Screengrab
The long-awaited tenth season of American Horror Story is finally hear after a long delay due to the pandemic, but was it worth the wait? After watching the first two episodes that debuted this week, I’m going to have to say yes. A resounding yes! And this season is going to be one for the books because instead of one season-long story, we’re getting a ‘Double Feature’ season split into two different, apparently unrelated (but we’ll see about that) stories. Part 1 is titled ‘Red Tide’ and Part 2 is titled ‘Death Valley’. Now based on the promos up to this point, it’s been clear that the second ‘feature’ is going to be about aliens, while we all assumed the first was about sirens based on the seaside setting. We may have all been wrong about that.
The first episode, ‘Cape Fear’, introduces us to Harry Gardner (Finn Wittrock), his wife Doris (Lily Rabe) and young daughter Alma (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) as they travel the East Coast from New York City to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Harry is a TV writer and has booked a rental house in the beach community (off season, which means it’s super quiet and the summer tourists are long gone) to help him focus on the script for the pilot he needs to finish. Doris is an interior designer, and has been hired to redecorate the house in which they will be staying in exchange for three months of free rent. Alma is an aspiring violinist whose dream is to set First Chair in the New York Symphony Orchestra by the age of 18.
The house is big, a bit run down inside and in definite need of some upgrades. And food, so Harry walks through town to the only grocery store that’s open in the off season (owned by the brother of the realtor). There, he encounters the town crazy known as Tuberculosis Karen (Sarah Paulson) who screams at him to get out of town (she’s the female version of the ‘you’re all doomed’ character in a horror film). The grocer tells him she’s harmless, and Harry shrugs it off. Back at home, he settles in to begin writing while Alma begins practicing her violin, but as much as he loves her playing the music is not serving as inspiration, so Doris quickly suggests a walk. She and Alma walk past a cemetery and see an odd man who begins chasing them. (By the way, Doris is very pregnant.) They make it home but are terrorized to the point that Harry considers leaving, especially after police chief Burleson (Adina Porter) shows little interest in the case. Doris wants to leave too, but on the other hand she’s also got a job to do there, so they decide to give it a couple of days.
Planning a date night for the two of them, Doris suddenly becomes ill — due to the pregnancy or the stress of nearly being attacked — and tells Harry to go and unwind. At the restaurant, Harry is first hit upon by two different men, one of them being Mickey (Macaulay Culkin), but politely turns him down. Heading to his table, Harry is entertained by a young man and older woman performing ‘Islands in the Stream’. Later, they send him a drink and he goes to thank them, and they reveal they are both writers as well, and could recognize in him that he was one of them. Austin (Evan Peters) and Belle Noir (Frances Conroy) tell him about how they come to town for the winter and always leave with a best seller in hand or an award-winning play.
Screengrab
Harry is thrilled to meet two of his idols right there in Provincetown, but when he gets home he finds an intruder — the same creepy guy who chased Doris and Alma. And the guy has razor-sharp teeth, attempting to tear out Harry’s throat. Harry gets the upper hand and beats the guy’s head to a pulp, but the police chief is nonchalant about the attack saying Harry had every right to defend himself. Then we see Belle with Mickey, offering him a couple of hundred dollar to ‘suck him’. But it isn’t what you think — she slices open his arm and begins to drink his blood. Austin invites Harry to his house and enlightens him on how he and Belle are able to be so prolific — a little black pill. It helps unlock the talent inside of them, and it can help Harry too. But what is it? Only the chemist knows. Harry thanks Austin but turns down the offer … but knowing he’s not even typed out a single letter yet, he has second thoughts and takes the bag of pills with him. But the family has decided to leave town after the second attack and right before they hit the road, Harry takes a pill.
Part 2, ‘Pale’ opens right where we left off. After taking the pill, instantly Harry’s mind is flooded with ideas and he has to begin writing, so he runs back into the house and begins typing furiously on his laptop. Doris and Alma are dismayed but Doris says they need to let daddy do his thing. Alma decides to start practicing her violin again, and this time Harry is not so kind in his critique of her playing, saying some terrible things to his daughter and pissing off his wife.
