American Horror Story Hotel: Finale Thoughts

I've been very busy lately with editing work, weekly tarotscopes, working on my new erotic astrology horror series, working at the college, getting ready to play Madame Something the Dust Witch as I read fortunes at The 1st Annual Something Strange Sideshow Circus Festival, and more. So I've been behind in my social mdia.

But I did see the finale of American Horror Story: Hotel. I have some thoughts about it but won't have time to relay all of them here. We'll see how far I get.

Liz Taylor
Yes oh yes, she wins the show this year. Last year, it was Dandy, this year, hands down to Liz. A complex, sympathetic character, a cartoon yet so real, you'd have to be made of stone not to have been sad at Liz's demise. The love between the Countess and Liz was very believable. They played one of my favourite Mari Anne Faithful songs. Magnificent. This last segment with Liz wasn't really a horror story but great dark romance.

Of course, we're all oh so happy as she is reunited with her darling Tristan for eternity. And she still has the option of her son and family visiting her at the hotel. Our Liz, for perhaps one of the first times in AHS history, is a moral character who did very little shit disturbing and receives reward in the afterlife.

Evan Peters
This young man deserves all the awards this time around. My goodness. How well he portrayed Mr. March and stuck to his character all the way through like Crazy Glue. He was genuinely a film noir character come to life, a ghost yet a person, a man who pulled no punches.

The storyline itself was uneven. His love story is sad; we all know the pain of unrequited love and to have to spend eternity together is Hell. So that part was fine.

His real life as a serial killer was great and of course, based on a real life hotel magnate serial killer.

But this whole Ten Commandments Killer plotline was horrible. There was no reason for his character to suddenly want that to happen at all.I hated it all so much that I'm not talking about it anymore.

Angela Bassett
The hottest most terrifying woman in the universe since Aunty Entity in Beyond Thunderdome, I don't know what I'd do if she came after me and ripped my neck out. I'd likely say, "Thank you," or swoon into a pool of blood.

She kicked ass in Hotel yet her character was dumb. There was no point to it. There was a vengeance against the Countess and she fulfilled it and now what? She runs around looking hot and ripping people to shreds.She needs a sequel.

Tristan
Was he really hiding from Liz to let her have her own life or was he off screwing the Countess and losing track of the years? Once the dust settles, will there be a love triangle of jealousy once more? Or will Countess be happy with the new Valentino look-a-like that she seduces at the end of the episode?
Does Tristan truly love Liz?
I wasn't sure that he did back when he had his throat slit so I'm not sure how much I believe there is a true happy ending the way that Liz wants it to be.

Queenie
So Queenie from Coven just wanders off to LA and gets killed in the haunted hotel. Really? She survives the witchcraft and voodoo madness of Coven but gets haunted to death? And no one ever came to look for her in those twenty years or so that the show covers?

Chloe Sevigny
Oh, Chloe, one day someone will know what to do with your haunting spooky beauty. They gave up on you yet again in this show. You could have been a killer sexy ravenous vampire like Angela, a killer team of aggression, but no, we just see you sleeping, and not even your beautiful face in a glass casket but just mashed into a drool covered pillow in a regular bed.

Scarlett
Poor Scarlett. If I were her, I'd refuse to go to the Hotel Cortez to hang out with serial killer dad, deadbeat mom, and ageless baby brother even once a year. Screw them. None of them gave a damn about her. I even mentioned it in previous blogs. She was just shuttled off to grandma's house. Mom chose her brother over her self. Her mom isn't even awake to see her for some reason. What's going on? This girl should have done something to fuck them over in the end. Why do they get what they want and she's the tormented one? I hope she has a great life in the outside world.

Reinvention
The reinvention theme was hammered home but worked. I liked how the empire was run from the hotel and there was a fashion show.That was cool.


Overall, I enjoyed the finale much more than other seasons. The storylines were wrapped up for the most part except for...

