american horror story

Music: Belong: Common Era (2011)

I am normally not one to get "addicted" to television programs, and largely because I don't have any "premium" channel subscriptions like HBO. Owing to my love of (psychological) horror, however, this fall I was glued to two series: The Walking Dead and American Horror Story. The former was not very good (except for the last episode of the "first half" of this season), so I'll reserve judgment. AHS, however uneven, has been, as a whole, a delight to watch: it's very different and one of the most perverted shows I've ever seen on television. Because of travels I missed out on a couple of episodes, however, last night I'm all caught up and ready for the season finale on Wednesday. Readers who have not kept up with the show or who want to start watching it (you can stream it on Hulu and the FX websites) should stop reading now, as there are some spoilers below.

First, let me talk about the perverted aspect, because it's an intriguing connection with haunting that I have not made before---or, at least, not in the context of televisual horror. Long time Rosechron readers will remember that perversion, from a Lacanian vantage, refers to a peculiar subject position (a brief recap of the Lacanian take on perversion is here) in which the subject has undergone castration, thereby experiencing alienation, but has refused or is incapable of separation. The idea here is that the pervert knows very well the paternal forbids a continued union with mama, yet still remains within the maternal zone, refusing to acknowledge "Mother" is totally other (or more technically, that she lacks something). What's so interesting about AHS is that this is the default condition of the "ghost"---the ghost is someone who has been killed (or killed herself), yet has not left the murmuring house. So, the "cut" from the corporeal has happened, but each ghost cannot separate, stuck in this strange liminal space that both knows "the law" is there and has been announced, but refuses to acknowledge it. There is a continuum of perversion too: some ghosts want to go but have to stay, while others seem content to haunt (Tate and Hayden---the most perverted pair). Nifty.

The show---what with the "rubber suit" logo and all that---deliberately confuses haunting with perversion, such that "horror" represents that point of "no return" when the law has been clearly transgressed (but with no "safe" word). Last night, one of the ghosts even mentions that haunting is "perverted" . . . .

I'm wondering what you AHS watchers thought about last night's episode, the show itself, and particularly your predictions for the season finale and season two. Here's my thinking (spoiler alert spoiler alert spoiler alert):

LAST WEEK'S EPISODE: I sorta figured Vivian might die (since they seemed to be writing her "down," as it were), but I don't know how she will now last or in what capacity, since . . . well, she's the least sad of the bunch.

Last week we had a weird wedding of Rosemary's Baby and The Omen: the birth scene was like the RB rape scene (same blurry techniques) and Tate is sort of line the soul of the antichrist whom Violet tells is, you know, evil (dis)incarnate.

And Constance---the campiest of all---emerges as a racist and homophobic bigot. Well, duh. She just gets better and better.

Now, if we go the Rosemary's Baby route, Ben will simply accept it and convince himself to stay with the ghost wife and raise the antichrist . . . well, not exactly sure. But it will not be until season 2 for Ben to kill himself---if he does at all. They've painted him as the most narcissistic character on the show, so he will be the last to go.

The show will conclude with Ben's decision to "take care" of the house and become it's living protector or whatever.

FINALE PREDICTIONS: The "folk" ritual worked, but not on Zach; Teddy got it.

The stillborn child wasn't really stillborn. The ether-addicted doctor gave it to his wife; they were putting on or something. Probably Ben's kid, but who knows. Still, baby ain't dead (yet). Likely scenario: Vivian will get the stillborn/newborn, which will be the ghostly counterpart to the living child. Perhaps the innovation here is that the ghost baby will similarly age, mirroring the living evil baby. Maybe the ghost-baby will emerge as a sort of savior in ghost-land.

One of the twins (presumably Tate's) is the antichrist or whatever, and the Pope thread will pick up in the season finale. This is where the Omen thread will pick up, Tate being the temporary body of Satan who must work through ghosts and shadows because direct contact with the living is not possible (so the living kid is Satan's son, a life for a life). The show will take a sort of religious twist, a la REC 2.

SEASON TWO PREDICTIONS: The second season will be about rearing the Antichrist/Satan in that house and about Vivian and/or Ben's indecision about whether the kid is evil or if he can be saved or whatever.

Connie Britton will get increasingly uncomfortable with how absurd the writing is going to get, and eventually they'll write her character out. I don't predict she will last past season 2.

Ben will go insane next. But he won't kill himself, since his narcissism is abject.

Constance will have yet more surprises to reveal. Of the cast, only she has let on that she knows what is going on (like when she screamed at "Tate: Do you know what you've done!"). Someone made a deal with the devil, I predict. Constance did, you know, to preserve Addy or what have you---and she is cursed, thereby, and so all her children go one by one or something. She is immortal or something--the price she has to pay for the bargain.

What do y'all think?