If you didn’t know I am a big fan of American Horror Story. I have watched every season, some more than once, though in recent years I have waited for the season to finish and then I’ll binge it. I was very curious when a new season that wasn’t exactly a season was announced. American Horror Stories is an anthology style series that just ended yesterday. I thought I would share my thoughts, especially since the new season is starting next week, which is solid set up for a season whose promos have yet to fully convince me of what the plot is.

As an anthology I will say it is a bit hard to summarize the entire season easily, but since I have reviewed anthology style books before I think the best thing is often to focus on the positives so primarily I will be talking about the episodes I really liked, which were one, two, and seven. These three related to each other through certain characters and with Murder House as their core story tie-in they were sort of slated to be my favorites, sorry other episodes. I did want to give quick thoughts on the other four episodes since some can be handled pretty quickly.

I thought since I would be lumping the first two episodes together with the last I would start with episode 3 and give brief thoughts on that 4, 5, and 6. Episode 3, Drive-In I actually thought was clever. I would have liked more information, like a follow-up episode, even a mini epilogue moment showing whether the two main character were now impacted by the movie. The fourth episode, The Naughty List, I wanted to like more, but I really am not in the mood for Christmas content. I was willing to give it a pass if it did a call back to Asylum, but I just was not super into it. Episode 5, Ba’al, I didn’t mind and I always love seeing Billie Lourd. It sort of reminded me of the False Positive movie Hulu recently released. This one was an alright watch and felt AHS. Now the last quick thoughts episode is Feral, the sixth episode. This is the only episode I genuinely disliked. I thought the plot was super easy to guess and I totally knew the don’t lick your fingers thing was going to come back. The episode was super short and it still felt remarkably long and I actually almost didn’t finish it.

Now onto the Murder House themed episodes that I did really enjoy and would have watched a whole series of. I am going to lump episodes one and two together since they are a two parter, Rubber (Wo)man. The main plot of these two episodes focus on Scarlett and her dads having bought and moved into the Murder House with the hope of flipping it. Scarlett though becomes influenced by the Rubber Man suit and her darker nature. The body count is high and along her journey she meets Ruby, who has also embraced her inner darkness and has no desire to stop killing even in death. The two become lovers and things continue to spiral. I won’t spoil it, but the two women stay together even with body counts rising. The final episode of the series, Game Over, hooked me immediately. I absolutely loved the meta shout outs and not really knowing what was real life and what was story. In this one a mother is making a Murder House themed video game and becomes very involved. We get to see Scarlett and Ruby again and get a solid ending to their story.

I do think the concept of AHS anthology writing is fun and I liked seeing some familiar faces thrown in. I also really did like some of the plots and would have kept watching some plots, but others I thought fell flat. If they do continue this I really would love to see more callbacks to other seasons with plots. I know there have been some already, but I would have liked more 1984 and I always wish there would be more Asylum. I am curious to see how the next season goes and what the plot is. I’ve seen an odd trailer twice in movie theaters and am avoiding anything else so I can sort of be surprised when it starts. I just can’t entirely figure out what it is based just on that, but I like being surprised. Let me know your AHS thoughts, did you like the anthology style?

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