{"id":1425,"date":"2021-09-30T10:42:46","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T14:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=1425"},"modified":"2022-11-22T20:36:26","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T01:36:26","slug":"my-totally-definitive-ranking-of-american-horror-story-seasons-1-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/my-totally-definitive-ranking-of-american-horror-story-seasons-1-9\/","title":{"rendered":"My Totally Definitive Ranking of American Horror Story Seasons 1 – 11"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Do I have to say that this is going to be spoilery as hell? Complain about spoilers and I’ll go all The Butcher on your ass.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(11\/17\/2022: Updated to include NYC<\/em>. Updated again on 11\/22 because after thinking about it, I bumped NYC<\/em> up a spot.) <\/strong><\/p>\n

11. Season 7, Cult<\/em><\/a>
\n10. Season 10, Double Feature<\/em><\/a>
\n9. Season 5, Hotel<\/em><\/a>
\n8. Season 3, Coven<\/em><\/a>
\n7. Season 8, Apocalypse<\/em><\/a>
\n6. Season 9, 1984<\/em><\/a>
\n5. Season 11, NYC<\/em><\/a>
\n4. Season 4, Freak Show<\/em><\/a>
\n3. Season 6, Roanoke<\/em><\/a>
\n2. Season 1, Murder House<\/em><\/a>
\n1. Season 2, Asylum<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been watching American Horror Story<\/em> since its first season in 2011. I think the only show I’ve stuck\u00a0with even longer is The Simpsons<\/em>. And as with\u00a0The Simpsons<\/em>, I sometimes think\u00a0I’ve stuck with this\u00a0show a lot longer than it deserves. But somehow I just can’t quit AHS. When it’s at its best, it’s campy and gory and over the top and yet incredibly affecting, and I’ve never seen anything else quite like it.<\/p>\n

One day several years ago, I started randomly musing\u00a0about what I’d write\u00a0if I were somehow tasked\u00a0with creating a season of AHS; the plot I came up with ended up becoming Tidepool<\/em>. There’s still a little bit of that show coded in my debut novel’s DNA.<\/p>\n

The anthology format makes each season\u00a0so different that people get into major arguments\u00a0over their favorites. Naturally,\u00a0I felt compelled to add to the noise with my own rankings in order to mark the tenth anniversary of the series. I’m someone who focuses on well-developed characters first, followed by a strong\u00a0story. If I found\u00a0either or both things lacking in a given season–if the characters weren’t\u00a0likable or at least believable, or if the story was\u00a0a confusing mess–then I probably didn’t enjoy it too much.<\/p>\n

Note: I have not watched the spinoff American Horror Stories<\/em>. We don’t have access to FX on Hulu, and to be honest, nothing I’ve heard about this series makes me want to change that.<\/p>\n

11. Season 7, Cult<\/i><\/h4>\n

What a waste of a potentially interesting concept. The writers wanted to Make A Statement about the 2016 elections, but \u201cPersonality Cults Are Bad\u201d is hardly a piping hot take, and \u201cBoth Sides Are Equally Bad\u201d is exactly the gutless, mindless shit that led to the Trump disaster. This season is chockablock with unsympathetic characters acting out a dull, unfocused story. Worse yet, it introduced Leslie Grossman to the series. I\u2019m sorry, but I do not understand Ryan Murphy\u2019s obsession with her. She plays one type every season, and\u00a0“Obnoxious Bitch” gets really old really fast. How did AHS<\/em>\u00a0go from Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Angela Bassett to that?<\/p>\n

But even the performers I usually\u00a0like weren\u2019t great this time out. No, I don\u2019t think Evan Peters was particularly amazing either as Kai or as the various cult leaders he portrayed, who all\u00a0just looked like Evan Peters dressing up as infamous people for Halloween. I really like\u00a0him, but not in this season.<\/p>\n

Generally, even the weaker seasons of AHS<\/em> have an episode I like\u00a0to rewatch or a character or two I enjoy.\u00a0But\u00a0I haven\u2019t rewatched a second of Cult<\/em>\u00a0since its original airing, and I don\u2019t see that changing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

10. Season 10, Double Feature<\/em><\/h4>\n

To be fair, I think the development of this season was screwed\u00a0twenty ways from Sunday by COVID-19, and everyone did the best they could. That\u2019s the only reason I\u2019m ranking it above Cult<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I saw the promos for this season, I was amused. All those years ago I\u2019d come up with Tidepool<\/i> while imagining an American Horror Story<\/i> season set by the ocean, and now just as Tidepool<\/i> was being published, AHS was doing an ocean-set storyline. My\u00a0universe has an odd sense of humor sometimes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the Red Tide<\/i> half of the season had nothing to do with Lovecraftian horrors. It was about vampires.\u00a0As a writer, I was intrigued by the idea of a pill that could either make you a wild success if you had talent, or render you an 80s Nosferatu near-zombie if you didn\u2019t. Either way, you\u2019d become a bloodsucker.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Red Tide<\/i>\u00a0made this fascinating idea\u00a0about as predictable and uninteresting as possible. Nothing about the season\u2019s progression surprised me. The characters were almost uniformly one-dimensional and unappealing, with the temporary exception of Macaulay Culkin\u2019s hustler Mickey before the black pill turned him into another asshole. Long gone are the heady days of AHS when even the Nazi scientists had layers. Current AHS villains are just cartoonishly awful people. And it\u2019s so boring.<\/p>\n

