• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: Coven |OT| When witches don't fight, we burn....

Status
Not open for further replies.

Zero315

Banned
So wtf was that whole premonition that Cordelia had about? Just a fucked up red herring? Man, the more I think about the finale the worse it gets. I almost want to say this is Dexter levels of bad.
 

Zoe

Member
So wtf was that whole premonition that Cordelia had about? Just a fucked up red herring? Man, the more I think about the finale the worse it gets. I almost want to say this is Dexter levels of bad.

What were the deaths? I remember someone was impaled, but I can't remember if it was Zoe.
 

Replicant

Member
Thank Sister Mary Satan for S2. I can't tell which one is worse: this one or season 1. Oh well, at least we got this GIF out of this season:

ygO5dbx.gif
 
This was an incredibly stupid season. This episode started off bad with random and pointless ass Stevie Nicks and ended even worse. I hate how they randomly decide that they're going to use their powers that haven't been introduced until the last damn episode of the season. Next season does not need any of the younger actors. Get new ones...that can act. Bassett, Bates, Conroy and Lange should have been the focus this season.
 

Velcro Fly

Member
I personally think the underlying theme is that no matter who you are or how powerful you are you always face the full weight of everything you've done in life. Fiona, Delphine, and Marie Laveau all did some awful things and built their own personal hell for themselves based on that. Can only imagine Madison gets the same fate. Zoe and Queenie both tried to do good.

As for Cordelia suddenly manifesting powers, it makes sense. She was the one who pretty much looked after the others for much of the season. Once they all started manifesting the abilities to complete the seven wonders I thought she would be able to them too. She also has been beaten down by her mother for her entire life. It works that way in real life too that when someone tears you down constantly you just lose confidence in yourself. I honestly wasn't shocked at all that she was the surpeme.

As far as this for the finale goes, the way the season was written it pretty much had to be this way. They weren't going to keep Jessica Lange completely out of the finale so the supreme business had to be it. It would have been much better if the supreme stuff was last week and whatever other conflict still going on was this week. But I understand that Fiona was the focus of the season and finishing up that story was the only way to keep Jessica Lange as the focus of every episode. The season was at it's peak when the witches vs. voodoo element was escalating for a couple weeks in a row.

This season had a ton of promise and in many ways didn't live up to it. I just wish once when a season starts off with a ton of promise that it gives us an actual payoff. Give us a conflict that evolves and changes and eventually is resolved. The season was at it's peak when the witches vs. voodoo element was escalating for a couple weeks in a row.
 

Bloodrage

Banned
Thank Sister Mary Satan for S2. I can't tell which one is worse: this one or season 1. Oh well, at least we got this GIF out of this season:

ygO5dbx.gif
I'll side with this one.

ibpKNzk3oXpQat.gif


Going to convince myself somehow this season never happened. No chance S4 could be worse than this shit.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
I dunno, outside of the twist/fake-out of Cordelia being the Supreme, I thought it was a decent ending. Emma Robert's bitch character gets taken out. Lily Rabes can't finish the job of getting through hell
I think her out would've been to kill the frog willingly or rebel and kill the teacher and kids and not bring them back. But that one seems extreme. Probably the real-deal one though.

I kinda thought (like everyone predicted in here) that Zoe would've been the supreme. I kinda wish they continued the contest after having Emma Roberts bring her back only for Kyle to kill Madison.

Still, one nagging question I have is
isn't there more witch hunters besides Cordelia's former husbands "coven"/group?
Going above-ground seems REALLY dumb to me. Was there something that confirmed "Yeah the war is totally over?"
 
So they had Fiona fake her death so that she could come back....and die. Great.

American Horrible Story. Have severe doubts about checking out Season 4 now.
 

MrDenny

Member
At least it's over now, the writing was a bit all over the place.
Madison manages to die even though she has telekinesis and mind control powers.
If chordelia didn't want misty to die, why didn't they start with the easier test first and save the nether world for last.
I was kinda expecting nan to come back this episode somehow.
Luke and his mom were truly pointless characters, along with Kyle.
This season was bad..
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
And im done with AHS after this POS. Promising start but the show was tackling many useless plots or some that overstayed their welcome or poorly worked out as the witch hunters and the ademan.

Useless characters that didnt add anything to the main plot (Luke, his mother, Nan and The axeman) Kyle and Zoe were in the show just for Madison and for that she could have gone against Queenie. Cordelia as a supreme was very predictable by the last episodes and the only character I can say was my favorite has to be Myrtle. Fiona was great sure but Myrtle had the best one liners. Marie went to shit once she ended up in the coven acting wise. Angela was so on point until that part. Delphine was interesting but the end was meh.


