After its best season premiere in years, American Horror Story: Hotel has managed to keep up expectations while also having a lot to live up to in the first follow-up episode. Let’s take a look and see how the show managed with this week’s installment, “Chutes and Ladders.”
The episode opens with a look at Hypodermic Sally preparing Gabriel for her next horrific conquest in the same way that the girls were shocked in the premiere. She’s interrupted, though, by screams from one of the aforementioned tourists as her blood is drained by the children of the hotel. This is followed by Iris and Liz Taylor’s disposal of her body, sending it down to the basement below. After their feast, the Hotel’s children (including John’s presumed-missing son Holden) have their blood drained for consumption by our favorite Countess and her lover, Donovan. I mention all of this because it helps to show just how well-oiled a machine the Hotel Cortez has become through the years, and each and every member of the hotel’s family serves a purpose in the Countess’ blueprint. One thing that I’m really liking so far about Hotel is how connected so much of the cast seems to be. While it’s often the case at times on American Horror Story, this show definitely works the best when the cast is given the right material that allows everyone to play off of each other. That’s not to say that all cards need to be on the table (which reminds me, I like that FX allowed a fun House of Cards reference in the opening of the episode), but at least let everyone interact. If you don’t, what’s the purpose of having such a great roster?
“Chutes and Ladders” gives us a chance to see much more of the Lowe family, who, despite their flaws, are set to be our protagonists this season. Let’s start with Dr. Alex Lowe, Chloë Sevigny’s character that we didn’t spend much time with in the premiere. Her first scene features the show’s writers taking a stab at the anti-vaccination pandemic, but it also shows us exactly who Alex is — a wife and mother that is absolutely devoted to her family and wants nothing more than for children to receive the care and love that they deserve. This is obviously something that grew exponentially after the disappearance of her son, but you can tell that it has been a part of her personality throughout her life. Detective John Lowe, on the other hand, is now fully a part of the Hotel Cortez. Because of this, we get obvious homages to movies such as 1408 and The Shining, both references that we see during John’s first scene in the episode. John witnesses a sighting of his son Holden (who, again, is now a ghostly child of the Cortez), but he brushes this off as a hallucination. He then moves onto a very fun-to-watch interaction with Sally that further proves my point of how great it is when cast members aren’t kept in their own separate corners. We’re learning more and more about John as this series begins, but the writers are doing a good job so far of giving us a character that’s easy to root for as we learn more about the world of Hotel.
Returning to the Countess, Lady Gaga’s performance in “Chutes and Ladders” is even better than what she put out in the premiere. The writers give her a much more substantial role in this episode (now that the character has been well-enough established), and the meatier material should help to change the minds of those that weren’t impressed by her first outing. The episode also gives us an introduction to Finn Wittrock’s Tristan, a character that is going to be an important part of the Countess’ life this year. Wittrock is a relative newcomer to the American Horror Story family, but his performance in last season’s Freak Show has quickly made him a fan-favorite actor. Tristan is definitely a far cry from his character last year, but the potential is there for an even more complex performance through the rest of the season.
Tristan also leads to our first look at Evan Peters’ character for this story, James March. A Tony Stark/Howard Hughes mixture with a decidedly more sinister personality, March is a man out of time that has a deep history with the Hotel Cortez. It’s still early, so it’s hard to say for sure, but this character may be the one that allows Peters to truly shine and stand out among such a star-studded ensemble cast. In a single episode and with an extremely brief appearance, Peters delivers his best performance since Murder House all the way back at the first season, and I’m so excited to see more of this character revealed over time. We also got a fun montage showcasing some of his history that featured a great homage to The Cask of Amontillado, and his story manages to tie in more with the happenings of the present than you might realize at first glance.
One thing that seemed to divide critics in the first episode of American Horror Story: Hotel, and something that continued in the second episode, is the overwhelming amount of callouts and homages to the horror in our pop culture mindset (including the previously mentioned works of Stephen King, but also Tim Burton, Tobe Hooper, and many, many more) that the episodes feature. It’s easy to see this and think, “the writers can’t come up with their own identity, so they’re ripping off things that they know people already love,” but I don’t at all see it this way, personally. Instead, I view the identity of Hotel (and, essentially, American Horror Story as a whole) as a sort of collection of these elements of horror that we all know so well. It isn’t the elements themselves but the presentation of them that allows American Horror Story to leave its footprint on television. If I want to watch a great horror movie set in a hotel, I’ll pop in The Shining. But what if I want a horror story set in a hotel with the wealth of characters and design of Tim Burton? What if I want that with the violence and gore of Saw? What if I want all that with the sexuality of Knock, Knock? There aren’t many places to look for something that fits all of those niches at once. American Horror Story may draw on society for its inspiration, but the style and presentation is what makes it what it is.
American Horror Story is always going to have its detractors, but Hotel has lived up to and surpassed all of my expectations so far, and based on what we’ve seen so far, I can’t imagine that changing anytime soon. “Chutes and Ladders” was just as great as the season premiere, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
What did you think of “Chutes and Ladders?” Is Hotel the American Horror Story that you’ve been wanting since the beginning? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below!
[Photo via FX]
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