“This place is bat-s*** crazy, you know?”
By Matt Fowler
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow…
I suppose there’s always some sort of satisfaction to be found with American Horror Story on a purely puzzle piece level. You know, the same way people watch empty procedurals for the all the twists and turns that come with solving a murder case. Here, it’s all about the separate histories connected to each of the weird, wild happenings within The Cortez. So when things start falling into place – when answers start flooding in – business picks up.
No, I’m not saying that Hotel has created any real reason to care about any of the characters, just that when backstory gets filled in, especially one as fun as Evan Peters playing sadistic hotel builder James March (a character based, in part, on Chiacgo torture hotel builder H.H. Holmes), one can easily find themselves drawn into a ghoulishly fun side story. I mentioned at the end of my review last week that the hotel setting would, in the very least, allow for many historic one-off horror moments.
And so when “Chutes and Ladders” took a ten minute breather from its absolutely ridiculous one hour and forty minute run time (just do a 22 episode season then, jeez) to tell the ghastly tale of March and his madness (and war against God), and how the hotel was built as his personal playground of pain, I got on board. Especially since it was fun to watch Peters play such a pronounced perpetrator. His usual M.O. on AHS is being somewhat of sad sack victim.
What’s more, the March story actually tied into Lowe’s ongoing murder case, so this big reveal killed several birds with one stone toss. The rest of this chapter however was a bunch of sordid nonsense. The pilot episode tricked me into thinking that Gaga’s Countess might evolve into someone/something interesting. But her exploits with Finn Wittrock’s Tristan (who looked like he was from the mid-80s even before being turned into a vampire) and subsequent dumping of Donovan was the dregs. Only slightly interesting for its explanation of how this show’s particular vampires work (different rules in different properties, right?). It’s called out as a virus. Sun and bad blood will weaken you. No fangs, just knives. But the rest of this love triangle, if that’s the right term, was achingly dull. Gaga’s Countess may be the least loud of the three, but that doesn’t make her sympathetic. Or her longings digestible.
Lowe’s daughter Scarlett seemed to make a big discovery this week after being shown her own brother resting in a coffin. Later, after giving her parents a good scare by vanishing for a few hours, she returned home to tell them that Holden was alive. Just to be ignored. Actually, yelled at. By a dad who’s now seen his son in that damn hotel twice. He’s even chased after him on more than one occasion. And yet he never followed up on this. He demanded answers from Iris, but not “Where’s my son?” answers. What a freakin’ strange thing to ignore. You just got confirmation that you aren’t the only one who’s seen your missing kid!
Anyhow, during that second chase scene – the one where Lowe took off after Holden and wound up in the lobby – he first had a few “fake awakes.” The “Drilldo” dude shaking his spiked wang woke him from his under-dream. Then a corpse-ish couple boning in his shower woke him the for real. It occurred to me after that that most of this entire series could play as a fake-awake. At any point, because things are so crazy (often) for crazy’s sake, a scene could end with someone being startled awake in their bed. Because everything’s floating here. Disconnected from anything investable.
Instead of Bauhaus and Joy Division this week we got Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Order, and Bryan Ferry. In case anyone was worried that the post-punk/new wave soundtrack was only for the pilot. I mean, honestly, I know I was.
“Chutes and Ladders” provided a horrifically fun backstory for the hotel featuring a very sadistic Evan Peters (along with Mare Winningham’s “Laundress”), but that was a 15% chunk of an episode that sprawled for over an hour and a half, featuring some very grating vampire soapiness involving vain, pretty douchebags getting pissed and shattering glasses against the wall (Bomer threw one, Wittrock the other). Plus, our “smart” cop, who’s been seeing his son in the Cortez hallways, ignored his daughter when she saw him too. And believed it was her brother so much that she snuck away to prove it.
