Impeachment: The Telephone Hour Thoughts and Musings

 

I’ve been watching American Crime Story: Impeachment with bated breath. After all, I’m nine years older than Monica Lewinsky so I remember every minute of that sordid mess as it splashed across the news headlines in the nineties.

In watching the show, it jerks me back once again to how things “were” and how things are “trying to change” for women, men, power, politics, me too…

For people who weren’t alive in the nineties or before, this show might seem strange. Some of the things the ladies discuss might seem odd to the modern woman. Oh, we thought we were mighty modern back in the nineties I must say.

Last night’s episode especially hit home in so many ways for me.

I love this show and as always, when it comes to American Crime Story, Ryan Murphy does an excellent job with the material. Yes, in every show there is truth-stretching to improve the drama and trauma but from OJ to Versace to now Impeachment, these shows have a lot to say about the times these events took place in even if some of the facts are false or bent or misremembered.

What is especially fascinating about ACS: Impeachment is that Monica Lewinsky herself is a producer of the show and therefore likely provided inside information that may not have been shared before or at least she can exercise her right to veto things or improve things. So far so good, Ms. Lewinsky.

It seems she’s not afraid to show herself as weak, manipulated, confused, and tenacious, going crazy from gaslighting as many targets of narcissists do. The Monica we see in Impeachment is much more obsessed than I ever dreamed she was in real life. However, as an obsessive person myself, I can totally relate to Impeachment Monica. |And letting us see her youthful vulnerability as she clings to every phone call, every gift, every encounter really makes the show fantastic.

Although I must make a quick aside that Linda Tripp called Monica a narcissist last night. Perhaps Monica is, but Clinton is the Big Narcissist in this equation, the villain, the head game player. Tripp herself likely had some narcissism as well. Doesn’t everyone who goes into politics have a degree of narcissism, they can change the world?

I’m sure people not familiar with the culture of the time would wonder why don’t these women fight back, why don’t they go to the higher-ups, why do they let themselves be bullied and demoted for other people’s whims?

That’s how it was; there was no where to go. No HR for sexual harassment and so on. Women were lucky to have jobs at all, so they had to suck it up or off, as it were.

For those who don’t know, Monica Lewinski was an intern at the White House when she was 21. At that time, President Bill Clinton took an interest in her and thus began an affair that lasted a couple of years. I had no idea he gave her gifts and that they had so many phone calls nor that the affair lasted as long as it did and was as intense as it was until I began watching this show. In fact, my jaw dropped when she received her first present. I was really pissed off that he manipulated her in that way.

How much did Hillary know? Who knows? The show hasn’t addressed Hillary at all so far. Although, the way the show ended last night, I’m sure there’s going to be lots of Hillary going forward.

Last night, the show ended when President Bill Clinton learned that Monica was called to testify in the Paula Jones case. That floored him, after all, he thought he had Monica under control, under his wandering thumb. As he sat on his bedroom couch wondering about it all, Hillary was sleeping. Before he made it to the couch, we saw the paintings of past presidents, and the camera lingered on JFK, likely because he was a cheating asshole as well. Just because JFK slept with Marilyn Monroe and god knows who else, doesn’t make him a good boy. He’s part of the problem of powerful people cheating on their spouses.

And back in the day, most forgave JFK and Clinton and many other major cheating scumbags. After all, they were powerful men, so “it was expected they would stray.” I suppose it was like the attitude towards rock stars as well. We all knew they all cheated on the road (or most did) but hey, if you’re crazy enough to marry a rock star, enjoy the money and look the other way when the groupies are around…that was the social attitude for decades.

Last night, a few things reflected the times.

Such as when Vernon Jordan patted Monica’s ass after saying he’ll find her a job at Revlon, as per The President’s suggestions. Monica barely blinked at the ass pat, but she noticed it. However, in those days, all of us women were used to men patting our asses, touching our boobs, and more. Yes, bosses, customers, it didn’t matter, men constantly touched women, especially powerful men. I can’t tell you how many bosses I’ve had that groped me and nothing I could do about it. I actually quit one job when a manager touched my breasts, even though I was married. No one believed me, or if they did, thought I should suck it up. I was told, “it’s your word against his...and he's the manager and you've only been here a couple of weeks.” So back then, in the eighties, I just never went back, not even for my last paycheck. And they wondered why they had to hire new waitresses every couple of weeks...