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Let’s get bizzay!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I almost forgave Red Tide<\/i> when Death Valley<\/i> premiered. The first three episodes were wild and entertaining, and I never expected\u00a0Dwight Eisenhower to\u00a0become one of my favorite AHS characters.<\/p>\n

The AHS seasons that start so well but end so poorly\u00a0break my heart way more than the ones that never caught my interest. What the hell was that ending? I find the idea of Henry Kissinger being a lizard person amusing, but you\u2019re just gonna introduce that idea and then do absolutely nothing with it? \u201cOh yeah. We know about the lizard people. They\u2019re not a threat.\u201d What!?<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I usually watch the replay FX runs after each new episode, but I didn\u2019t even bother\u00a0after the season finale. I switched over to Netflix and put on Squid Game<\/i>, a show that could teach American Horror Story<\/i> everything it seems to have forgotten about compelling, unpredictable storylines and complex, appealing characters.<\/p>\n

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If you haven’t watched\u00a0Squid Game, you need to fix that.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

9. Season 5, Hotel<\/i><\/h4>\n

There are some great characters in this one and the setting had tons of potential, and yet it didn\u2019t work for me. I guessed who the Ten Commandments Killer was well before the big reveal, and while I generally like Wes Bentley, I didn\u2019t think his character was strong enough to carry the whole season. And don\u2019t get me started on Lady Gaga. Most of the time, the show didn\u2019t have\u00a0her do more than stalk around looking elegant\u00a0and intimidating while\u00a0tossing off one-liners, which was fine. When they tried to push her for more emotion, I got secondhand embarrassment. I assume she took some hardcore acting lessons between AHS\u00a0and A Star is Born<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, because this season features two of my all-time favorite AHS characters in Liz Taylor and James Patrick March, and one of my all-time favorite AHS friendships in Liz and Iris, I can\u2019t completely dislike\u00a0it. And I liked March\u2019s annual serial killer reunion. But that\u2019s about all I\u2019ve got to say for it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Iris and Liz forever.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

8. Season 3, Coven<\/i><\/h4>\n

Gasp! Many AHS fans love this one, but not me. It had lots of promise but turned into a confusing, muddled mess. A season about\u00a0Fiona Goode v. Marie Laveau, or Fiona and Marie teaming up against the witch killers with Mme. LaLaurie as a dangerous free agent, would have been fine. Potentially awesome, even. But no, they had to bring in the obnoxious religious lady, and the Axe Man, and Cordelia’s infertility, and the men trying to kill off all the witches, and Stevie Nicks (who was fun to a point but got way overused), and, and, and\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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This season was also undercut by the witches constantly bringing dead characters back to life, so that deaths were robbed of all emotional impact. And it ended with a whimper. We\u2019d been led to believe that one of the witch academy students would be the new Supreme, and Cordelia suddenly acing the Seven Wonders test felt like an out-of-nowhere cheat to me. I really wanted to like this one, but I just couldn’t warm up to it. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

7. Season 8, Apocalypse<\/i><\/h4>\n
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He actually looks like he could be Viv and Tate’s son.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This one hurts, because for the first few episodes it was on track to be one of my favorite seasons. I liked the post-apocalyptic setting, and I liked Cody Fern\u2019s Michael Langdon. This storyline payoff was a long time in the making. You already knew who and what Michael\u00a0was if you saw the first season, so you just had to sit back and wait for the other characters to figure it\u00a0out. Joan Collins and Billy Porter fit in with the cast as if they\u2019d been part of the AHS repertory group the whole time, and I’m always pleased to see BD Wong.<\/p>\n

And even if I wasn\u2019t a big Coven<\/i> fan, I think I enjoyed the returning characters better than I did in their original season. The battle between the witches and the warlocks\u00a0trying to push Michael as the new Supreme worked for me. That\u00a0scene when Michael went into Misty\u2019s hell to bring her back was genuinely scary. And I can never fully dislike a season that featured the glorious return of Jessica Lange, Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, and the Murder House.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But then the season introduced\u00a0a load\u00a0of cheesy 80s Geraldo Rivera-style Satanic rubbish. And whatever the hell Billy Eichner and Evan Peters were supposed to be. And robots. And time travel. And Russian princess Anastasia. (!?) And Stevie Nicks again. I like<\/i> Stevie Nicks, honest, but her appearances that turned into music videos in both Coven<\/i> and Apocalypse<\/i> brought those episodes to a grinding\u00a0halt. And thus, Apocalypse<\/em>\u00a0lost me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Season 9,\u00a01984<\/i><\/h4>\n