By the morning, Harry has nearly completed not just the pilot but the entire series. Doris is concerned, and Harry is apologetic about his behavior and he agrees to take a break. Heading back to the grocery store, Harry is besieged by more of those ghoulish creatures but they sniff at him and back away. At the store, Harry doesn’t know what he wants to eat but spots the meat counter and buys large quantities of red meat. At home he pours the blood from the packages into a glass and squeezes out as much as he can from the beef. Not satiated just yet, he puts the meat in a blender and strains out the liquid, finally satisfied. But … why this sudden craving for blood? It gets even worse when Doris cuts her finger while chopping carrots and Harry lunges at her, sucking the blood from her finger.
Horrified, Harry goes back to Austin to find out what exactly the pill did to him, and Austin reveals that while taking the pill unleashes the talent in the talented, it also depletes the body of four major minerals and cleaning out the butcher section of the grocery store isn’t going to satisfy his hunger (Harry doesn’t seem to notice Austin’s oddly pale skin). So he and Belle take Harry on an outing, explaining to him that he’s going to have to feed off of humans, but he is to never feed on anyone in Provincetown. They find their victims on Craigslist, people selling a bizarre collection of items which signifies they have stolen the items and are looking for a sale to get money for their next fix. They also reveal their sharpened teeth which have been covered with caps. If Harry does it right, he will only have to feed once a week but he’s going to need to get his teeth fixed, so they send him to Lark (Billie Lourd), their personal dental and tattoo artist. Yes, she is one of them, and she begins the process of sharpening Harry’s teeth and making the caps to hide them.
Screengrab
Knowing that her father took a pill and suddenly began writing, Alma wonders if she can take a pill and nail that piece of music that’s been giving her such a hard time. Doris tells her that is not the answer, but it remains in Alma’s mind. TB Karen, it seems, knows all too well what Belle and Austin are up to, sort of beholden to Belle for her next fix. But to get the drugs, Karen has to do some terrible things, and it seems this time she’s brought Belle … a baby to feed on. Karen also has a relationship with Mickey, and he invites her to stay at his rundown shack where he reveals he’s bought some of her paintings at a thrift store. She had taken a class and thought the paintings had been thrown away after the class, and she was touched that he thought they were good. (This scene between Sarah Paulson and Macaulay Culkin had such a nice tenderness to it.) Mickey suggests that maybe she should take a pill to unleash her true talent but she doesn’t want to be ‘like them’. Mickey, however, thinks that taking one will help him.
Harry also learns more about the pills from Austin and Belle. It is true they unleash the talent in the truly talented, like Harry, but the mindless creatures roaming town are those who took the pills … but had no talent to unleash. On his way back home, Harry kills a man under a pier — committing a no-no by killing in town — and is unaware that Alma has found the pills and taken one. She begins to play the violin with the skill of a master, but the playing is giving her mother a pounding headache. Asking her to take a break, a belligerent Alma tells her mother that she doesn’t understand or have talent like she and her father do — and honestly, Doris’ ideas for redecorating the house are … beige and more beige — resulting in Alma being sent to her room. Doris confronts Harry about both of their attitudes recently and discovers Alma is gone. Harry says she just went for a walk, but Doris reminds him that (a) they were attacked on their first walk and (b) he killed a man in their house. She goes in search for Alma and finally ends up at the cemetery again. She sees one of the creatures, but she also spots Alma kneeling at a grave. Touching her on the shoulder, Alma turns and Doris is horrified to see her young daughter eating a squirrel!
And so begins the first part of the season. The look and feel of the show so far harkens back to the beginnings of the series. It’s great to see so many of the familiar faces again — particularly Frances Conroy, who is a national treasure — along with some of the newer franchise regulars like Leslie Grossman (as Harry’s agent), Billie Lourd and Adina Porter (and Angelica Ross, who is yet to make her first appearance). But no Emma Roberts?! The original opening theme music has also returned, so the tenth season feels like a nice reboot to the franchise, and I can’t wait to see more!
What did you think of the season premiere? Sound off in the comments below!
Share this post
