American Horror Story: Coven (2013)
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American Horror Story: Coven Review
Coven is American Horror Story’s third season and its most disappointing. I loved it at first, and then I got tired of it.
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“Don’t make me drop a house on you“
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So this time around witches are the subject matter, and having in mind that I adore everything about magic and witches, I was bound to love this season. And I did, at first. The show started off so amazing that it was bound to be disappointing in the end.
I absolutely adored the first half of this season. I was having so much fun, all of the subplots worked for me and most of the characters were fascinating and very well developed. The magical elements were great and so much fun while the character interactions worked for me and the violence was excessive, but definitely memorable as the stakes were set up so high.
The problem then arrived in the form of indecisiveness. They simply did not know what to do with all of these characters and subplots so they really made very poor endings for most of them and they literally killed and disposed of some characters for no good reason.
When you have such a strong story from the start and every episode is packed with amazing scenes and scenarios, you are bound to run out of ideas. They threw everything on the table from the start and it was all great, but they never knew how to end all of these stories and character journeys. The show also had no focus when it comes to both storytelling and especially characters as it has no protagonists really which was a huge problem for it.
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But let’s talk about these characters which all remain terrific, even though most got bad endings. I loved Fiona Goode and I found her entire arc very satisfactory, even the ending which was muted overall. But this female character is so badass and powerful, but also vulnerable and human that she stole the show from everyone else for sure.
Cordelia is also very good and I actually loved that she was the new Supreme in the end. That was the one thing in the finale that I was most content with. Kyle was a detour and literally everything they did with this Frankenstein-inspired storyline took too much screen time from everyone else how uninteresting it was.
The same goes for the Axeman who is memorably acted by Danny Huston, but simply never a particularly interesting or well developed character. The romance between him and Fiona was great, but his character himself not so much. The entire season did not have any interesting or meaningful male characters whatsoever and it was obviously meant to be a female-driven season which it was, though its dealings of sexism and racism were very on-the-nose.
Madison is your typical bad girl, but fun nonetheless. Queenie is also rather standard, but well developed for sure. Misty and Zoe are both excellent, but hugely underutilized and a missed opportunity to have some badass younger characters. Myrtle is excellent and very sympathetic. Marie Laveau is very memorable and of course Delphine stole the show comedy-wise.
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Coven is well shot, it has good effects and fun humor as well as dialogue. The action is so-so and the horror elements are too gruesome, but the standout has to be the acting from this amazing ensemble cast. Even the younger actresses did a great job, but of course the highlights are hilarious, hugely memorable Kathy Bates, impressively grounded Sarah Poulson and absolutely amazing, admirable in every sequence Jessica Lange whose work here transcends genres how powerful, complex and beautiful it is.
Overall, I loved this season until it turned sour on me. Yes, the first half is so entertaining and so amazing, but the second half ruined all of that for me with weak conclusions character and plot-wise. But still the characters remain great and the acting remains truly superb.
Worst Episodes: Go to Hell and The Seven Wonders.
Best Episodes: Bitchcraft and Burn, Witch. Burn!