Overall I expected more of the show. Too many plotholes and lack of direction on this show.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Half expected Jessica Lange to wake up in the setting of Kit Walker's house in the universe of Season 2. That would be mindfuck.

That actually wouldn't have been bad and actually would've been good.

I think the major issue with American Horror Story (and this season in general) is they have no set goal in the seasons and even if they do, they add too much shit (Axeman, Kyle, Legba) that goes no where. Oh, sure Legba screws Fiona over and that's the "Horror Story" or part of the horror story ("don't be vain and a bitch") this season, but what I mean is: Go look at Season 1, 2, and 3. They're all hot-messes in their own ways because they throw too much shit at them because they're building these worlds up (A school of witches and witch hunters/voodoo war could've been AMAZING if given room to breathe) but because they/Ryan Murphy and Falchuck painted themselves into a "oh we want each season to be different!" corner, they can't pile these plots up and let them BREATHE.

All of you saying Season 2 resolved neatly: No, not really. The aliens were undercooked. Just like Rearden's Nazi-subplot was undercooked. Same for Legba and the Witch-Hunters or the Voodoo coven in this season. They're throw away plots that went no where and should've went somewhere but episode/season limit had Murphy and Falchuck go "OH SHIT TIME TO WRAP IT UP! *plot holes, plot holes everywhere*"

I'll watch Season 4 for Lange, but after three seasons: Unless the writing (AND THEY GIVE A MULTI-SEASON ARC!) magically improves and they FOCUS shit on a laser-point, I don't think I'll continue watching. And you can take that to the bank. Because I REALLY can't see this improving and hitting the potential of shit they throw out there.

But again: The finale wasn't awful like you guys say it is. I actually kinda enjoyed it, even the Stevie Nicks opening. I really liked how Fiona, in her last moments, finally came to understand that Cordelia wanted her love but she treated her awfully. And that's why her personal hell/Legba betrayl is to be with the Axeman and not having Cordelia/her daughter she "loves" (truly did, but didn't show it the best way) never in her life and not in an extravagant mansion but in the Axeman's (someone she didn't really love) "heaven" as her hell. Brilliant conclusion for Fiona who treated everyone like shit so she could live forever.
 

element

Member
Surprised with all the hate for this season. The ending was lame though, but Asylum was boring and painful to watch. This at least had some great characters, though looking over the entire season they were misused.
 

3phemeral

Member
Really disappointed. Season fell off with the introduction of Ax Man. I mean, that particular episode was all right, but heavily integrating him into the story was just bad for the overall plot. None of these additional story arcs were handled very well. I thought the initial conflict between Voodoo/Witch/Hunters would have been fine.

Hell, as much as I love Cordelia, I was hoping for at least some drastic change where a powerless Fiona somehow stabbed her dead while the viewer watched the life being sucked out of Cordelia and back into Fiona. It would have been a glorious scene.

Angela Basset was done wrong, as was La Laurie. Could have been a much larger scale ending but it just went up into smoke.

Also, this may be unpopular an opinion, but the inclusion of Stevie Nicks just for the sake of fan service really wasted so much valuable time that could have been spent on more important things. Just way too much Stevie Nicks. Cameo, please, not two music videos.
 
I really liked this season. It had a lot of awesome characters. (Myrtle, Misty, Voodoo Queen, Madam Delphine, Fiona...) but good lord Cordelia's ending felt like it was really pulled outta thin air. It all got really clumsy towards the end.

Also, wtf does Myrtle yell
when she's being burnt again?
 
Surprised with all the hate for this season. The ending was lame though, but Asylum was boring and painful to watch. This at least had some great characters, though looking over the entire season they were misused.

Quite the opposite for me. I watched S2 for the first time straight through after watching the first episode of Coven and I thought it was worlds better after sitting through the entirety of Coven. It has its share of useless subplots but at least I gave a shit at the end. The finale for Sister Jude was straight up heartfelt alongside Evan Peters character and the resolution of Lana Winters and the Bloody Face plot was extremely satisfying.

I still like Coven more than Murder House though. I couldn't even finish that one. Though I may try to in the near future just to see if its as bad as I remember.
 
Surprised with all the hate for this season. The ending was lame though, but Asylum was boring and painful to watch. This at least had some great characters, though looking over the entire season they were misused.

At least Asylum had some horror elements and a consistent plot.

Agent Broyles as Papa Legba was the best thing about this season for me.
 

RatskyWatsky

Hunky Nostradamus
Horrible finale. The less said about it the better. I'm just glad this season is over.