I know what I hate, and I didn\u2019t hate this. I went into it with zero expectations, which is how recent AHS seasons should all be approached. 1984<\/i> lacked several of the big\u00a0AHS stars of the past, though it did have the wonderful\u00a0John Carroll Lynch. It didn\u2019t have an overarching message. It didn\u2019t try to be about anything more than what it was, and it was\u00a0a fun riff on 80s slasher movies. And as someone who grew up on those, I dug it.<\/p>\n

I could have done without the glow-up of real-life serial killer Richard Ramirez, who wasn\u2019t nearly as attractive or charismatic\u00a0as Zach Villa’s portrayal made him seem. But bringing a real murderer\u00a0into an 80s slasher setting and pitting him against a fictional killer was a novel take, even if the show played fast and loose with facts about the Night Stalker\u2019s life (and death). 1984<\/em>\u00a0even managed to have a touching, satisfying conclusion. It’s\u00a0not my favorite season overall, but it was a pleasant surprise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Season 11, NYC<\/em><\/h4>\n

I had just about sworn off American Horror Story<\/i> after the truly\u00a0awful Double Feature<\/i> season. But out of sheer habit, I turned on the premiere of American Horror Story: NYC<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The story unspooled slowly, but felt refreshingly focused: Gay men in early 80s Manhattan are being stalked by both a serial killer and another, possibly supernatural menace that may or may not be connected to a strange virus that\u2019s knocking out people\u2019s immune systems. The viewer knows what that virus is, but the characters don\u2019t yet.<\/p>\n

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Loved Gino. What a fantastic character.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The lack\u00a0of several\u00a0familiar AHS faces made room for compelling cast additions like Russell Tovey (Patrick) and Joe Mantello (Gino). And Zachary Quinto and Patti LuPone were back after very long absences from the franchise. For once, Leslie Grossman’s character\u00a0didn\u2019t annoy the shit out of me; I found Barbara\u2019s determination to stay friendly with her gay ex-husband sweet.<\/p>\n

In many ways, this season felt like a return to form for the show. A hospital chase scene in the third episode had me holding my breath in a way I haven\u2019t done during AHS<\/i> since Asylum<\/i>. Most of the characters had layers again. Gino\u2019s an asshole, but it\u2019s because he\u2019s frustrated he can\u2019t get anyone in power to care that someone is preying on his community. Patrick seems desperate to do the right thing, but his closet has so many skeletons I don\u2019t know how he ever managed to fit himself in there. Together, they were one of the most\u00a0endearing, realistic couples I\u2019ve ever seen on this show. Characters who genuinely love and\u00a0care about other characters are something that’s been sorely missing from recent seasons.\u00a0And their ultimate fates were heartbreaking because they were firmly\u00a0rooted in the tragic reality of AIDS in America in the 80s and 90s.\u00a0Talk about an American horror story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That said, this was far from a flawless season. It followed the bad AHS<\/i> trend of resolving a central storyline\u00a0way too early, leaving the last several episodes feeling somewhat anticlimactic. I\u2019m not someone who needs every last thing explained to her, but I\u2019d have liked clarity on a few plot points. The last two episodes could have been whittled down to one solid episode. And what was with the bizarre schedule? Two episodes each Wednesday night was hard to keep up with.<\/p>\n

However, overall this is one of the more solid seasons, and I\u2019m glad I gave it a chance.<\/p>\n

4. Season 4, Freak Show<\/i><\/h4>\n
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Twisty sez “Always wear your fucking mask.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is another season that started off well but got overstuffed and muddled. I enjoyed the central conflict of Elsa\u2019s circus being pitted against both the townspeople of Jupiter and the greedy con man who wants to kill the performers and sell them to the American Morbidity Museum (ugh). But yet\u00a0again it veered off in confusing directions with Dandy the psycho adult boy, Neil Patrick Harris\u2019s creepy magician, his sometimes-human dummy, and Elsa\u2019s foray into Hollywood.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But there were still a lot of good aspects to this season, so it ranks relatively high for me. It\u2019s a shame that Twisty the Clown was killed off so early, because John Carroll Lynch shares Kathy Bates\u2019s ability to imbue terrifying\u00a0characters with a certain pathos. I also liked the Edward Mordrake subplot; the scene when he comes rolling in on a green fog as Elsa performs \u201cGods and Monsters\u201d makes my dark little heart so happy. And if you can watch Pepper\u2019s origin episode and remain unmoved, you must be made of stone.\u00a0Freak Show<\/em> is far from a perfect season, but I enjoyed it\u00a0a lot more than AHS fans generally did.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n