Xazeal

There's absolutely no way AHS would give us a story where we know the main characters survive to tell the tale, so I'm definitely in the camp that doesn't expect the mockumentary format to last. If we're watching the finished product, the documentary will end at some point and we'll pick up where we left off with the "real" people. But more likely, I think we're watching as it's being filmed, and at some point filming will be interrupted by a real haunting. As I think the mockumentary thing might get stale, I hope they're doing this, and I think it could be really great. So far it certainly seems a LOT more focused than the past few seasons, but it could certainly go off the rails.

I don't have a problem with a "villain edit". A good villain is great. If they feel like they need it to make the show more compelling, sure. But I absolutely do feel bad for the queens who get them. I think it's ridiculous that there's so much backlash towards Phi Phi on social media right now, and I think people keep underestimating how much editing can do to change the tone of a character. No, the editors can't literally put words in your mouth, but by changing the context they can change the meaning of your words entirely - which is essentially the same thing - and in confessionals they definitely can prompt certain responses. Other queens have already confirmed that they ASKED for Phi Phi's opinion, not that she was constantly handing out unwanted criticism. And I couldn't help but notice that whenever she was making a "bitchy" face, she was really just looking bored or aloof, and whatever she was "reacting" to was conveniently out of frame. But this is enough to convince people that she's a bitchfaced helldemon. I see people saying "well, if she was really sweet, they couldn't make her a villain", and that argument just doesn't hold up. She'd have to be an angelic cupcake who literally never makes jokes. Thirty seconds of slight shade is more than enough to construct a bitch edit, even if she's a ray of sunshine the rest of the day. Not that I think she's a ray of sunshine - she's definitely a bit shady - but I don't think she's nearly as bad as she's being perceived. Both times that I've seen her in person, she's just come across as very real. Phew. I just typed up a rant defending Phi Phi O'Hara. 2012 me is cringing. In other news, Detox slayed that runway and I'll never get over it. Apparently they only had like half an hour to prepare for this runway, and taking that into consideration, we saw some VERY ambitious looks. All of the girls deserve props.

We don't see everything, though. Snatch Game goes on for a while and there are a lot of answers left on the cutting room floor. The queens themselves, who were actually there, seem to agree that Tatianna did worse.

Oh, lord, yes, the deliberations. I can't even properly put into words how much I loved the deliberations in this episode. Everything is so serious, the queens are sad, you have the dramatic music playing... and then you have Katya, in her vibrant retro toddler swimsuit fantasy, saying "Tell me why you should be America's Next Top Model". Honestly, in unscripted environments off the show, Trixie has kind of outshone Katya to the point where I've forgotten how legitimately funny she is, but it works so well here in contrast to how serious the rest of the queens are. Later, the retro toddler does a dramatic walk down the runway alongside futuristic S&M executive bitch Alaska, ready to lip sync for their legacy and eliminate one of their fellow men in wigs. Why is the entire world not watching this?

I honestly thought I'd be bored by this season because I expected Alaska and Katya to just steamroll the fuck out of everyone, and although I like them they've never really been all-time favorites of mine. Well, Alaska and Katya are steamrolling the fuck out of everyone, and I'm really loving it. I will say that it takes very little effort and wit to make Björk funny and Katya could probably do it in her sleep, but her runway more than made up for her taking the easy road. Alaska deserved to win for her Mae West alone, though. I love that Phi Phi is still playing mind games like she did with Jiggly. We've had too much RuPaul's Best Friend Race recently and it gets a bit old. Phi Phi isn't as messy anymore, but she's clearly still shady. I hope she sticks around. Adore, meh. I sympathize with her, but clearly she wasn't ready to do this again. If you don't want to be there, don't be there. I'm glad she actually quit instead of spending the rest of the episode moping about. Overall, I actually thought this was one of the best Snatch Games ever. Roxxxy and Tati were the only ones who truly tanked and everyone else did good to great. Detox was in the bottom by default, and honestly her look was amazing enough that it should've saved her. I'm really, really feeling this season. I'm surprised. I think we're now past the point where spoilers are abundant. Coco's early exit and Adore quitting was pretty widely known way back in October, and until this week I'd heard nothing of Tati getting eliminated this early. But I'd avoid the live viewing thread anyway - the crowd that only comes in for the actual episodes tends to skew younger and generally less interested in the drag scene.