Other thoughts:

Zoe's personal hell is Kyle breaking up with her over and over again? lmao

Misty went out like a chump. What a horrible conclusion to her arc. :/

Nothing this season amounted to anything. Death vagina? Witch hunters? Crazy religious neighbors? Everything literally existed just for the sake of existing - there was no point to any of it. Don't even get me started on the Stevie Nicks music videos. What a disaster.

Also, why did Murphy lie about the male witches?

So there are male witches in this coven?

Yes, there are male witches who are descendants of Salem and then there are other sects we get into later in the series of male witches who are not of the Salem tribe but other breeds of witches. Not necessarily warlocks.

NONE of that happened. He said this in an interview after we had already met the gay warlock who was on the council, so that's not what he was talking about either.

All of her powers and Kyle chokes a witch and she dies?

I know right? She's this super powerful witch with telekinesis, pyrokinesis, mind control, and teleportation, and yet she gets cornered and choked by Kyle? Please.


Myrtle: hilariously over the top and entertaining to the very end. She was easily the best thing to come out of this season. Francis Conroy MVP.

Asylum >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Murder House >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Coven

Fixed. This was the worst season by far. Ugh.
 

Nemesis_

Member
Just finished. I personally liked the moments between Cordy and Fiona. I thought they were nice. But I agree that everything felt...well...I don't know. Unfinished or something.

They've said they'll do the "opposite" of what they did last year. So maybe we're going to be getting a pattern of sorts where a more fucked up and darker version of the show will be relegated to evenly numbered seasons?

I am not disappointed in Coven at all. I enjoyed the ride and more importantly, enjoyed the characters. There were inconsistencies, for sure, but I think the team will be very open to these criticisms. Although Coven was lighter in almost every aspect because of complains and criticisms leveled at Asylum so who knows what they've got planned.

For me, the jury is still out on whether I prefer Coven to Murder House or not. I agree that Murder House was more focused (which naturally occurred from less characters).

I guess in future seasons Ryan needs to work out who he wants and set a limit of sorts to keep the writing and the direction focused. I understand it must be exciting to be allowed to work with people like Patti Lupone, Mare Winningham, Christine Ebersole, Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, Frances Conroy and of course Jessica Lange. But he needs to moderate that excitement to help him focus his story telling better.

I honestly feel like Season 4 will be a complete shift in this regard.

EDIT: And I just came back to edit this post to talk about how pointless and useless Stevie Nicks was this season. Ryan, if you're reading this, never shoehorn another famous person into the series for the sake of it again.
 
I enjoyed Coven more so than asylum. I think there was just too much going on in asylum that was so over the top that I couldn't get over. Also, the characters in Coven I liked far more. The thing is, all the seasons have the same problem of lacking focus. There's so many plot points that things tend to fall by the wayside. Since this whole thing of each season being a whole new story, either give the seasons more episodes or start splitting them up (like part 1 and part 2 of AHS: whatever new arc)
 

LaNaranja

Member
Man that was a crazy disappointing ending. :/

That said I enjoyed the ride. The zombie stuff was cool, and so was the voodoo stuff. The witch hunters also had promise. Why couldn't they have just cut out the whole supreme storyline? That was the weakest of all the plots. :(

Anyway, highlight of todays episode was the girls playing tag and Zoe getting impaled like an idiot. It had me laughing.

I really hope we see more of Angela Bassett next season. She was really underused. AND BRING BACK THE HORROR!
 

Wozzly

special needs, sexual needs
What did I just watch? Hot mess. Stevie Nicks didn't do anything for the story other than for a cameo where she sings? Not once but three times! Ok, we get it.
They should just make Francis Conroy the lead for the next season; she's the only redeemable part of the season.

The intro to this show is eerie and creepy. That skeleton demon thingy was cool, should have been in the show but, we get that mechanical bull thingy instead.

I'm glad Kathy Bates character at least didn't stay "good" for long. Evil Kathy Bates was awesome.

Cordelia as the supreme? I can live with that.

Asylum was better over all. Why? Because it gave us this:

l5wP2bV.gif
 

Bladenic

Member
I'm just glad Coven hasn't gotten the crazy amounts of award recognition that the previous 2 seasons did. While I really liked Asylum and thought maybe some of it was deserved, S1 didn't deserve all of the nominations it got.

And Kathy Bates' character was hilariously underused with a terrible send off. Not to mention she was touted as becoming Fiona's worst enemy. Why does Ryan lie so much?
 

Nemesis_

Member
Yeah I guess that's the thing I should be happy about. It got the ratings which is really all it matters in this "business".

