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11/15/16

American Horror Story: Hotel

(Spoilers, obvs)
I know i'm a year late but i finally have watched 'American Horror Story: Hotel' and i have to admit i liked it better than what i expected. The problem was that i felt outraged by the casting of Lady Gaga, supposedly taking the place of Jessica Lange after leaving the show for good, and that still makes no sense.

Anyway, this season might be the saddest, darkest one yet, or at least that's what it made me difficult to watch it sometimes because i didn't want to watch something that lugubrious. And that's the main theme, souls trapped in a hotel full or murder and hate years after years, for eternity. 'Hotel' is like a mixture of 'The Shinning' and 'Seven' and sometimes it looks like a cheap version of the Kubrick's masterpiece but i guess that was kinda the idea to make it all look a lot more sordid. And while at first the plot is not that interesting, slowly you get into things and into the sadness and despair of all of the characters.

'Hotel' is marked by many sad stories, from John Lowe's (Wes Bentley) dramatically losing his son in a fair, and therefore his head after that, to Sally's (Sarah Paulson) addiction to love when everyone always leaves her, the pain of a mother who's son doesn't appreciate her one bit (Kathy Bates), or the remorse of Liz Taylor  (Denis O'Hare) as a father who abandoned his son because it was "complicated", everything cuts deep and ghosts and so not ghosts are living a life (or eternity) in sorrow. The story of the Countess (Lady Gaga) might be the one that didn't get me as much, mainly because it wasn't that relatable and because of her poor acting, but in the end it got interesting as well.

Another thing that i actually liked a lot was the homage that director Ryan Murphy did with some of the most notorious serial killers with the Halloween night episodes, and the stellar portrayal of Lily Rabe as Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron won the Oscar after playing her in 'Monster'); i also liked Evan Peter's playing the excentric James March and how crazy his character was, but the Halloween dinner night with all these murderers was a killer thing to see.

Also, the crossovers with other seasons is something that i didn't expect, with Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) making an appearance at the hotel after 'Coven' and Billie Dean Howard (Sarah Paulson) the medium from 'Murder House' appearing too, this one especially being quite great when it comes to the plot.

I also quite loved Liz Taylor's storyline from the beginning, from his romance with Tristan (Finn Wittrock) finally finding love, to him reconnecting with his son and how he accepted him, that was really sweet. Liz's death, after finding out that he had cancer, wanting to remain at the hotel with her "family" was also super sweet, in a morbid kind of way, but something that made me happy for him. And Sally also finding happiness through social media, connecting with people through the internet and not feeling as alone, was somethig hilarious, but sadly true in a way.

That's one thing i like about 'American Horror Story' that i just noticed while watching this season, is that more or less, everyone always gets a happy ending. It might not be perfect but at least the characters find some sort of peace, and even in 'Scream Queens' with the Chanels living in the asylum happily ever after at the end of season 1, found that sort of calm and peace as well.

Overall, even though the first episodes took me a lot to watch them, i actually ended liking this season much more that i thought, even though i think it might be the show's least good season but not as bad as i expected.

So, as we wait for Thursday's 'Ronaoke' finale, here's a super fab photoshoot with the cast of 'Hotel' for V Magazine photographed by Chadwick Tyler, after the cut!

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