It’s been the best season of American Horror Story ever, so far, as Hotel has managed to live up to every expectation. Let’s take a look at what happened in this week’s episode, “Flicker.”
The episode opens with the Hotel Cortez finally undergoing some renovations as Will Drake has decided to stay. He roams the halls with his son as he tells the kid that he and The Countess will be together forever, and his son approves (“I thought you liked men?” “Adults are complicated.”) A sealed passage is found in one of the walls, and Will orders it opened. Inside, workers come across horrible victims of James Patrick March’s life of terror. The jump scare revealing this was extremely projected, but that didn’t at all lesson its impact. The makeup used on the victims was as perfect as American Horror Story has become known for, and it was just a really fun little moment. The Countess ends up taking a look at the exposed passage, and we (and Iris) see that she’s truly scared for one of the first times in her life.
After everything he’s been through lately, John checks himself into psychiatric care. John is one of the more boring characters on the show (despite the fact that Wes Bentley is doing the best he can with what he’s given), but his story still strikes a big emotional response from the audience because we see what he doesn’t — the hotel’s horror affecting his psyche and his wife’s selfish insanity leading him psychologically to a place he doesn’t need to be. I think that the main reason I find John so boring most of the time is because he isn’t really allowed to be proactive in what he chooses to do, and it’s lead to a lot of cause with no effect. I’ve talked before about how interesting I think the Ten Commandments Killer storyline has been, and I think John would have benefited greatly if his character path had focused more on that through the first half of the season. Forgetting some of that early season disappointment, though, he does get a cool story in “Flicker” that proves to be more intriguing than anything he’s experienced at the Cortez (with the possible exception of the dinner party). It also manages to, somewhat unexpectedly, tie in with the Killer’s story, so the result is better than one would have thought.
“Flicker” delivers more of Elizabeth’s backstory than we’ve ever gotten before, and the bulk of it concerns her time as an actress in Hollywood in 1925. We finally see the story of her first love, Rudy Valentino (played, interestingly, by Finn Wittrock), and we also see her first interaction with the one and only James March at the Hotel Cortez. Her story ends up being more tragic that I anticipated for the character, and it adds more to the audience understanding of her than anything in the present-day story has so far. I don’t want to talk about any of the specific revelations from this extended flashback because I don’t want to spoil anything for those that haven’t yet seen the episode, but there are enough twists and turns here to keep even the casual viewer interested. I will say that it explains a lot of the season’s mythology in a very fun way, and it ties in plenty of figures from the Golden Age of Hollywood that you would never expect (the F.W. Murnau details are especially entertaining). There was also a brief homage to The Cask of Amontillado included in the story, and the Edgar Allan Poe fan in me truly appreciated it.
Just a brief note, but the production design in “Flicker” is outstanding. This show always benefits from getting to show scenes from the past, and the attention to detail during Elizabeth’s backstory is so, so good. The episode also benefited from greatly narrowing its focus to just a few characters and their stories, and it makes me wonder what a season of AHS would be like with a smaller main cast. Maybe we’ll see that one day.
So many seasons of American Horror Story begin falling apart after the Halloween episodes, but Hotel is managing to break that curse (at least, for the time being). We’ll still have to see how things play out in the remaining six episodes, but “Flicker” was another solid entry in a very consistent season of this show. A surprising amount of threads started connecting with this episode, and the season’s pacing is all the better for it. I found myself continuing to raise the score on this review throughout the episode instead of lowering it, and that’s always a good thing when you’re talking about American Horror Story.
What did you think of “Flicker”? Do you think Hotel is the best season of American Horror Story so far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below!
[Photo credit: Prashant Gupta/FX]
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