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 Episode 7 Flicker Recap Continues

American Horror Story: Hotel Flicker Spoilerama

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As always when it comes to American Horror Story, you could spend days writing about references, symbols, cross-overs, and homages but who has time for that?

But, while I have a minute, another homage that I noticed in watching Flickers was the scene where Mr. March tells The Countess about Valentino. It had such echoes from Gone with the Wind that I actually looked for the GWTW clip on YouTube and here it is!

I'm a huge Gone with the Wind fan, I don't know why. Perhaps it was the big dresses. Perhaps it was Scarlett's drive or Rhett's tenacity in trying to get her to love him. Perhaps it was the huge scope of the film itself, the changing times, the musical score that makes me weep with its choreographed schmaltziness, or pehaps it was the tragic yet possibly hopeful ending. I read the book many times as a teenager and often will watch a part of the movie if it's on TV.  It is a horror story in many ways. Just the war scenes themselves, fiction or real, were horrific.

Evan Peters is doing a fantastic job with Mr. March, modelling him after a Gable-esque early thirties type with passion for murder. His jealousy of the Countess' love for Valentino rivals Rhett's jealousy of Scarlett's love for Ashley. 

While Rhett doesn't touch Ashley, as he knows Ashley has no interest in Scarlett, March seeks revenge on the hedonistic Valentino and his wife, and walls them into the hotel for nearly 100  years. 

American Horror Story: Hotel Episode 7 "Flicker" Thoughts

Spoilers for American Horror Story: Hotel Episode 7 "Flicker"

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The real Rudolph Valentino

I will admit that I tuned in this week with a heavy heart, knowing that Finn Wittrock was dead and I doubted that he would be brought back as undead although you never know on that show.

Wasn't I thrilled when I was looking at Valentino going, "Hang on, I recognize that mole...and the way his teeth show when he's leering...that jaw line...it's Finn, but is it? All these damn AHS:Hotel guys look the same."

I checked out the brown eyes and imagined them green and by a few minutes in, I knew it was him. 

Boy was I happy. And what a nice surprise. I realized that of course they would use him to play Gaga's lover. It was set up long ago that Tristan looked like The Countess' long lost love but we hadn't learned the back story yet...until this episode.

I'd never really noticed that Wittrock does indeed share a resemblance to Valentino. And Wittrock is about the age Valentino was when he died. They both are smoldering hot heart throbs when on-screen.

Valentino met his wife Natacha on a film set and though the gossip magazines had them divorcing, in the world of AHS: Hotel, they were actually swingers.Valentino likes Gaga when he meets her as a mousey yet exotic girl on a film set and so he brings her home to Natacha and the three of them share a decadent tango and proceed to enjoy many months of hedonism.

When Valentino dies too young and suddenly, Gaga was going to jump out a window at the fancyass party thrown by James March (Evan Peters) however March catches her. And they quickly get married.

Despite the distraction of being a married to a serial killer, Gaga still visits Valentino's crypt every day. She's the Lady in Black. 

However, it turns out that Valentino had faked his own death. He received the secret of eternal life from filmmaker Murnau who learned it while he was researching Nosferatu.

Valentino and Natacha want their threesome to continue on into eternity and they come back for Gaga and turn her.

Unknown to the Countess, March discovers her love for Valentino and also discovers that he's still alive, and so seeks revenge.

The story is kind of cool with how Valentino and his wife had been trapped in their room and hotel hallways for nearly 100 years until they were unearthed by the construction crew.

I will admit, I almost, almost got sucked into an American Horror Story headspin about how did Valentino become Tristan. What is the timeline? Then I remembered my first instinct, one actor, two people.

Valentino himself played two roles in films.

real Valentino

Of course, now Valentino and Natacha are running loose on the streets of LA so they might be gone for many episodes. Who knows? Maybe they'll find the vampire not vampire child army and do something with it, to get back at March for walling them in.

Maybe they'll make a movie. Maybe they just go on a debaucherous blood and drug-fuelled hedonist rampage.

They might end up in cahoots with Angela Bassett and her gang but likely not since they love Gaga.

In the meantime, there were other stories, like crazy cop dad pretending not pretending to be nuts to get into the insane asylum to talk to a murderer.

Meanwhile I think he was insane in a cell talking to himself. I think by this point it's pretty obvious he's the Killer and that's why he was at the serial killer dinner.

The ending of the episode was unexpected and in hindsight, it's hilarious.

No one stays dead at the Cortez, really.

Wonder if Valentino will meet Tristan if Tristan comes back as a ghost vampire not vampire? Wouldn't his neck just automatically heal anyway? It was just a flesh wound after all. He might not even be dead.

Will Elizabeth Taylor hook up with Valentino?

Will the Countess regret killing Tristan when Valentino returns? She could have had TWO of them at once.

So many questions and now we have to wait two weeks!

And thanks, American Horror Story for giving me a great twist with keeping Wittrock around a bit longer!

Edited to add:

I love reading other recaps every week. Here's one that's fun. I know I didn't mention "the accent." I figure Finn got his accent training from the same place as Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates. American Horror Story Recap

American Horror Story:Hotel Now What?

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Another episode will soon be upon us.

Reviews about last week's episode seem to vary between "eh" to "the best thing ever."

Personally, I found it slow. I guess I got used to all the blood and mayhem and sex and though this episode, Room Service, certainly was gory, it wasn't exciting for me.

However, here we are.

The little boy who was saved from measles has turned his entire class into vampires that aren't vampires who have the measles but don't have the measles.

How are the writers going to deal with all of that?

Then there are the most selfish parents in the world.

Ms. Doctor who gives the dying measles child the not-vampire blood which causes him to become a blood-sucking freak but does she even go to check on her daughter? She's so enamoured with her son and meddling with playing God that she forgets about her kid. If she connected with Miss Scarlett, we don't know.

And then there's dear old dad, who's too busy having a nervous breakdown or something to remember he has a daughter. He'd rather dwell on himself and his dead or not dead kid than worry about a girl with a depressed mom and loony tunes dad.

That cop detective storyline is getting so boring. We got he was descending into madness from day one. So now what? No surprise he lost his wife and job. Hurry up and do something already. Is he the serial killer? Is that why he was at the dinner party?

We got hammered home with more mother stuff, and weird mom and son connections.

We didn't get to see Finn Wittrock naked but briefly saw him a la Gary Oldman in Dracula on the arm of Lady Gaga as they sniffed Kathy Bates because she smells different.

Ho hum.

We learn about Elizabeth Taylor's transformation and that she's not dead nor a not-vampire but actually someone who works at the Cortez on her own free will. Mostly because she can cross-dress without having to kill anyone over it. A segment was devoted to the back story about how a simple salesman from Kansas got swept up in the Countess' tornado and became a permanent living employee of the hotel. Oh, and Liz likes girls. Perhaps something will happen between Liz and Iris.

I wonder if Lady Gaga will be happy or angry that Chloe turned that kid who turned a whole bunch of kids?

Lady Gaga made it pretty clear that Chloe is expected to keep the rules so there is likely some kind of consequence to her action.

Iris was torturing tourists in the early episodes to provide blood for the children  yet it seemed like she had no clue what was going on with regard to the Hotel's dark secrets in this episode. There was odd character stuff this week for her.

Well, hopefully next week will be a kaleidoscope of mayhem. Two weeks of exposition is enough for me!

What do you think about American Horror Story: Hotel so far?