Did the episode feel... short? Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but aside from the Detour it felt like the tasks just flew by. I never thought I'd say this, but after this episode I'm seriously thinking Frankie/Amy are the winners. The other teams came off really bad when they explicitly said "Frankie/Amy are weak, they can't do anything, we'll drag them to the finale and beat them". That was blatantly setting up for them getting their asses kicked. At the very least Frankie/Amy will get second place behind Steph/Kristen, but Frankie's final confessional made me think they're taking it home. This whole thing reminds me so much of the Sweet Scientists.

Pretty great premiere, all in all. Not loving or hating anyone yet. I've really enjoyed what I've seen of Phi Phi recently, but I'm getting the sense that she's not long for this season (and this was filmed a year ago, so she may just have grown even more since then). Based on the premiere, Tati is easily my favorite, and I probably would've given her the win. A lot of the other girls played it safe. I do love the editing this season. The show feels a lot more relaxed and willing to poke fun at itself - like when Adore defended her "messy slut" intro by referencing Juju's "big dicks and fried chicken", or when they joked about how Ginger's comment about Violet was totally not getting edited out. The show has taken itself pretty seriously recently, but by leaving these moments in it feels like they're in on the joke, in a good way.

If James is on the block and Natalie puts up Paul or Victor, Nicole and Corey control the vote. Would they send James home?

As much as I want Nicole and Corey gone, Paul and Victor are far and away the biggest threats in the game. I don't blame Natalie one second for wanting to go after them. The outrage I'm seeing across the webs is a bit ridiculous. I'm really just worried that this will hurt Natalie's chances of winning AFP. If she really goes through with this, the Co-HOH won't end up mattering at all. With two HOHs and two nominees, there are only three votes this week. If one of Nicole/Corey is on the block, James becomes the swing vote. And we all know James will do whatever Natalie wants.

It's weird, because I haven't seen any official confirmation of a Halloween special. But there's the preview, the actors have mentioned it, there were Instagram pictures where they were hanging out with new cast members for the special... but no actual announcement. It's a bit confusing. Said Instagram pictures also pretty much spoiled that Emma/Audrey/Noah/Brooke/Stavo would survive this "finale", so it's all a bit messy and strange.

Pretty sure there'll be two more episodes for Halloween, so I'm guessing the final cliffhanger is meant to set that up. We don't have to get a third season to see that. Incredibly predictable, but whatever. Even though Kieran was the most boring outcome, it also left the least plot holes, which is why he was the prime candidate to begin with. I think his backstory was kind of silly ("Piper taught me that killing people is more fun!") and Kieran's sudden personality shift was hardly believable, but it's par for the course for the Scream franchise. I'd argue that half of the killers from the movies had sillier motives. I did think this episode was missing some of the show's usual flair, but maybe that was intentional to make it more unsettling and "real". There was very little build-up to Brooke getting stabbed and it was over in the blink of an eye. The shot of Audrey tied up in a chair didn't even warrant an ominous sound effect. Eli just sort of popped up and was killed almost like he was a random extra, with the bare minimum of time spent to tie up his loose ends. Side note: I still think Brooke got an unusual amount of attention from a killer who supposedly only cared about Emma and Audrey. Emma's parents weren't even touched, yet Brooke lost everyone. I refuse to believe Stavo wasn't involved - notice how as soon as she pushed him away, she got stabbed? I realize the writers probably just love Brooke and wanted her to be involved, but come on. Girl was put through the ringer for no apparent reason.