So I totally understand the culture that played out for Tripp and Lewinsky.

Sarah Paulson is doing an amazing job as Linda Tripp. She reportedly gained thirty pounds and she has wigs and I think prosthetics. As with all shows I watch, I try not to research them while I'm watching them so I'm surprised but I did happen to read that somewhere. She doesn’t look like Sarah Paulson at all except for the odd angle where you can “see” Sarah underneath. She has the walk, the voice, she’s playing Linda really well. We are sympathetic to Linda which I don’t think I really was when it all went down back in the day. But of course, hindsight is 20/20 and we’ve had nearly thirty years to reflect on all of this stuff.

Beanie Feldstein is amazing as Monica. I truly believe her as Monica.

This episode showed Monica losing her mind to Clinton’s gaslighting ways. We’re not sure (and even those of us who lived through it STILL aren’t sure) what Clinton’s endgame for her was. Did he have a special place in his heart for her despite having affairs with who knows how many women? Was Monica special or did she only think she was? I’m not sure we’ll ever know unless Bill writes a tell-all but that will never happen.

I felt sorry then and still do for Hillary. What hell it must be to be married to such a cheater. A public cheater. In my mind over the years, I told myself they must have had an “arrangement” or maybe, as rumours suggested, she was really a lesbian, and this was a marriage of power and convenience. Hillary is STILL married to Bill as we know, and only they know the truth of their own relationship. Certainly there are many political secrets they likely keep together, and they have figured out a way to not lose their financial empire nor their family empire.

But I digress.

Monica shares with Linda some of her past experiences. Linda might be sheltered and seemed rather shocked but as someone closer to Monica’s age, I wasn’t shocked at all. There were those who were allegedly screwing their high school teachers while students. I suspected a few teachers, both scholastic and recreational, of seducing students. Did seduction mean sex? I have no idea if it did in each case. But whatever it was, it's an imbalance of power. After I was out of high school, I learned of other alleged affairs that had happened under my nose. Married teachers, pregnant teachers, counsellors, mentors, men, women seducing their own students or other people’s students. This was in the seventies and early eighties, and it was “just the way it was.” No one ever told on these teachers but most didn't truly know what went on behind closed doors as well. I’m sure no one knows to this day about the truth of most of these alleged affairs. And considering how old I am, I’m sure most of these teachers are dead by now.

Monica talks about teachers and counsellors, married, who used her. So the seduction from Bill was really just more of the same. A man abusing his power for young, sweet flesh. How would she know any different or that it might even be wrong when that’s just how it was back then? Back then, these types of affairs were games. I guess, they still are. Dangerous games.

Last night, Linda finally began to tape Monica. The episode The Telephone Hour is a homage to the musical, Bye Bye Birdie right down to montages of phone calls.

You can see Linda really wrestling with herself, her hatred for the Clintons, her urge to blow this power-hungry cheating man out of the water, yet her fear of hurting Monica, but wanting Monica to get away from him. She's disgusted by the Paula Jones case and knows of many other women who were seduced by Clinton. 

The famous blue dress was in last night’s episode. Linda notices it crumpled up on the floor during their pajama party and Monica finally shares what it is.

Every woman character in the show is reaching for power, from the publisher, to the administrators, to Linda’s deskmate. Every woman is demeaned for daring to reach and sometimes punished, as Linda was, by demotion.

This show is really keeping me glued to my seat and I’m really enjoying it, well, in the way that you watch events that are horrible but are well executed.

Every episode makes us look at our own morality. What would we do if we were Linda? Linda who was eaten up and chewed out by the system and by her own marriage. A smart woman who can never be her full potential because of the glass ceiling and perhaps because she’s not beautiful.

I’m looking forward to seeing what will happen next, especially with how they’ll portray Hillary.

What do you think about Impeachment so far?

 

 

 

Red Tide Episode: Episode Six Thoughts and Musings

 

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Last night, the story of Red Tide was pretty much summed up. This story is the tightest, most coherent entry into the American Horror Story franchise. I really loved it, especially as it combined two of my favourite movies: The Shining and Rosemary's Baby!

I’ve been saying either in blogs or videos that over the past few years, Murphy has been making his AHS less convoluted and more focused. I actually feel like he tied up all the loose threads with this one, and, of course, we don't know if the second story hooks into the first or not, so we'll see next week!

