us?” is a question that’s asked in earnest, but it hammers in an entire season’s worth of frustration and aggression. “Fire Island” really gets into rich emotional territory between Patrick and Gino and it doesn’t downplay the arguments that arise between these characters. The episode actually amplifies their emotional worth so that both characters are raw, raging, and vulnerable when it’s most important for them to be calm and collected.
Jennifer Lynch is responsible for directing some of American Horror Story’s best episodes and she brings a lot to the table in “Fire Island,” the calm before next week’s two-part finale. The “Ghost Reindeer” farewell sequence is easily the weirdest–yet also the most elegant–sequence of the season. It’s the most that Jennifer Lynch’s direction resembles her father’s surreal style in this episode. She also beautifully recreates an iconic shot from The Shining during a heightened moment of duress.
AHS: NYC’s viral infection continues to infect everyone, but it’s still the season’s most disconnected element. It finally starts to come together in “Fire Island” once 95% of this season’s cast head off to the eponymous island and give this virus a proper breeding ground where there’s no immediate escape. Billie Lourd’s Dr. Hannah Wells is still the most thankless role this season even if it’s an appreciated change of pace for her. It’s also pretty much confirmed that Big Daddy is some sort of mental manifestation of those who are infected with this disease. Regardless of whatever is exactly going on with this supernatural figure, AHS: NYC deserves some accolades for not completely showing its hand in this department. It’s kept the mystery alive throughout this season in a way that doesn’t feel manipulative or empty. Bad Daddy has become a sentinel of its own that speaks to this season’s confidence.
Sometimes American Horror Story has a dozen dangling plot threads that are still in motion when it heads into its finale. It’s stressful to see an ending attempt to cover too much territory or consequently just ignore it. However, “The Sentinel” and “Fire Island” leave AHS: NYC in a promising place and for once it feels like there’s the perfect amount of material left to cover in a two-episode finale. These episodes, as fanciful as they get in several areas, are still well-paced and don’t waste this season’s goodwill before it enters its endgame. Next week’s finale is set to cover two distinct time periods as it wraps up its business in 1981 before it jumps ahead more than half-a-decade to 1987 where all of this pride, shame, and anger will finally meet its conclusion.
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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