Bartholomew
What is going on with Bartholomew? Is that where the Countess was all the time when she wasn't having dinner with her first husband or chilling with Tristan?


I enjoyed the first half more than the last as it was unexpected. There was a lot of tenderness and happiness akin to Freak Show than anything we've seen in Hotel. But I guess I didn't enjoy the second half as much because I hate the Ten Commandments killer storyline and everyone in it. Sorry gang. That's time wasted that could have been put elsewhere.

And it's funny because even though that particular story line was a snoozefest and the most important arc, this is the first time AHS has felt actually cohesive. No real turns out to Albuquerque. Everything linked and made sense. Not much was forgotten. No magicians with haunted puppets suddenly popping in for mayhem. Good stuff.

American Horror Story: Hotel Thoughts with LOTS OF SPOILERS

I waited all summer, partly with eager anticipation, partly with dread that I’d be bitterly disappointed. But now it’s here and I’ve seen both episodes.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

American Horror Story: Hotel is gorgeous to look at. Each scene is a feast for the eyes from shadowed hallways to luscious sets to glamorous costumes. As always, the make-up is perfect if overdone, and hair is always amazing, every strand artfully placed.

As I’ve opined before, I’ve fallen into the worlds of AHS knowing they will be flawed, that I won’t be completely satisfied, that I’ll have to wait through less engaging storylines to get to my favourites but that’s how it is with any show. No one is going to create your exact perfect show and I gave up long ago thoughts about flowing storylines that arc and end. Some do. Some don’t. Such is the Winchester House that is the American Horror Story series.

I was hoping Hotel wouldn’t be just another haunted house show but I knew it would be a combination of several tropes as that’s how it rolls in Murphy’s worlds.

There are several themes happening here as always. The main question is do I like it?

On many levels, I love it.

On a couple of levels, I’m not in love.

Things I Like

I love Lady Gaga as an entertainer so was curious to see how she’d fare on this horror show. She’s fine as a Bathory vampire assembling her minions and little monsters. I have no issues with her acting or character. Her scenes with Matt Bomer are hot, her scenes with Finn Wittrock are hot, her scenes with everyone are hot. She doesn’t overplay the “smoldering looks” or even her dialogue. I rather like her understated blank vampire. She’s not falling into playing a typical vamp which would be easy to do.

I liked how the Countess threw away her lover without a thought. That’s a real vampire! Good stuff! Also, she already told us that she doesn’t want to fall in love, and so, despite her feelings, she moved on to the pretty model junkie. After she turns Tristan, she tells him (Finn Wittrock) that they have immortality but to keep it they have to be smart. Since Tristan isn’t the brightest bulb on the tree, we know he’s going to have something gruesome happen to him, and likely by the hands of Bomer. Also it’s likely to occur within a couple of episodes since Wittrock said in interviews before this season that he doesn’t want to do a full season because of other commitments.

I like the idea of Iris (Kathy Bates) being one of the only real humans in the place because she wants to be close to her son.

Evan Peters blew my mind. He’s playing  the sadistic serial killer magnate who built the hotel. He’s based on real life Chicago serial killer who built a hotel specifically designed to torture, rape, and murder people and to hide the bodies. When we first meet Peters, I didn’t even recognize him. He looked older, his acting was impeccable, he was fantastic as a fifties type character. I hope he doesn’t lose the intensity he had in this episode as the series moves along. I’ve never seen him act so well. His talents were wasted completely in Freak Show. All he did was drink, cry, fuck, and get angry, lobster hands or not. He was wasted in Coven. His Frankenteen character could have been so interesting but they threw him away as a sex toy. So here’s hoping that he continues to rule the hotel with a tight murderous fist and doesn’t lose his accent or his little pencil thin moustache. Didn’t Walt Disney have one of those?

I like the ideas of vampires and ghosts and who knows what else as well as humans living in this hotel.

I was happy they played Hotel California in the first episode since we all knew they would play it at some point, so it was good to get it done. I love that song however it’s such an obvious choice.

