S12.E03: When The Bough Breaks

[Mr. Sparkle]

As Anna and Dex settle into their Hamptons sanctuary, the comfort begins to fade. Her circle of trust is slowly shrinking, and doubt creeps into Anna's head.

Airs Wednesday, October 4th. 

[AnimeMania]

I wonder what Kamal the security guy and everybody else in the drug store were doing as Anna stood in the same place in the aisle for several hours.

[voiceover]

Ya know, I don’t hate-watch.  I’ve sweated out some crappy seasons of TV shows, but committed, “Despise every. Fucking. Moment!” watching seemed a waste of time.

Yet here I am on Episode 3.  Just sat through an hour-including-commercials crapfest.

So in the rewrite in my head, the series could’ve started with Emma’s character cracking jokes on her movie set.  So when we first see her, she’s — you know — FUNNY.  So it’s a thing we’re drawn to.  And we like her!  Then as the bad things start to happen, her ability to see the funny side drips away…

<shrugs>

I told all of you in the last ep thread that we could write a better story.  So I’m begging: can you guys rework tonight’s pile of garbage into something I can get behind??

[Madding crowd]

I thought the imagery of the goat women was creepy although I didn’t need seeing babies in jars! Still have the same thing of something happening to Anna every five minutes, her constantly losing time and we don’t know what is real. Her husband and best friend don’t know losing time isn’t a typical reaction to a miscarriage?
And Anna keeps losing many hours but then just acts like everything is ok. I would be frightened out of my mind. Is everyone in on whatever this is? The house manager was giving her strange looks. Why is there a house manager for a smaller house? Why would a modern house have a 1950’s style basement? Too many questions at this point.

[mirandroid]

I kept falling asleep during this episode, which tells me everything I need to know. See you next season, AHS. Maybe. 🙄

[Avaleigh]

18 hours ago, voiceover said:

So in the rewrite in my head, the series could’ve started with Emma’s character cracking jokes on her movie set.  So when we first see her, she’s — you know — FUNNY.  So it’s a thing we’re drawn to.  And we like her!  Then as the bad things start to happen, her ability to see the funny side drips away…

I like your ideas for giving the character more personality. 

This season might be the worst of the bunch. Even the weaker seasons I've mostly enjoyed, but this is so damn boring I'm shocked they thought it would entertain people. At least the lesser AHS seasons were entertaining even if they did sometimes end up going off the rails. I can hand wave stuff like plot holes and character decisions that don't necessarily make sense (to a point), but I can't forgive a show for being boring and this has truly been a snoozefest. My husband fell asleep ten minutes in and when I told him what happened in the episode, his response was "So I guess I didn't miss anything." I can't believe all of the people involved didn't think that the story needed work. 

As far as other ideas that would have made this season more interesting to me--going with the idea of the audience first seeing Anna being funny on a movie set, maybe we see her finishing up working on a great film that's going to do well with the critics. We see that Anna is funny and likable and hear people praise the performance. We see that she has friends, we learn that she is talented in her field and get hints that this will be the performance that finally gets her an Oscar nomination. Over the phone, her publicist friend gives her the good news that she's just landed on the cover of Vanity Fair. The publicist is attacked and killed by a masked figure shortly after ending the call with Anna. The studio assigns a temporary publicist, Siobhan, who is quite obviously in on whateve villainous plot is going on. Later Anna is on set filiming her new movie, some sort of dark thriller maybe with a celebrity director making a cameo. As she's going through her IVF journey, maybe she starts to lose time on set. We see the contrast of how she was working on the earlier film and how she's slowly starting to lose it on her new one. Maybe the script feels a little too close to home and they can include a few moments where she's unsure about what's real and what isn't. Maybe she sees some weird stuff in the dailies? Also, maybe she accidentally injures a costar on set and is in danger of being recast by a (younger) actress?

I think there are other ways to play with the themes they want to include this season without the story feeling so repetitive and one note. 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Avaleigh

[rhofmovalley]

It's exhausting to me that Emma Roberts is in every single scene. No breaks from her at all. I imagine it was exhausting to film. I'm struggling to get invested when it's just the one character. 

And yeah, groundhog day with every episode so far. 

[voiceover]

3 hours ago, Avaleigh said:

We see the contrast of how she was working on the earlier film and how she's slowly starting to lose it on her new one

Yes, yes, and yes.  I’m collecting everyone’s notes and forwarding them to Ryan Murphy.

ps: I’m thinking your husband enjoyed this ep more than the rest of us put together🤣

[Avaleigh]

2 hours ago, rhofmovalley said:

It's exhausting to me that Emma Roberts is in every single scene. No breaks from her at all. I imagine it was exhausting to film. I'm struggling to get invested when it's just the one character. 

Agreed. This is why I think it would have been a good idea for her character to have friends and colleagues who weren't in on whatever it is that's going on. Have those characters get fun dialogue and be a support system for Anna while she's navigating this challenging period of her life. Then you have those characters picked off one by one to add to the tension. Have those characters replaced with characters who are in on the Big Bad plot against Anna. We could have seen these people all have scenes without Anna to break up the monotony of her scenes. Keep those moments humorous and exciting to balance the rest of the story.

This show is seriously lacking in humor and the humor used to be one of the more reliable parts of AHS. 

[iMonrey]

There needs to be more to this than just Emma Roberts wandering around for an hour hallucinating weird shit. Because that's really the only thing going on right now and I'm not up for six more episodes of this before we get to some kind explanation. This is a very poorly constructed story (if it even qualifies as a story, which it really doesn't) and I've lost patience with it. It seems to be relying solely on creepy imagery and atmosphere to draw viewers in but it's both baffling and boring at the same time. There is just no substance, we need more of a solid premise to hold onto.

And I like Emma Roberts just fine but she cannot carry whatever this is on her shoulders alone. I just feel like I'm watching one long fever dream that doesn't have any point to it and I don't get it.

[tennisgurl]

What do you know, they actually managed to write in a few creepy scenes, first when those people in the freaky black coats were starring at Anna with their goats and then when she found all of those fetuses, it was actually kind of invested for a second. Of course then we had to get right back to the boredom, and I'm already ready for those creepies to lose their cool factor as soon as they pull off their masks and are just Kim K and Logan from Gilmore Girls in stupid costumes. 

I totally agree with others that I wish we had gotten to know Anna before all of this started, saw her personality, that she was funny, sweet, ambitious, saw her more as a rising star, before all of this started. I would also like some more on why being a mom is so important to her, we see glimpses of her imagining playing with a baby but I think it would serve what I think the themes are by having her talk more about why being a mom means so much to her. 

Its inevitable that just about everyone will end up being a part of the conspiracy so I cant even get into any of the supporting cast because I don't trust anything they say or do. I cant get into Anna because her only character trait is being freaked out, at least most seasons will give us a few characters to root for before everything goes haywire.  

I am used to an AHS that's crazy, stupid, icky, or offensive, but I rarely see it being so boring.

[Starchild]

Yeah, we've seen the meek gaslighting victim with Mia Farrow in the original. If they were going to do a take on Rosemary's Baby they should have had all this happening to a kickass modern woman.

Instead of seeing the heroine drifting through all this like a wounded lamb, she could have been raging through it all instead. That would be cool to see. Make her husband afraid to contradict her. Make her agent kowtow to her. All while she's being victimized -- carefully -- by this cult.

[Snazzy Daisy]

3 episodes in and there’s still no horror. The show continues to generate more confusions instead. Maybe that’s why they call it “delicate”. Hey show, stop gaslighting us and start giving us some truths.

Anna repeatedly losing track of time is really exhausting. How many time do we have to see this? And they're doing the same thing with her zit or scab thingy. Ugh.

The house manager lady - Nicolette, we never see her interacting with Dex or Kamal. Is she real or is Anna hallucinating?

Do the bird-horn women and Siobhan come from the same coven of witches?

At this point, it seems like only the Preecher lady and the iCal hacker are on Anna’s side.

Hey Anna, stop speculating, just do the damn ultrasound to confirm whether you’re (still) pregnant or not. Geez.

Kim flawlessly slicing the cucumber, obviously mocking Kendall is funny! 😂😂😂

ref: Kendall Jenner Confuses Fans With How She Cuts Cucumber

[voiceover]

4 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Emma Roberts wandering around for an hour hallucinating weird shit

If only I could hack into DirecTV and enter that as the episode summary.

You guys are fantastic.  Totally scripting a series that I could get behind.  I say this sincerely — if a bit sadly.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I would call that laughably bad but I wasn't laughing at any point. So boring, and the same creepy imagery that we've seen in countless horror films. And now Satanism. 

I swear, Kim Kardashian is the best part of this, and that's not a complement to KK. 

3 hours ago, Starchild said:

Yeah, we've seen the meek gaslighting victim with Mia Farrow in the original. If they were going to do a take on Rosemary's Baby they should have had all this happening to a kickass modern woman.

I happened to watch Rosemary's Baby on TV a couple days ago and it's jarring how much better it is than this drek. Similar story, just done so much better. 

[Starchild]

I guess some concepts just should not be stretched from 2 hours to 10.

[Terrafamilia]

Even I know better than to open small doors in the walls of creepy basements. It never goes well.

[Mattipoo]

This is truly the most boring AHS season yet. I kept fast forwarding through the episode because nothing was happening. Kim Kardashian and the hot bodyguard are the only good parts of this episode. What a snoozefest!

[voiceover]

6 hours ago, Mattipoo said:

the hot bodyguard

If anyone involved could locate their ass with both hands, he would be the one on the outside with a chance to save her.