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Thursday, November 16, 2017

Hey!!!!!!!!!!! I Have Not Forgotten To Talk About The "AHS: Cult" Finale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


                               The first thing I have to say is it did not live up to my expectations.

                                There were some things I was genuinely happy about.  Like Ally and Beverly being the last ones standing.  And Ivy being really dead.  I am actually convinced she was worse than Winter.  Of course, it was thrilling to see Kai taken down, but that pathetic blond thing he manipulated and killed.   Couldn't this kid have been happy just being some inmate's bitch????????

                                  The big surprise was when Ally gave Oz the Twisty doll.  It was like seeing Twisty again, though I had hopes that, for the finale, John Carroll  Lynch,  Lily Rabe, or the actresses who played Pepper and Ma Petite would appear in some fashion.

                                    Alas, they did not.

                                     The way things went down were pretty predictable.  But, I do have a question.

                                      With Winter gone, there was no one, really, to watch Oz.  So, he is held up in the cult house, all this time.  How did Ally get him out?  Was that ever explained?  More should have been done with this kid, because not only was the kid not given a chance to show acting chops, he really was not given a viable character to play!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        Speaking of Winter, I hope Ryan Murphy brings Billie Lourd back.  She was one of the best things about "Cult."

                                        Evan; Evan, my man!  The great Peters proved his mettle, that he can carry this show on his shoulders, too, meaning, much as it would be great to get Jessica Lange back, the show now has two sets of shoulders to carry on her mantle!  If Evan Peters does not get an Emmy for his work, this season, I will have a print Bitch Fit, on here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                          And did everyone get the "Lana Winters" reference????????

                                         O.K., we have to talk about the Final Shot with Sarah Paulson.  I have to admit that, at first, I did not know what was going on.  What the hell; was she morphing into "The French Lieutenant's Woman???????????"  But, then David reminded me, she was wearing the SCUM cloak of Valerie Solanas, which Frances Conroy had worn!  So, apparently, she is taking on that mantle.  Which leaves a lot of questions.  With Ally trapped in this stratospshere, where can she go from here???????  "Cult" certainly isn't going to continue, but is the SCUM movement going to?  I have several suggestions.   The first is to form a feminist theater company, and mount a musical version of "The SCUM Manifesto!!!!!!!!!!!!"   One observer posed the question if all men are going down now; I don't think so, because, after all, Oz is a male, or will be.  I would though, like to see Ally take down all openly homophobic males, great big closet cases, and Alt-Right, or whatever they want to call themselves, male White National Supremacists!!!!!!!!!!  That would be fascinating to watch, though I am sure Ryan Murphy has plans to leave this territory, and go on to something else.

                                       "Cult" was certainly not my favorite season--that still belongs to "Coven"--but it was not as bad as "Roanoke."  At least "Hotel" had Sarah as Hypodermic Sally, still one of my favorite characters.

                                         If any of you out there still feel compelled to join a cult, then do yourselves, and yours truly a favor, and join a harmless one, like an audience screening of "Valley Of The Dolls," or "The Bad Seed!"

                                         No rules apply at these events, dolls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 comments:

Videolaman said...

OMG, ROTFLMAO at "French Lieutenant's Woman"! I can't believe I didn't see that parallel until you pointed it out, now I can't see anything else!

The ending was predictable and somewhat disappointing, but overall "Cult" surprised me by being the single most coherent AHS season yet (by a longshot). While it was full of the usual digressions and stalls, it didn't fall into the incredibly annoying AHS pattern of leaving multiple key or intriguing threads dangling with no resolution to be had. The trifling question of little Oz's history post-Winter will not haunt me: it didn't even occur to me until you mentioned it. But there are threads going back to the first season whose lack of resolution piss me off to this day (i.e., the multiple times the rules of Murder House contradicted themselves, why was exposing Moira's grave of crucial importance for half the series, then dropped and never referred to again, no story coherence or final relevance for the Lily Rabe-Infantada after so much buildup, etc etc).

"Asylum" got away with being messy by sheer dint of its chock-a-block brilliance, "Coven" was a fun joyride with some ugly, inappropriate blind alleys (trapping Lily Rabe in hell for no good reason other than momentary shock value? DISGUSTING!). "Freak Show" had more pointless digressions than my own average conversations, and saddled us with the revolting Dandy Mott scumbag (yes, I know many a queen loved him parading around in his underwear, but as a character he was not at all amusing: a creepy entitled sadist). If it weren't for Ma Petit and Pepper and Bette/Dot, the show would have been a total write-off. "Hotel" was another incoherent mess: brought back the contradictory "ghost rules" that changed every episode, dropped story points galore, clairvoyant intelligent monsters jarringly becoming dimwits whenever it suited lazy writing, gratuitous buckets of blood with no grounding in style or real horror. And of course "Roanoke", whose relentless pre-release PR campaign led to the biggest bomb since "New Coke". The raison d'etre of "Roanoke" should have been the actual ghosts, who were given ridiculously short shrift (wasting the talents of some veteran actors who were cast to play them).

Ah, well: hope springs eternal. Sarah Paulson has already hinted she's heard of two possible themes for next season, one of which she is "passionately" interested in doing, the other not so much. If I were Ryan Murphy, I'd make next season the ultimate swan song and get out on top. The number of the season, 8, when turned becomes the infinity symbol: a perfect metaphor for Ryan's long-promised crossover arc (where characters from all prior seasons intersect somehow to reveal a grand integrated finale). I doubt Ryan and Co. actually have the skills and imagination to pull that off, but how cool would it be if they did?

The Raving Queen said...


Sarah's comments have peaked
my curiosity. "Cult" was much
more enjoyable--and suspenseful--
than "Roanoke." "Coven" is
still my favorite.

Now I recognize Billie Lourd
from "Scream Queens.: She said
the ear muffs were a homage to
her mom, Carrie Fisher!