All the music is great and really suits the story. Murphy does have a knack for matching music to story. Even if the music is horrible (like some of those AHS singing numbers), it always fits.

I like all the sex.

Things That Bug Me

Well, it’s always easier to complain about things, so here we go.

My biggest plot hole complaint is the Wi-Fi situation. Iris told the Swedish girls that the hotel is a black hole for technology, cell phones don’t work, and there’s no Wi-Fi. There are landlines in the rooms.

So, was she lying to the girls? Did they turn off the internet when they were there? How did they block the cell phones from the satellites? Did the ghosts block the phones?

In episode two, Tristan sits in the lobby flipping through grindr on his cell phone. He hooks up with a guy within minutes from the comfort of his couch. Why does the Wi-Fi work for him? Because he’s a vampire? That makes no sense.

Speaking of cell phones, Scarlet takes a selfie with her brother in the kid room and it looks like she used a cell phone. If she had a cell phone, why didn’t her parents call or text her? I don’t recall her ever checking her phone unless I was looking away.  If Tristan hadn’t been using his phone, I wouldn’t have noticed her phone situation. But it bugged me that his phone works and hers doesn’t.  Because she’s human? How about all the travel time away from the hotel? Wouldn’t her phone work then? If her parents are so worried, why didn’t anyone call her or track her phone? Dad IS a cop!

How come none of the cops saw her on the buses or walking home if they’re supposed to be guarding her? Wouldn’t they think to check the hotel since she’d been there before and had made a new friend?

Why did dad dismiss Scarlet’s story so quickly? He saw Holden in the hallways so why wouldn’t he believe that she did as well? Is he pretending to not believe her so that he can investigate by himself? There are so many piddly plot holes in the cop story that may or may  not ever get filled.

When Scarlet speaks to Holden for the first time, the words, the acting, the entire shebang was so ridiculous that I could barely watch it. No children would act like those two did. GAH!

Chloe Sevigny is underused again. She is such an intriguing gorgeous weird actress and perfect for horror movies.  I don’t really like her acting, I always feel like she’s “acting” but I could watch her do anything for hours. That said, her role sucks. I hope she gets to break out into being a lusty vampire or something as the series moves along. Right now, she’s a whiney baby and I hate that character. I will give big points for the measles spiel to the anti-vaxxer. It was appropriate to the plot, a parallel of mothers who think they’ve done right by their sons and yet in the end, failed them. This also echoes Iris' plot line as well as she tries to be close to her dead junkie son.

Finn Wittrock’s casting is disappointing. I’m sure it’s not much of a stretch for him to play a coked up pretty boy model turned vampire sex toy. Of course, there’s hope that he’ll reveal he’s actually an evil master manipulator from another vampire nest or something else trying to infiltrate the Cortez, but I doubt it.  He did a great job in Freak Show and should have a more complex character to play. Well, maybe he will be revealed to be something completely different.  You never know with American Horror Story. In the meantime, I’m not complaining one bit about all those sex scenes.

I don’t like the crying heroin chain-smoking junkie Nancy Spungen ghost. Yes I get she’s the addiction ghost, she likes to watch them die, she’s always sad so she cries and moans, she lures other addicts to their deaths. I get it all, but I don’t like her character. Perhaps it’s how Sara Paulson plays her or the direction or the script, I’m not sure. I don't like how she smokes, it doesn't feel real. Too much smoking that is smashing us on the head with the addictions theme. She gets on my nerves and I hope she gets more monstrous and less weepy as the series goes on. The only truly "horror" part of the show was when she scared Scarlet but otherwise, she just cries and smokes. Of course, there always has to be a weepy ghost in a haunted house so her character is not likely to change.

I feel bogged down with the heavy handed addictions references. Addictions to drugs, booze, sex, blood, murder, cleaning, video games, smoking, and more are like hammers to the head sometimes in these first two episodes. 

At any rate, overall I'm enjoying Hotel and I'm excited to see what's going to happen next!