I really am keen to know what they're going to go for with the next season. So many people have picked aliens but I can't help but feel that won't be it. Maybe some kind of Frankenstein story?

I don't suppose anyone picked up any hints in the finale?

EDIT: Interesting stuff, apparently the Supreme was in front of us the entire time?

If you look at the page for Santa Muerte you see that she also was named "Lady Of The Seven Powers". Scroll down and you'll find this piece of artwork.


Now compare this to the image that is shown behind Sarah Paulson's cast name

0sTlfsP.png


The link is tenuous but it's a nice touch. I also noticed Jessica Lange's card was two lovers which fits her well.

and Ryan has done an interview for InsideTV.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/01/30/american-horror-story-ryan-murphy-the-seven-wonders/

Has anyone online guessed [season 4] yet?
No. No one has guessed it.

People seem to really want American Horror Story: Circus.
I saw those posters. I don’t know where people came up with that idea. Sometimes I think its people wanting us to do topics and doing fan posters. No one has completely guessed what it is.

But you already know what season 5 is?
I do, because it’s a radically different idea from the stuff we’ve been doing and it will take a lot of playing.

Why does Ryan lie so much?

I doubt that he's lying, there's probably shit he's written that just gets cut because it either makes the thing feel too diluted or ruins the pacing.
 

Blackhead

Redarse
Heh, didn't see that coming, the season was a hot mess but the plots were tied up properly and everyone got the ending they deserved. I might check out the next one
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The episodes and characters were all over the place .. but it was fun to watch none the less.

Poor
Misty .. she didn't deserve that fate :(
 

Caelestis

Member
Damn, what a terrible season. It all started off so well, too... Not sure if I'll come back for the next one. Will depend on how cheesy the focus of the show will sound.
 

Monocle

Member
That was a surprisingly satisfying ending. I don't agree with the criticism this season gets around here. AHS's dropped plot syndrome was much more frustrating in Season 2. This season actually completed its character arcs for the most part. I expected doe-eyed Frankenstein guy and the Axeman to end up being huge wastes of time (like studly neighbor boy and awful Bible mom), but to the writers' credit, they both had integral roles in the resolution of important storylines. What's more, the show totally delivered with Fiona, Cordelia, and Myrtle. Each of them developed into compelling characters with fitting ends in the final episode.

I loved this season's characters. Watching them throw attitude and conspire against each other was amusing enough to keep me watching in spite of Coven's weaker points. It's a shame about Misty, but I'm glad no punches were pulled. I appreciate how Papa Legba wasn't just a cool deus ex machina to explain Marie Laveau's immortality, but ended up being an axis of significant events. We even got a passable explanation for why all of the girls suddenly developed multiple powers. (For those that don't recall,
Cordelia's powers manifested through them.
)

Coven is actually the first season of AHS that I wanted to rewatch right after I finished it. The other two were so dark they were oppressive. Coven brought more than its share of the grotesque and bizarre without drowning itself in it. Very enjoyable television.
 

Matt_

World's #1 One Direction Fan: Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but you~~~
I quite liked the finale. I think Misty being stuck in hell made sense because she didn't seem so strong willed compared to the other girls.
Fiona's hell was absolutely hilarious, can't fault her for not liking that pine though.

The season was all over the place though. Personally I think the next supreme should have been picked a couple episodes back and then they should have dealt with the big bad that was the witch hunters. All these threats to the coven and in reality none of them were particularly threatening. Voodoo people were quickly dispatched, as were the witch hunters and Fiona should have been a lot more threatening.
The show had such good ideas but it was just mishandled, which is a shame because the first few episodes were great. I agree with what someone else said that the neighbours shouldn't have been in it.

Also, WTF at Stevie Nicks at the start. Why bother? She didn't even stick around.
 

Yado

Member
The last couple episodes definitely felt rushed but I enjoyed this season more that any of the others before it,
 

Nemesis_

Member
Interview with Sarah Paulson about the finale and reflecting in Cordelia as a character.

Will you be back for season four? How much do you know about what next season is about? Ryan mentioned he'd likely include a few clues in the episodes. Do you know what they were?

I'm on track and that is the plan. I don't know how many clues were in it; there was one clue a few episodes back. I know what Ryan is thinking but until he announces it, I feel like anything can change. Last year, he announced [the theme] at PaleyFest, so he might do that again. The thing about Ryan is he's nothing if not surprising. The minute you think you know what he's going to do, he changes it. I know what he has in mind but I don't know the whole scope. I know what he has in mind for me, and I hope it happens because it would be one of the more exciting things that I've gotten to do.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/american-horror-story-covens-new-675400
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom