Fall is here and spooky season has officially started, so of course “American Horror Story” showed up right on time with its 13th season.
For anyone who hasn’t watched, AHS is a horror series that tells a different story each season. Some seasons have character crossovers from earlier ones, but each one usually stands on its own. That’s why the season 13 premiere caught my attention. Within the first episode, it’s clear this is a crossover season, and it’s rumored to be bigger than anything the show has tried before. I’ve seen people online guessing it will be an “Avengers-style” season with characters pulled from every era of the show.
The problem is that I have no idea how any of it fits together.
The main character, Ben, has an intense fear of the number 13. His girlfriend has OCD and is obsessed with that same number. The two of them get on a flight, the plane goes down, and Ben happens to be sitting in row 13. Afterward, he returns to his job as a hospice worker, where he works with a familiar face from a past season. Their patient is a creepy old man who might actually be the devil. His house is full of dark, disturbing details, and he gets under Ben’s skin almost immediately. How this man connects to the returning characters is a mystery the episode doesn’t even try to explain.
That lack of explanation is my biggest frustration. I expected some confusion, since AHS premieres usually throw you into the deep end, but I at least expected a hint about why all these characters are ending up in the same story. There wasn’t one. The dialogue was hard to follow at first, too, and by the time I started slightly piecing things together, the episode was over.
Then there’s the 13 theme. I understand it’s season 13 and the writers wanted to play with that. But the number showed up in nearly every scene of the opening, so conveniently and so obviously that I honestly thought the show was making fun of itself. It wasn’t. The tone surprised me too. I went in expecting to be creeped out, but I was just left underwhelmed instead.
Still, I don’t want to write the season off after one episode. For all its problems, the premiere felt like classic “American Horror Story,” the version of the show from the seasons so many of us fell in love with. Ryan Murphy’s signature disturbing touches are all still there, and the old man’s house alone had enough of a creepy factor to remind me why I started watching in the first place. Seeing favorite characters back on screen was fun, even if I couldn’t tell you yet why they’re there.
The first episode of an AHS season is always a gamble. Some seasons start slow and turn into something great, and some are just terrible. This one was bizarre enough that I’m curious what the writers could make of it, and that’s what’s bringing me into episode 2
For now, I’m giving the premiere a steady 5 out of 10. It was underwhelming and confusing, but it didn’t lose me. I’ll be checking back in as the season goes on to decide whether it deserves a spot on your Halloween watchlist.