So this season, Brooke lost her boyfriend, her ex-boyfriend, and her dad. She was attacked/chased by the killer more times last season than maybe anyone else. The killer dropped Jake's dead body onto her. And yet, it's basically a foregone conclusion at this point that the killer is Kieran, who has no reason to really give a shit about Brooke. Because it's "all about Emma and Audrey". The story that we're seeing and the story we're being told don't line up. I'm guessing they just wanted to give Carlson Young some material to work with whether it made sense from a plot perspective or not. It bugs me. Other than that, solid episode.

Actually didn't see the Ruby thing coming, but I thought the rest of the episode was fairly predictable. As soon as it was clear that Coleman and Yael were able to walk away, it was obvious Jeremy would kill them. A smarter show might try to spend some time to fix the problem in a more elegant and intriguing way, but I knew this is not a very smart show. They go for the simple, quick solution of killing them to neatly clean up the mess. I wish they wouldn't make it so obvious when Rachel was manipulating someone. It was laughably obvious with Coleman last week, and when she did it to Jeremy this week it basically spoiled what Jeremy would end up doing. I guess they want the viewer to be able to follow what's going on in Rachel's head, but it gets to the point where it's laughable that anyone buys it. It's always the same thing - she rambles, she throws the word "like" into every sentence, and Shiri does this thing were her eyes frantically dart all over the place as though she's losing her mind. Whoever is making this happen needs to stop. All of that said, I still enjoy the show, if only for the Rachel/Quinn relationship. Besides, a lot of good shows have hit a sophomore slump only to make a comeback in the following season. I'm still in.

No Kieran, but also no Brooke. I guess it evens out. Really did not expect Zoe to actually die, but I'm glad they went there. Really made an already good episode a whole lot better. Also shed some light on why Audrey was freaking out so much about her secret - she knew a lot more about Piper than I expected. I feel like the list of suspects was narrowed down considerably this week. Assuming Brooke (likely immortal just in case there's a third season) and Emma's dad (too irrelevant to be satisfying) can be written off, we're really down to Kieran, Eli, and Stavo. The three guys that the show threw in our faces this entire time. Once again, Kieran is looking very obvious, and strangely enough I feel like his accomplice can only be Stavo. See, the thing that bugs me: Audrey and Emma are convinced that the killer is after them, and that sure is what it looks like right now. But earlier in the season, the killer mostly seemed to enjoy fucking with Brooke. Kieran and Eli have barely interacted with her on the show - if they're the killers, the tormenting of Brooke seems completely out of left field. But ever since she got close to Stavo, the killer has ignored her. The problem, of course, is that Stavo is the reddest of red herrings, and while I know apparent red herrings sometimes turn out to be the real deal, I can't take him seriously as a suspect. We'll see, I guess. I kind of expect the accomplice to revealed next week. Watch it be condom lady.

There really is some kind of crazy magic going on there. I think the characters are terrible, terrible people - which I'm fine with - but when they get together, their chemistry is explosive. Despite how uneven this season has been (and I don't think it's been as bad as most people seem to) this episode pretty much had me yelling "FUCK YEAH!" at my television with that final scene. Shades of Nikita and Alex, although I could actually root for those two even when they were on their own. I was surprised by the direction the show went with Yael. It wasn't until Coleman kissed her that I realized they were actually the villains. With Rachel and Quinn being openly terrible, I thought we were meant to root for Yael to expose the show, and I thought it would actually happen in the end. But now we're very, very clearly meant to root for Rachel and Quinn taking Coleman down. Didn't expect that, but I'm fine with it. On another note, Coleman had so much more chemistry with Yael than he ever did with Rachel.

