American Horror Story: Coven Review

Overall, I'm sad to say that I really did not enjoy this season.  Some of the episodes were hard to get through or even get amped up enough to even play/watch them on my DVR.  It was VERY difficult to care about ANY of the characters because none of them had any redeeming value.  The overall themes of witchcraft and Voodoo are not really themes that interest me, but I was hoping the show would have changed that;  it did not.  The convoluted plot and multiple storylines added little enjoyment to the ultimate direction of the show which, in my opinion, was finding a new Supreme and ensuring the future of the school.

Specifically, in the finale, it felt like Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) was Professor X, recruiting witches instead of X-men to her academy.  Also, the witches testing their abilities of all Seven Wonders at one time in the same episode felt forced and rushed.  I would have thought that maybe the writers would have put the witches in positions where they needed to use one of the Seven Wonders to save herself or a loved one from trouble throughout the season, but that didn't seem the case and the witches pretty much did whatever they wanted.  Why even have a school then?  Why save and ensure a future for something we don't care about?  The school was just a centralized location that brought together a bunch of witches that repeated the same mistakes of the past but somehow came out smelling like roses in the end.  The final twist was this was supposedly Fiona's (Jessica Lange) plan the whole time to get her daughter to realize her power?  Sorry, but that’s bull, very farfetched, and very out of character for her.  I expected Fiona to have a second knife hidden to kill her daughter and regain her power during the final hug.  When she just died so did her entire character that had been presented this whole time.  Disappointing.

Other thoughts:  I don't think the Kathy Bates character or even Stevie Nicks was needed.  All the past events added nothing to the present.  It would have been better if the school was actually in Kathy Bates character’s old house, but they were two separate locations and I felt it wasn’t really needed.  Also, the Axeman character and his story felt out of place.  Papa Legba also felt shoe-horned into this season.  If the writers had introduced him earlier on, it could have made the show more enjoyable.  Lastly, it's hard to care when a character dies when death isn't treated as a final destination and a character could come back at any time.

I don’t like being negative about a show and even though I didn't like this season of American Horror Story, I’ve enjoyed Ryan Murphy’s work up until this point and I hope he has something better in store for Season 4, something that really pushes the boundaries of television and entertainment.