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I'm kind of new to American Horror Story. I only started binging the series a year or so ago, and Apocalypse is the only season that I've watched as it was airing. Here are my impressions: 1. Good. Clusterfuck of crazy poo poo happening. 2. Pretty good. Another clusterfuck of crazier poo poo. 3. Goofy fun with enjoyable characters. 4. Boring. I struggled to force myself through Freakshow. 5. Decent with enjoyable characters. I loved Iris and Liz Taylor. 6. Way better than I was expecting. Genuinely creepy. 7. Started off slow, but got better. 8. Loving it because I really liked Coven.
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Nov 11, 2018 21:45
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 06:03 |
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Murder House did a fine job of seeing its story to the end, but when you go back, you see it was as goofy as any other season in terms of motivation. Biggest mistake was probably the ghost mechanics in general, the stakes got lesser and lesser as it went on. Asylum is still the best season in terms of plot and likeable characters, although it obviously had hiccups. Biggest mistake was probably the ending and how most of them just sort of got footnoted. Coven might be the worst season in terms of cohesion, but the big personalities are what set the stage for the show to continue as it has. Biggest mistake (among many) was saving the Seven Wonders plot for the very end. I actually liked Freakshow more than most, but I'm a sucker for the period pieces. I liked what they did with Pepper, I liked how they handled the freaks and their stories. But it's easy to see why people label it boring. Biggest mistake was Twisty's arc. Hotel remained entertaining for the most part, but that special goofy kind of entertaining that forces you to keep watching just to see how they resolve all these crazy things they tangibly relate to each other (vampire kids, hidden actors, the drug addict ghost, the '70s actress and Queenie, Liz Taylor, etc.) Biggest mistake was the super duper obvious reveal of the serial killer. Roanoke turned me off at first due to how different it was without being spectacularly different. But I've come to appreciate what they were trying to do, and the reenactment to real life transitions were good. I think I would argue this season is actually duller than Freakshow based on just how slow the burn is, though. Biggest mistake was ... eh, probably making the ending all about Lee, with the Lana Winters cameo (and saying the show got bigger ratings than The Walking Dead and NFL Football.) Cult started off fantastically with a genuine sense of intrigue about the clowns and the goal and weaving politics into it while playing mental chess with an already unstable, but righteous protagonist. But then it fell off a cliff with the usual riff raff of trying to reveal the truth behind historical events and the out-of-nowhere double turn, making the loony lady into a competent threat and the charismatic leader into a crazy sod. The reenactments were fantastic though, and even Lena Dunham did great. Biggest mistake was the double turn, compounded by that ending that just reeked of undeserved smugness. And now with Apocalypse, I think most of us are in unison that the bunker was actually interesting and different in a good way, and they swapped it out with tired exposition to show us how the devil's son actually decided to be bad. Showing and not telling really obvious points, which was clearly the biggest mistake. One other thing about the time travel, it always has consequences for the present. I stand by my original prediction, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they defeat the antichrist in the way back past and it alters everything that's happened since, effectively rebooting the series. In other words, get ready for season 9 to be Death House starring Billie Lourd, Kirstie Alley, Dermot Mulroney, and Lady Gaga.
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Nov 12, 2018 06:10
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My wife, who rarely takes such a critical eye to tv shows, when we learned we were devoting 10 minutes of the penultimate episode to a pointless time travel within a flashback: "C'mon, Ryan Murphy, we're flying off the rails here!" I haven't watched a full season of AHS since Murder House. When I read that other seasons had started out strong and ended up a mess, I wondered if it would be possible to muck up a season that started as strongly as this one. Now I know!
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Nov 13, 2018 19:12
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Coven was great. Loved the bitchy witches catfighting. AHS is all about watching theater goddesses and gay men chew scenery.
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Nov 13, 2018 20:39
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Off the rails or not, I can't hate a season that features a gun-armed Terminator played by Kathy Bates mowing down a coven full of witches with the anti-Christ. Just the fact I can write that sentence makes it a  OmegaBR posted:One other thing about the time travel, it always has consequences for the present. I still stand by 'The witch who does it will die' so Paulson's supreme won't die.
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Nov 13, 2018 20:55
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Astrochicken posted:Coven was great. Loved the bitchy witches catfighting. AHS is all about watching theater goddesses and gay men chew scenery. There's nothing wrong with that but the big problem with Coven is the first two seasons weren't like that. Even Freakshow, Cult, and Roanoke aren't like that. Coven blindsided the viewership with a full on Ryan Murphy experience. I'm sure if Murder House and Asylum were more campy then Coven would have been better well received. Also for as much as this show features gay men "chewing scenery" it rarely leans heavily on it. Even the gay warlock coven this year was more about them trying to get their own power against the witches than them being gay. Sure they were a little over the top with the flamboyance but it worked well for their characters. Asylum and Cult both used it as a plot device but the lesbians in those seasons had much more to their characters than just being lesbians too. Same with Billy Eichner whenever he pops up. In fact I'd say the only person who's truly guilty of hamming it up and emoting way too much is Jessica Lange.
