Freaky “American Horror Story” Returns Tonight
by Maureen Ryan
The first two episodes of the second season of “American Horror Story” (Wed., Oct. 17 at 10 p.m. ET on FX) are a weird, queasy melange of sensuality, repression, terror and gruesome imagery. I quite enjoyed them.
That sentence is not a trick. Nor, perhaps, a treat for those who agreed with my assessment of Season 1 as a frustrating venture into chaotic narcissism. But I am on board for “American Horror Story: Asylum.” Much to my surprise, I am genuinely interested to see where it’ll go next. It’s a show designed to shock, and so far, the biggest shock is my unexpected interest in “Asylum’s” fever-dream.
Though “American Horror Story: Asylum” shares some cast members with the first incarnation of the show, it is not a continuation of the Season 1 story, and I am not remotely sorry to say goodbye to the whiny yuppie pair at the heart of that tale, which was only intermittently effective. The second season of the show, which is largely set in a New England mental asylum in the 1960s, feels more cohesive and narratively direct, and there’s no doubt that the period setting works in “Asylum’s” favor.
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