American Horror Story: Freak Show tried really hard to be something wonderful and failed miserably. Although the series had some fun moments and interesting characters (like Edward Mordrake and Dandy Mott) the whole thing mostly sizzled when it should have popped. Here are five reasons why.
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1. Lack of anthology
This is a problem that Coven was falling into last season but somehow managed to avoid, Freak Show was not so lucky. Part of the draw of AHS was its unusual anthology format. In the first and second seasons there were a ton of storylines that all combined into one story beautifully. It really kept the viewer guessing.
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In Freak Show it was very much all one story. Everything from the beginning to the end was one concrete storyline. Anytime there was an almost break from that, it failed miserably. Which takes us to our next point.
2. The format wasn't fleshed out
Anytime the direction seemed to point at the telling of a side story, it become a throwaway story with very little to do with the main story. I'm looking square at you, Penny the Lizard Girl.
We spent two episodes on that storyline for nothing. I could honestly barely remember her name.
The same can be said of the entire Twisty segment. To be fair, his big revel was really tragic and one of the most heartfelt moments in the series but it had no part in the major story over all. For all that, we could have just went with Dandy was a psychopath from the very beginning.
How cool would it have been to go four episodes of creepy Twisty only to have him pull off his mask and be the beautiful Dandy Mott underneath?
3. A huge cast with nothing to do
There was a serious focus on the main characters in this season. Jimmy, Elsa, Bette/Dot, and Maggie were given a lot of screen time which is a shame because there were so many very interesting characters in the background.
We were given a taste of things with Paul the Tattooed Seal Boy but there was a whole troop of freaks that could have told their stories which would have braided into a more satisfying (and weird!) season.
There was so much time dedicated to following the main characters, there was no attention given to the ones that could have made the season better.
4. Everyone dies
This was a huge problem in the season. There was no real resolution. If you did something bad, you just died. Sometimes you didn't even need to do anything bad, you were just murdered. There was no retribution for Del or Maggie's actions there were both just killed quickly. End of discussion.
Which is very strange because the beginning of the season had the freaks killing someone to protect their own. Which by the way, murdered the cop, after two episodes, never mentioned again. That seems strange.
In any case it seemed like the freaks would have a more complex form of justice and story but really, the solution to 100% of issues this season was death.
5. Some really large issues that were completely glossed over
The murder of the cop in the beginning, the whole tar and feather situation with Penny's dad, Del breaking that doctor's hands.
All of these things seem like the kind of situation that would warrant a large police response. Maybe nobody cared about such things in the 1950s. I don't know but soon after their part in the plot was over, they were dropped completely.
You never heard about the dead cop again after Meep was murdered. After the episode with Penny's dad, nothing came of that. And aside from the angry daughter, there didn't seem to be any repercussion for Del assaulting and seriously injuring that sweet old doctor.
Ultimately the entire season suffered from the same issues, just completely unresolved storylines. If it wasn't part of the main plot, it was just left to dangle to be hopefully forgotten about completely. There were so many missed opportunities for plot development instead the season relied a lot on shock value.
Although, many scenes successfully were shocking, the overall effect of the season was lackluster. Do better with season five.