Well, that's my number one suspect dead. I don't want it to be Kieran, it's just too easy. Sadly, when Haley was smirking at Emma about her anonymous "special friend", I definitely got the vibe that she was fucking Emma's boyfriend and was being very smug about it. For a big part of this episode, I was actually thinking Brooke and Stavo were the killers. There was a weird vibe to their scenes together (especially noticable in their final scene, still don't know what that was about) and I thought it was a very real possibility that Brooke was the (very mentally unstable) brains behind the operation and Stavo was the brawn. I also thought it made sense to have one of the "obvious red herrings" actually be a killer but then have a real jaw-dropping reveal with Brooke. But then Stavo found out about Jake doing the mayor's dirty work and revealed it to Brooke, who proceeded to yell at her dad, and none of that really made sense if they were the killers. And I'm glad, because I want them to make it through the season. So yeah, I'm down to Kieran being the only killer who makes sense. I guess Maggie is still in the running, but if Haley was going down on Emma's mom at the party, that's, uh, an unexpected turn for the show, though definitely not impossible.

This show really likes making a huge deal of unremarkable secrets, huh? Both Audrey and Kieran, as well as characters around them, act as though they're guilty of murder. The writers want the whole "X has a dark secret!" dynamic but are terrified to let their characters come off as anything less than angelic and pure. It's ridiculous. I can't believe Kieran is the killer anymore, because if so, this fake kidnapping was stupid as fuck and impossible to plan. I guess his intention was always to stumble out in front of the cops like that to exonerate himself? Did he plan for the cop to enter the funhouse, plan for Emma to take his gun, and plan for Emma to miss any vital organs? Because that's idiotic. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far. I'm digging Brooke/Stavo finally, but I'm expecting him to end up dead, because Brooke is that character that is never allowed to be happy.

I'm mainly rolling my eyes at the notion that they're "tackling" this "difficult subject" to make a "statement" or whatever they're going with. No, the shooting was a cheap, tasteless plot device and nothing more. But in terms of the storytelling, I don't have a problem with how they're handling it. Rachel is the main character - clearly, they're going to be focusing on her. If this show was actually going to deliver some big message like they're claiming, then yes we should be hearing this from Darius' and Romeo's perspectives, but as a viewer who's watching this as just another soapy show, I'm honestly not particularly interested because it doesn't really have anything to do with the story. So do I think they accomplished what they were trying to do? Fuck no. But going into this season I was expecting a show about two terrible women making terrible choices, not a thought-provoking documentary about race, law enforcement and gun violence. I wish they would stop trying to sell it as that, but I can still enjoy the show for what it actually is. I might also be terribly desensitized from watching American Horror Story where they busted out a school massacre for shock value in the very first season. I don't approve of these antics, but I don't take my shows very seriously in the first place, so I'm not all that bothered.

Everything not involving Brooke was sort of a snoozefest. I kind of figured Audrey's revelation would be bullshit. It's a fine line between incriminating to the point where Audrey's a villain, and underwhelming to the point where both Audrey and the killer are overdramatic idiots. They failed miserably at walking this fine line, and landed firmly in the latter category. If there is actually more to the story, it's going to have to be something really big to justify them dragging it out even longer. I thought this would've been where Kieran bit the dust, but I guess there was no real build-up for it. Way too suspicious that he appeared out of nowhere right as the killer disappeared and let them run away. Are they suddenly turning him into a red herring too? If everyone's a red herring, is anyone really a red herring? Should we be considering Stavo again? Actually, new theory: Stavo is the killer, and he's grooming Brooke to be his accomplice and girlfriend. He convinced her to confront Branson and tie him up, so that he could later step in and do his thing. In the season finale, we'll get a post-coital killer reveal where he invites her into the killing game, and because Brooke is now clearly the star of the show, she gets to kill his ass. I don't actually believe this will happen, but it is very Scream with a dash of PLL, which this show is clearly inspired by. ETA: Regarding the whole "Kieran wants to talk to the police" thing, I think that might be setting up his death. Being open and honest with local authorities goes against one of the most ubiquitous slasher tropes, and Kieran will get offed for not following the rules of the genre.