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Red Tide was one story with several characters, and we followed Harry (Finn Wittrock) through the main plot and linked to the subplots involving the locals, the most compelling storyline being Mickey (Macaulay Culkin) and Karen (Sarah Paulson) but the most fun storyline belongs to Evan Peters and Francis Conroy as the egotistical writers controlling the town, somewhat... 

The opening to this week’s episode was fun as it took place at the birth of the baby boy with Harry (Finn Wittrock) eyeing all the bloody rags and towels during the delivery. He manages to steal the garbage can and squeezes out his wife's delicious birthing blood into tiny cups so he can feast. It was pretty hilarious. Finn often gets these demented roles with truly comedic moments. One of my all-time fave moments in any horror franchise is when he’s sawing off Matt Bomer’s arm in Freakshow and saying, “How can you still be alive? You’re making me feel bad!” It’s horrific and hilarious at the same time. You don’t know whether to throw up or chuckle.  

The Harry storyline goes full Rosemary’s Baby in this final installment with several moments paying homage to the iconic film and famous scenes. Doris (Lily Rabe) hearing voices and walking into a room of conspirators. The blue nightgown butcher knife homage right from Mia Farrow’s trembling hands. The paranoia that something isn’t right, that everyone around Doris is different somehow and she’s trapped in a nightmare where she can’t escape.

We suspected that Doris would eventually take the pill, but we never knew which way she would go. Throughout the series, Harry more or less says that Doris has no talent but he loves her and she’s the mother of his children, so he wants to keep her around. They even have Denis O'Hare mocking her designs just so that we truly understand how shitty she is. 

Alma, the daughter, hates her mom and wants her dead and knows that she's a crappy designer so it was zero surprise that she bullied, actually seduced in a truly evil manner, mom to take the pill. We knew that Alma wanted mom to take The Muse so that Doris would turn into the untalented vampire and go away as Alma wanted daddy to herself. It was classic Greek tragedy and what makes a story compelling. A child hating a parent so much they would lie to destroy them.

Doris takes the pill, oh yes. And we wonder how she will turn. For a moment, it looks like she will have talent and join her family. But then, we see that no, Harry and everyone else was right, she has no talent.

And so, much to Alma’s delight, Doris is released into the wild with the other vampires, while the true vampire, the agent, continues to scheme about marketing The Muse. I’m not sure how long she’ll last among the vampires as the elite writers had discussed killing her but we’ll never know. Or will we?

At any rate, after Doris turns, she joins the other untalented vampires. We met the original untalented vampire last week and learned his sad genesis story and also why they all dress the way they do. Billy Lourd is the local Jill of All Trades; she sells vintage clothes, does tattoos and is the dentist who makes dentures for the talented ones.

Last week we also had directly in our face the question we’ve all been dancing around for a few weeks. Is being a talented vampire superior to being an untalented vampire?

All the creatures kill and drink blood.

One does it to fuel their art, the other does it because they took the pill and realized they are hacks and so become “angry” and kill people…yet they too have the thirst for blood.

So, most people would say that both are evil.

The already narcissistic artists who took the pill are beyond insufferable and have no redeeming qualities left. 

Harry spewed a bunch of really cruel stuff to his transformed wife, which he admitted he thought all along but never said. We're used to Finn's characters being assholes but this husband character seemed particularly cruel, likely because he was the most realistic or grounded of the AHS characters he's played. 

Dandy Mott (my favourite character of his) was a psychopath from the word go, he was never redeemable. But Harry began as a normal, struggling writer with a little ego and much love for his wife, child, and unborn baby. As he transforms, we don't even think he loves his kid anymore, just keeps her around so she doesn't kill him, and he definitely hates his wife. And though he tries to protect the baby, there's no real reason for him to do so. He will likely feed the baby to Alma now that mom is gone. A baby would interfere with their genius work.

Harry wasn't too hard to convince to take the muse. His drive to succeed was huge, spurred on by having to support his family, so even though he was a little bit reluctant, he was pretty quick to take it. After all, he'd already committed murder.

But Mickey and Karen have watched the town transform over the years. Even though they were junkies, they didn't want to be murderers. They were both offered the drug for their talents many times but they didn't want to pay the ultimate price of murdering innocent people no matter which way they could turn from The Muse. They didn't want to be evil.

Which is why it took Mickey and Karen so long to be seduced by The Muse.

