AHS: Coven ends; why didn’t it hold up with fans?

By Mel DeCandia on January 31, 2014

 

The third season of FX cult hit American Horror Story came to an end on Wednesday night, leaving many fans of the anthology series disappointed. AHS: Coven, which centered on a coven of witches in New Orleans, is arguably the least popular in the series’ history. Why? Here may be a few reasons why this season doesn’t quite stack up to its predecessors:

1)   So much for feminism

It was exciting to see a television show with an ensemble cast of mainly women, something that’s certainly far more than rare than it should be. And it was a diverse cast too, featuring Jamie Brewer as Nan who, like her, had Down syndrome. Coven had a real chance to show the complexity and strength women characters could bring to the show… but failed to do just that. In fact, the show made women look just about as bad as they could be, with catfights and “bitch”-calling galore.

2)   Too many new cast additions

American Horror Story is different from other shows because it consistently casts the same actors season to season in different characters: something the producer compared to an old-fashioned theatre troupe. This season, however, brought an array of celebrity names into the mix, Emma Roberts, Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett included. While no former cast members were sacrificed as a result, the ensemble show seemed flooded with too many characters and too messy of a story to fully and succinctly wrap up in just 13 episodes.

3)   Weak characters

Because the show featured so many characters, none of them were ever fully developed. Even Jessica Lange, the show’s ‘most valuable player’ so to speak, failed to bring any likeability to the coven’s evil ex-leader, Supreme Fiona Goode. Most of the characters were reduced to nothing more than tropes. Emma Roberts’ portrayal of Madison, the drug-addicted starlet, was merely the stereotypical ‘mean girl.’ Kathy Bates played historically renowned racist and sociopathic Madame Delphine LaLaurie as just that. Perhaps most disappointingly, Evan Peters, the show’s biggest breakout actor, played zombie Kyle, who got nothing more than a few meaningless lines all season.

4)   A lot of build-up with little resolution

Each season has had one defining question. Who is Rubberman? Who is Bloodyface? While the pseudonymed-killer was missing this season, the overarching question remained: who, of the witch coven, was the next Supreme, the leader of all witches? Intrigue and mystery is always fun, but the first two seasons had the decency to answer the question about halfway through and progress from there. This season? We found out in the last 15 minutes, with a hurried conclusion. What more? It was wasted on the otherwise-unremarkable character of Cordelia.

5)   It just wasn’t scary

If you’re going to put ‘horror’ in the show’s title, the scares aren’t just a plot point or a possibility: they’re a promise. Aside from some disturbingly gory torture seasons in the first few episodes (heard, rather than viewed, seeing as I hid behind my hands for them), I could watch Coven at night and in complete darkness without losing my head. In fact, I was far more likely to fall asleep from either boredom or confusion.

 

What did you think of American Horror Story: Coven?

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