Well, that's more like it. Some actual progress being made on all fronts, except body count. I guess I'm still in. Brooke is getting some serious preferential treatment from the writers. I'm like 99% sure that she was supposed to die last season but then they ended up loving her and kept her around. Out of the Lakewood Six, she's easily the most expendable member, but she's survived several direct run-ins with the killer and is consistently getting the best material. I remain convinced that both Final Girl Emma and less traditional Final Girl Audrey will die at some point and Brooke will ultimately be the heroine of the story. I thought Piper was pretty obvious last season, but I'm having a hard time with figuring out this season's killer. I think Brooke, Audrey, Noah and Emma's mom all pass the "act innocent even when alone" test. Miguel, Kieran's aunt and Zoe seem irrelevant. Stavo and Eli are obvious red herrings. I was originall suspicious of Karen, but she's too similar to Piper and she's looking like another red herring now. Emma's dad and Seth Branson are too disconnected from what's actually happening. I'm pretty sure Kieran's going to be a victim this season. Emma could have a split personality, but that theory pops up in every mystery ever (I'm still wishing Arya was A) and never turns out to be true. So my guess is Bitchface McStalkergirl. The character should be a suspect, but the show never does any ominous close-up or musical cue to attract attention to her. She got her moment in the premiere and because it turned out to be a prank, we're meant to disregard her and now they can hide her in plain sight. There could still be an extremely small chance that Emma's her accomplice.

The main difference I see between Tiffany and Vanessa is that Tiffany is not nearly as intense. I've seen some clips of her on Sequester, and she came across as naturally charismatic, laid back and eloquent. If there's any crazy in her (highly likely) the house will bring it out for sure, but I don't think this is truly Vanessa 2.0. That said, Vanessa is easily my favorite houseguest of all time, and I'm sadly not expecting Tiffany to make the feeds nearly as entertaining or unpredictable. I can lose Jozea, but Paul needs to stick around for as long as possible. A Big Brother season pretty much needs a good villain, and Paul fits the mold perfectly. He's not as delusional as Austin, he's not as obnoxious as Frankie, he's not as offensive as Amanda, he's just aggressive and stupid. It's great. I can't wait for him to get his comeuppance in Week 10 or so.

I really don't like that one player is eliminated before the feeds start. You don't truly get a feel for them until you see them on the feeds. Rooting hard for Tiffany, liking Paulie, Nicole and Bridgette, and thinking Michelle, Bronte and Natalie will make for some great television/feeds. Michelle in particular could be a beautiful trainwreck, she's been active in BB communities and she's extremely outspoken. Based on everything I've heard of James post-BB17, I want him gone quick. Sucks that he's immune for two evictions.

When I get sort of into shows, it usually takes a lot to shake me off - I'll stick with them until they become unbearably bad. This show is approaching that point much faster than I thought was possible. What in the actual fuck was this episode even? But yeah, the reveal at the end seems to imply that the season is finally starting, so I guess I'm staying for a bit more. And I'm still somehow convinced that they're all ultimately doomed except dark horse Brooke.

To be fair, they couldn't bring any queens from season 8 because it would've spoiled the outcome of that season. All-Stars 2 cast spoilers were widespread by September, so if they brought a season 8 queen, we'd know they didn't win. For Chi Chi in particular, they didn't even officially know she was out by the time they filmed All-Stars 2, since they film all different outcomes for top 4.

The cast has been officially announced now. The season premieres on August 25, which I don't think we already knew. As was spoiled almost a year ago, the cast is Adore Delano, Alaska, Alyssa Edwards, Coco Montrese, Detox, Ginger Minj, Katya, Phi Phi O'Hara, Roxxxy Andrews, and Tatianna. I'm kind of in love with these promo shost. Detox in particular looks spectacular and I can't wait to see what she brings on the show. I'm most excited to see what Phi Phi will bring, though. She's grown a lot in the looks department and her 365 Days of Drag is on a whole other level of art. Let's hope All-Stars doesn't suck this time!