Last week we learned that Mickey was the first person to meet the pharmacist and refused The Muse but he brought in all the customers. He resisted for years, not wanting the side effects that came with ingesting The Muse until the agent came to town and then he took the gamble and won. He became rich and famous and came back for Karen.

Karen has never been seduced by The Muse yet she’s addicted to heroin or whatever and uses all the other drugs but she refuses to take The Muse because she doesn’t want to kill people. Even though she’ll bring babies now and again for the lead bitch.

Karen refuses Mickey’s offers of taking The Muse and going to Hollywood. He’s furious, he loves her.

Karen’s luck has run out and there is no one to protect her. Mickey appears with the pill and leaves.

Karen either has to take the pill or be eaten by vampire monster things; both sides hunger for her.

She takes the pill.

We see her hair is less greasy, her teeth are less coated and so on as effects take place. Mickey wants to take her to feed. They go to the beach. She feeds on Mickey, kills him. It was shocking and unexpected. I was very sad that Mickey died like that. 

She paints furiously and then wanders out to sea where she slits her wrists, thus creating a Red Tide and is washed away.

We actually never know which way she turned; if she had talent or was a hack.

A bleak depressing ending but hey, it’s a Ryan Murphy horror show!

Next week will be the second part of the double feature. Maybe Karen gets washed up and discovered by aliens or the Black Lagoon dude or someone?

Who knows?

I’ve done my best to avoid seeing spoilers, so I hope to be surprised.

American Horror Story Episode Three Thoughts and Musings

 

Episode Three of American Horror Story Double Feature was on FX this week.

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This week began where we left off last week and I have to say, this is the most focused, put-together season of American Horror Story yet. Often the series suffers from too many cool storylines happening at once and there's always a thread or two left hanging or the ending gets rushed. 

This year, we are watching Finn Wittrock struggling with writer's block a la Jack Torrance in The Shining and I'm loving it. Finn, as we know, has been a regular on AHS for years and this might be his best part yet aside from Dandy Mott. And those who follow me know that I've been a huge Finn Wittrock fan ever since I first saw him Freak Show back in 2014. And as a writer who myself recently emerged from a nearly ten year writing paralysis, I can relate in a million different ways to Harry, Finn's character.

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As I mentioned last week, this is a totally different character yet again from others that Finn's played in the franchise. He's realistic, (not hitting the ground running as some kind of monster), even as he turns to the dark side. He's playing a husband and dad who is on the verge of scoring a big Hollywood gig. He goes to a small Massachussetts town to get his head together and focus on the work for the deadline. The drive to the town was remisincent of The Shining (both open in a similar vein) as are many other shots and motifs. Now in episode three, Harry's already in thick with other writers in town.

In a turn of fate, his very pregnant wife topples down the stairs (The Omen? I can't remember what movie that might be from, AHS always has touchstones to other properties) and she has to spend a few days in the hospital so she won't lose the baby. Harry is thrilled because now he can work on his opus  without her nagging and continue his turn to the dark side in secret, in tandem with his nine-year-old daughter. Alva. Both Harry and Alva are under the spell of the little black pills, caring only for their own art with little regard for those around them. This episode was like a Lone Wolf and Cub/Mandalorian and Grogu adventure but with talented artistic narcissistic addicts. Harry will hunt food for Alva or so the deal is supposed to go. But hey, it's a horror movie. That cop got a bit too close...

This season has great atmosphere and fun performances. The ensemble works well together and the story so far makes sense. Well, except a couple of things that most would overlook, I'm sure. 

Shooting in a pandemic also gives an air of creepiness as the town is very sparsely populated, no one is around and the bars and so on are pretty empty. I'm not sure if they did the technique with background performers on green screen like they did in Good Girls.

                                           

I think what is irking me are all the people who say it's time to kill Harry. Instead of killing him, hey they're vampires, (why would they think twice?) they just keep talking about it all. This often happens with Murphy projects so I hope this won't kill the momentum. We all know that everytime a villain doesn't immediately take action but just blathers about it, the villain likely isn't going to succeed. But this is AHS, anything can happen...

          

I'm absolutely loving Macaulay Culkin as Mickey this episode. I love his acting, he has some wonderful bits and is so good. I hope we see much more of him in the future, not only in this show but others. I could see his little boy Kevin face underneath the meth/artist, and it was so wonderful and creepy and fun. Imagine the Home Alone boy battling vampires or becoming one with them but they still shun him. 

                                            

The vampires want to kill Harry all of the sudden, but they want to kill the agent more. So, why didn't they just Kill Her? They kill everyone else without blinking an eye. What's with the delay?

These are two things that bug me. The talking about killing Harry and the agent but no one does...yet. I'm sure that will all go down next week. 

                                           

I also don't know why Mickey killed someone in broad daylight on the beach right where someone else was killed. That didn't make much sense but perhaps it shows how he doesn't think things through?

                                          

Evan Peters is amazing and fun and insane as always. He's always a joy to watch and his many characters in the franchise have all been very different from each other. So much talent. 

 

I re-watched part of the second episode waiting for the third one, and was struck how much Billie Lourd is channeling her mom. She always looked very much like her mom but in this season, even more so. It's actually creepy, maybe because she's pushing thirty now. She also speaks like Carrie Fisher, that quick, clipped fifties patter. They still have Billie doing that cadence and it's enjoyable.

You gotta feel sorry for Lily Rabe's Doris who is being betrayed by her own husband and daughter. Everyone around her is turning into someone else. Her bland little world of bland design "grey-eige" is being turned upside down. Instead of her vain husband being an actor as in Rosemary's Baby, he's a writer but still has sold his soul. I wonder what's in store for the baby? Is it a devil baby preordained by the coven? Is the coven from Coven going to show up to claim it?

The show has bits of The Shining, Rosemary's Baby, Salem's Lot, Dark Shadows, The Omen, and many other horror movies threaded through it. I've actually never seen any incarnations of Dark Shadows but Evan Peters seems like he's channeling Barnabas Collins at some point. I'm not ignorant that the show exists but just don't know the inside scoop of it. 

We didn't have to wait long for our buddy Harry to be captured by kinky weirdos and thrown into a dungeon to be sexually violated in a snuff video. Well, he went there to kill the girl for her blood but she flipped the tables on him and he became the victim. I have to say, I was trembling with an-ti-ci-pation to see if the sex scene would actually happen, being a kinky weirdo myself. I loved how he used his fangs to bite his bindings and then destroy them. Go Finn-Harry! 

Oh, and if the snuff film weirdos hadn't been explaining how they were going to kill Harry in detail (to entice him to take the Viagra) and had just done it, he wouldn't have had time to chew through the bindings. 

Looking forward to next week! In the meantime, have a bowl of blood! It's nutritious and delicious. 

Or just go relax in the tub like Dandy used to like to do...

 

And while you're waiting and soaking, check out some of my books on the new SCREAM Chills and Thrills app both on iPhone and Android!

If you want to read a story about a witch who gets to meet her favourite horror TV star, check out my latest book in my Witch Upon a Star series.

American Horror Story Double Feature Episode One and Two Thoughts

Oh, Ryan Murphy must be in my head! Maybe not!

But wow, a horror story with my favourite AHS cast member, Finn Wittrock, playing a WRITER!

A crazy writer, perhaps like Jack Torrance, or perhaps not, you’ll have to watch to find out!

And yes, Finn-Harry, writing is hard. But the lure of fame and fortune at any cost is harder, isn’t it?

I’m loving this story so far.

There’s also a violinist!

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I’ll try not to be too spoilery and since it’s just the beginning episodes, anything can happen as this is Ryan Murphy after all!

 

Harry (Finn Wittrock) and his pregnant wife (Lily Rabe) and their pre-teen daughter, Alma (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), a virtuoso violinist move into a creepy house in Massachusetts so Harry can find his muse for a TV pilot his agent needs him to write as Hollywood is calling.

(Way to go, Harry. I’ve been working on TV pilots myself…oh, can't wait for Hollywood to call!)

This is the first time for me that I’ve seen Finn cast as a grown-up. Of course, I’ve not yet had a chance to see all his work as I’m still waiting for some to be released here in Canada. I saw him in Judy and he played the husband of Judy Garland but he wasn’t a family man. In this show, Finn is a dad! No more pretty boy young angry monster roles, I guess…our Finn has grown up.

Well, we know he’ll likely be back to naked push-ups in Season Two of Ratched so don’t despair!

I love seeing Finn as a husband to a pregnant wife and with a daughter. It’s fun and he does it well.

(He's married with a child in real life so he knows what to do!)

Some weirdness happens.

Harry has huge writer’s block as all of us writers who face daunting deadlines get. 

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Harry is excited to meet a couple of rich and famous writers who live in town. They want to share their secrets of success with him. Of course, these authors with their temptations are played by Evan Peters and Frances Conroy who look like they are having the time of their lives vamping it up as they lure in reluctant Harry.

Harry is faced with the choice of taking a little pill to enhance his writing abilities.

His daughter also learns about the pills when she spies on him. She’s been frustrated with her violin practicing. She’s a virtuoso but stumbles on a passage in the music. 

Mom is a home decorator who seems to be lost in the shuffle of family talent. No one really takes her seriously, not her writer-husband and not her violinist-daughter.

The drug brings fame and fortune to those who have real talent. As well as blood lust. To those who don’t, they turn into despicable insane vampire creatures.  

 

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Harry takes the drug and writes up a storm.

His daughter sneaks the drug and plays up a storm, no more stumbles!

Mom doesn’t know why her husband and daughter are obsessive assholes.

In the meantime, we meet Sarah Paulson, Macaulay Culkin, and Billie Lourd as well as some other franchise favourites.

Billie, (who is one of my lady AHS favourites along with Emma Roberts who I hope is in this but not sure, they did both just have babies in real life) plays a tattoo artist dentist! 

Sarah plays an addict called Karen which I’m sure is a hilarious nod to the current state of Karen in our modern times. Sarah is so far doing her usual great job of stranger in a strange land. 

Macaulay plays a writer who flirts with the idea of taking the drug. We’ll find out later if he has talent or not. I'm loving watching him as an adult. 

I’m sure that eventually Lily Rabe will discover the drug and we’ll find out whether she has talent or not. Right now, they are playing like she doesn’t really, her decorating abilities are rather stale but they may be tricking us for a twist ending where she’ll survive and everyone dies. Or maybe the baby has talent and she doesn’t. Or who knows what kind of crazy Murphy has in mind for that pregnancy!

We have The Shining, Cape Fear, Salem's Lot, vampires, drugs, temptation, monsters, New England...

Anyway, so far so good.

I’m hooked in as always.

Can’t wait for next week!

 Oh, and as a little side note, Finn was born in Massachusetts so there's that little homage as well!

American Horror Story: Apocalypse Episode One The End

A couple of nights ago, American Horror Story: Apocalypse premiered. I was excited for the season to finally begin but was also very cautious about falling in love too fast and getting my heart shattered into a million pieces later on. So I'm trying to rein my enthusiasm to protect myself from inevitable disappointment. 

There will be spoilers in here, but I’ll try to dance around a bit.

First of all, I really enjoyed it but of course, I’m a disaster movie lover from way back. So the impending apocalypse as reported by cell phone alerts and all the drama associated with the last minutes before a bomb hits worked for me. There was the scrambling for safe zones, the destruction of the innocence, the entitled rich people finding a way, or at least, most of them.

We met a few characters, but we can’t count on any of them sticking around for long or maybe a couple will ride out the season. Who knows? It’s American Horror Story, the show about diversion and killing off your favourite storylines. My bets are on Joan Collins and Sarah Paulson lasting until the last episode and then turning on each other in a cunning act of triple cross betrayal. Of course, it might boil down to Jessica Lange against Joan Collins.

I’m not enough of an AHS nerd to recognize all the motifs threading back to other seasons but I did spot a few. And there will be more obvious ones, I’m sure, when the Coven arrives, or maybe they are another Outpost or however they are going to portray the NOLA witches.

Plot Stuff

The premise is that some nuclear bombs were dropped and the world as we know it is finished.

Some people were lucky enough to be in airplanes when the actual bomb hit so were spared the explosion.

There were others in various scenarios.

Ultimately, we’re following the tale of a group of survivors in a bomb shelter called “Outpost 3.”  It used to be a boy’s school. (Like Hogwarts?)

There’s a perceived hierarchy that could be a house of lies.

There are “purples” and “greys” which Is reminiscent of UFO-speak. There have been aliens and UFOs in AHS before.

Some we know are there because they have a special genetic situation that is mysterious for now. I suspect aliens.

Most people are there because they paid millions however it seems more like a jail where everyone Is trapped. Which they are.

There are other “Outposts.”

The horny teens and everyone else are told to not have sex. They are in that place for nearly two years. I thought at first there was a caution against sex because who is going to deliver a baby or raise it in that place? Then I thought, maybe since the teens have special genetics, they might be brother and sister. Incest is best! Or maybe any of those people mating would create a mutant!

Characters

Sarah Paulson started her role strong, in fact, I didn’t recognize her at first, then she slowly slid back into Sarah Paulson playing a character. Sigh. At least she wasn’t sobbing and screaming this time.

Kathy Bates character is totally cool and reminiscent of Madame LaRue and The Butcher and is no doubt related to both.

Evan Peters is always a delight. I’ve loved watching him grow up, and still wish they had done more with him when he was a teenage Frankenstein monster. I hate his hair. I’m sure there’s a reason, he’s had that colour hair a few times, Andy Warhol comes to mind. However, he’s playing a hairdresser so did he have tons of bleach, like years worth to keep his hair that white? Oh, the questions already!

And he’s the hairdresser to a rich bitch whose hair seems to go to hell as the show goes on or rather just gets weirder as does Lourd’s so why isn’t he still styling it or is he over styling it on purpose? 

Cos he’s not getting paid? Cos he’s depressed? The questions! The questions!

I was pleased to see Billy Lourd still sporting ridiculous hairdos, as has been her tradition since Scream Queens, in homage to her deceased mom and Princess Leia.

Cody Fern is in there looking like the Vampire Lestat and maybe he is. He’s the grown-up baby from Murder House, the “Rosemary’s Baby, baby” I believe. It’s only the first episode. I fell in love with Cody Fern like the rest of you did during his heart-breaking stint on The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Oh, boy, that man can act. And he’s very nice on the eyes, oh yeah!

Cody Fern in Versace. I hope he gets an award of some sort!

Speaking of nice on the eyes, I hope Finn Wittrock shows up, AS DANDY!!!!!!!, and surprises us. I’ve not heard he’s coming back. Maybe the witches will Ouija board him back to life to get at his fortune and use him as a tool for some bad shit! Isn’t Madison his heir? I can’t wait for Emma Roberts as nastyass bitch Madison to return. She would totally Ouiji board him to get at some secret money or whatever. He can follow her around as a Force Ghost in his tidy whities, whining and bitching and slaughtering. Ha!

Finn Wittrock as "Dandy" The Kylo Ren of the AHS franchise!

Music

The song, “Calling Occupants” was playing on an endless loop. I love that song. It was huge on the radio when I was a teen by a band called Klaatu. I had all their albums. They were concept albums and “Calling Occupants” is on the 3:47 EST. I used to listen to Klaatu for hours on end back in the day. I dreamed of spaceships and other planets.

When Klaatu was first heard on the radio, people thought they were the Beatles. When I was around twenty, I saw them in London, Ontario at a mid-sized bar. It was so very cool. Since I loved the albums so much, I had a brief by letter correspondence with Terry Draper who had actually talked to me after the show which nearly gave me a heart attack!

It’s hard to believe that a Canadian band created “Calling Occupants” which Karen Carpenter heard and covered a year or so later!

So it was cool to hear that song on AHS the other night. Definitely telling us there’s a spaceship, that there are aliens and so on.

Then they played, “There’s Gotta Be a Morning After” again Karen Carpenter and this time from the movie, “The Poseidon Adventure.” Is this important? Are they on a sinking ship and don’t know it? Flying in a mother ship and don’t know it? Are they upside down?

Are there clues in the music? Do the songs play forever because they weren’t getting the message. “Calling Occupants” finally changed to “Morning After” but then they didn’t get it to change again.

Conclusion

You can see how I was trying not to give spoilers. I am engaged in the story. There’s no real character who interests me or want to follow except Michael Landon who is played by Cody Fern so far. We’ll see. Hopefully is will continue to be quirky, engaging, funny, grim, and won’t fall off the tracks!

 Here are some Klaatu links for you to enjoy!

Calling Occupants

Klaatau

We're Off You Know

The Loneliest of Creatures

Knee Deep in Love

Hope

The Hope Album

Madman



Did you like the first episode of the new season?

Where do you think Apocalypse is going to go, storywise?


In the meantime, you can catch me on Twitch for Lunch Time Tarot Card Readings!

This week, the time might be moved to mid-afternoon as I might have to work over the lunch hour every day. The best way to find out is to follow me on Twitch, I'm Sephera666 and you'll get dinged when I come on. I give everyone a one card reading and we also talk about all kinds of things. Maybe we'll talk about AHS this week! It's up to you!