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Nov 13, 2018 23:01
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nikosoft posted:If you're not laughing every single second of every single minute, you're not watching AHS right! This guy gets it.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:13
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Doltos posted:Also for as much as this show features gay men "chewing scenery" it rarely leans heavily on it. Even the gay warlock coven this year was more about them trying to get their own power against the witches than them being gay. Sure they were a little over the top with the flamboyance but it worked well for their characters. Yeah, and I liked the explanation for that too. Women are just naturally more predisposed to be talented with magic, so it would stand to reason that any strong male magic user would probably be more in touch with their feminine side. I think it also helps with their portrayal w/r/t how we view them as an audience because if they weren’t gay, the whole “we hate the women!  ” thing would come off as much more misogynistic instead of being about coveting their superior powers. Also frankly it’d be far too similar to what they did with Cult.
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Nov 14, 2018 01:46
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timp posted:Yeah, and I liked the explanation for that too. Women are just naturally more predisposed to be talented with magic, so it would stand to reason that any strong male magic user would probably be more in touch with their feminine side. I think it also helps with their portrayal w/r/t how we view them as an audience because if they weren’t gay, the whole “we hate the women! I mean it does imply that flamboyant gay people are only flamboyant due to a high amount of estrogen. I'm not sure how well Ryan Murphy thought that one through.
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Nov 14, 2018 01:59
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I just assumed a Ryan Murphy show set in 2018 would have a good chunk of LGBTQ+ in it, in much the same way Stevie Nicks is a gay icon. Also tall dark handsome men everywhere and 'traditionally attractive' women played up as bitchy.
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Nov 14, 2018 02:14
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Doltos posted:I mean it does imply that flamboyant gay people are only flamboyant due to a high amount of estrogen. I'm not sure how well Ryan Murphy thought that one through. Not high estrogen, low testosterone.  Cordelia said testosterone interfered with magic energy. Though I'm not sure the witches ever did a scientific study of the phenomenon. They seem more prone to using tidy just so stories to explain their reality.I think it's more a nature vs. nurture thing. All the other warlocks dress like goth Liberace, so any new guy is going to try to fit in. All the other warlocks (and witches) act super bitchy, and that bitchiness rubs off on their young students. Because if testosterone was the real culprit, you'd think some power hungry dudes would be willing to give up their nuts for power.
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Nov 14, 2018 02:31
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Doltos posted:I'm sure if Murder House and Asylum were more campy then Coven would have been better well received. Critically, maybe. Coven is the most successful/popular season of the show.
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Nov 14, 2018 02:46
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I think they wrapped it up pretty nice tonight though I would have preferred maybe one less episode spent in the past, the final events felt pretty rushed. Angela Bassett returning was great but that's all we get of her? Also lol at that ending: So, I thought the reason Michael was the anti-christ was because he was conceived in the Murder House and Satan set things up so evil/ his avatar essentially impregnated his mother. But then we find out actually these two normal people (though i guess genetically perfect or whatever which is why they were initially sent to the bunker?) just happen to have another spawn of Satan with no (as far as i can tell) evil interference, the Devil can just pick any baby to become the next anti-christ? Kind of takes the importance of how Michael was conceived and throws that out the window. Also even demons hate their boss did make me chuckle
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Nov 15, 2018 03:52
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Great idea but horribly rushed. Loved the ending too which is a shame. I bet you could re-edit this entire season to get rid of a good chunk of episodes and be left with a ton of air time to flesh out the finale. The flashback episodes were just too many and it didn't give this finale the episode or two it deserved.
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Nov 15, 2018 04:10
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drat, the lighting in the swamp shack is not doing anyone any favors.
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Nov 15, 2018 04:12
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This is so anti climatic. This whole season was sloppy.
Tenzarin fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Nov 15, 2018 |
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Nov 15, 2018 04:29
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Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t there explicit dialog in Season 1 about the antichrist being the spawn of the living and the undead/ghost? E: I realize of course the joke is on me and this show has 0 rules.
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Nov 15, 2018 05:04
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Huh I would have put money down that this season was going to be continued. I think most of the professional critics and podcasters thought so too. I would have been completely cool if it ended with the witches instead of the nonsense tacked on at the end.
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Nov 15, 2018 05:05
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Also if you saw the end of the world and everyone you know/love die in fire and you had 1 chance to reverse it and all you had to do was kill 1 kid don’t you think you’d ya know, make sure that happened instead of commit a hit and run that he easily could have survived from
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Nov 15, 2018 05:07
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So.... the reset managed to still bring back Misty Day, but Myrtle is back to being dead with Madison in hell. Worse yet, Moira is once again trapped forever in Murder House, and all the ghosts there are back to where they were before Madison intervened, thus undoing one of the best moments in the entire series. And somehow, we have yet another antichrist in the making, which answers why those two were in the Bunker (and perhaps why Venable had her no copulation rule). So we had a season with some great moments, an interesting premise, all smashed to pieces with a literal time reset, and a skip forward showing that it was futile.
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Nov 15, 2018 05:13
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fullroundaction posted:Huh I would have put money down that this season was going to be continued. Look forward to American Horror Story: Armageddon in 2024, featuring the long awaited crossover between ApoCoven and Cult for one episode.
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Nov 15, 2018 05:16
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TheBizzness posted:Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t there explicit dialog in Season 1 about the antichrist being the spawn of the living and the undead/ghost? Yeah, that bothered me, too. It felt really cheap to have the rule established in season one, and then kind of confirm it up until the finale, when apparently that doesn't matter anymore. But, they did say that Satan doesn't just give up and he'll try again, so maybe when he tries again he has to take a different route. But hey, Queenie is saved, so I'll take it, I guess.
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Nov 15, 2018 05:19
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Why did the jet pilot disappear?
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Nov 15, 2018 05:21
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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:Why did the jet pilot disappear? All because they needed to add some more fake scares.
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Nov 15, 2018 05:27
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So did future Mallory off new present Mallory? God that was such a weird wet fart to close things off on.
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Nov 15, 2018 05:35
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hail satan I liked this a lot. Good season. Ridiculous without going off several diff story tangents and instead being ridiculous in a coherent way, so A+ to you AHS I felt this season was consistent and lol at tying the first half cast of characters back in by having who seemed to be our heroes at first be the ones to rev the prophecy up again real cute, AHS Felt a bit rushed but  season's been weird pacing wise in a few spots
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Nov 15, 2018 06:01
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Well that was certainly a season of AHS.
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Nov 15, 2018 06:13
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It's interesting that even the afterlife is affected by timetravel, since everyone was back in hell who started there Unless it's a jeremy bearimy
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Nov 15, 2018 06:21
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Why didn't they just allow Cordelia to die and give rise to Mallory's power as Supreme AT ANY POINT, including but not limited to: before Michael killed most of the Coven, before 7 billion people had to die, and before they put her under an identity spell risking a million variables that she would not join the bunker? Why did she even need to be in the bunker if they could just bring her back like anybody else? Why/how did the witches survive the nuclear blasts anyway, underground or no? Why did Mallory's powers continue to get stronger if she spent a good chuck of time unaware she was a witch? Why did Dinah have an adult son blissfully unaware of anything if she was previously the new voodoo queen? Why didn't the people whose souls Michael burned into nothingness stay gone, even after the time travel? Why didn't they go back to Murder House to re-help the ghosts (i.e. Moira?) Why do demons somehow remember the antichrist was defeated and become so impressed with a witch to the point they bring people back to life for her? Why do they even need demons to do that when they can apparently go grab Madison whenever? Why did Mallory, having successfully gone back in time to a point Michael was most vulnerable and totally unaware that he was the son of the devil, decide to defeat him by running him over with an SUV? Why did the boring couple birth the new antichrist when the entire point is for a ghost and a mortal to mate?! Why would anybody care when the witches can easily redo the time travel? Why did I want the son of the devil to win this entire time? Who was in the rubberman suit in the bunker? Why do I continue to watch this show? It's not good. I genuinely hope this is the final season. I can't take trying to excuse it while not being so disgusted that I quit.
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Nov 15, 2018 07:42
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OmegaBR posted:
A couple of your questions answered... Presumably, the young couple was a backup plan to bring the antichrist to earth in case Michael failed. This is why they had a "special gene", and were not supposed to copulate. The rubberman was a demon controlling the suit, according to an interview with Cody Fern (Michael) from Out Magazine. The Fuzzy Hulk posted:Why did the jet pilot disappear? I had just assumed it was a self-flying plane that a group like the Cooperative / Coco's parents had access to. The fact that it was self-flying was just a teasey moment. Also, based on the mentions of Brazil and how Murphy & Co often hint at future seasons, I'm going to predict that the next season will feature escaped nazis in prominent roles. sublyme fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Nov 15, 2018 |
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Nov 15, 2018 08:37
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OmegaBR posted:Why didn't they go back to Murder House to re-help the ghosts (i.e. Moira?) Maybe they will but yeah, I felt bad for Moira in the reset. That said her life is either was much less terrible without Constance living there, given she has no reason to kill herself now.
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Nov 15, 2018 12:55
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sublyme posted:A couple of your questions answered... The no bone zone was Venable's rules not the Collective's.
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Nov 15, 2018 15:43
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OmegaBR posted:I genuinely hope this is the final season. I can't take trying to excuse it while not being so disgusted that I quit. It's already been renewed for two more
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Nov 15, 2018 15:50
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OmegaBR posted:1. Why/how did the witches survive the nuclear blasts anyway, underground or no? 1. Magic spells + magic mud 2. