American Horror Story: Neighbors from Hell

September 20, 2017 7:16 PM - Season 7, Episode 3

Ally finds herself branded "the lesbian George Zimmerman," Winter is somehow still employed, and Kai makes friends.
posted by kittens for breakfast (4 comments total)

The show so far has not been working for me. Maybe I need to change my perspective because there's a lot of interesting stuff being explored, I like AHS' 'horror' in the past, and it's very well acted.

Another really on the nose scene again, also including the door bars, with the Wiltons doing the fake holier than thou thing berating Ally for not being a good "progressive" while wearing sombreros for no good reason (taco bowl anyone?).

(fuck, re: 23 and me 10% Mexican - no, that does not fucking mean that 1/10th of your ancestors were Mexican (especially when the number is low, like "10%"), much less the rich and complicated and nuanced definition of "Mexican." Services like 23andme should be legislated to have to provide actual genetic education/counseling with their results or be only able to claim "for novelty purposes only." Arrg!)

Another theme explored again is the asymmetric confrontation (Ally/Ivy vs Craigslist ad responder) and the gaslighting/hiding-behind-privilege/very-no-good-bad-therapist.

Yeah, I think maybe I shouldn't be watching this (nor commenting about it here) and letting the show troll me.
posted by porpoise at 8:06 PM on September 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Am I just not getting this, or was this just a terrible, terrible episode? I said this last thread, and was met with some disagreement, but I'm going to keep my foot down here. Winter as a character just doesn't make sense. She shouldn't have a job. At this point it feels like the plot is held together with silly string.
posted by FirstMateKate at 12:28 PM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Cult seems much more openly satirical than any previous AHS storyline, which makes it difficult for me to determine which of its convolutions are part of the joke and which are just shaky writing. Of course, this kind of ambiguity is what keeps many a "satirist" above (deserved) criticism, and God knows AHS pulls a lot of plotting out of its ass, always has. In terms of internal logic, it seems like some stuff this year may play out like, "Is Winter still in a job [or whatever unlikely contrivance] because Ivy [or whoever is doing whatever unlikely thing] is secretly in the cult, or is this just stupid?" I'm not sure that's a question I want to ask of my entertainment, but this is a show that can be brilliant at one moment and dumb as a box of mismatched socks at another, so it's a valid one.

I'm enjoying Cult, for what it's worth. The story is a closer parallel to Murder House than to any other season (the sad fate of Mister Guinea is a direct lift from it), and while I don't think Cult is as good, I think Cult's trying for something much different. This is the style of horror perfected by Ira Levin (Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives), a horror that's as much social commentary as it is thriller; in contemporary terms, it's in much the same vein as Jordan Peele's Get Out. As such, I expect it to get nastier and less jokey as it goes along -- not that I mind the jokes when they work -- and I'm interested to see it all unfold.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:19 PM on September 21, 2017

I expect it to get nastier and less jokey as it goes along

Yeah, I'm hanging in there hoping for this, as well.

I'll admit that so far this season has been a lot more disciplined/focused on its central concept than many a past season - the truck spraying mystery gas was the first real instance of the traditional AHS "throw in everything but the kitchen sink, figure out how/if it's all connected later" modus operandi.

Also, I kind of hope Chris Carter is watching this show. Especially with that scene of Ally flipping out (ineffectually) at the mystery-gas-truck, I feel like there's a sense of the X-Files cultural impact that the X-Files itself (when they made those new episodes last year) didn't really seem to have a handle on.
posted by mstokes650 at 8:27 PM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]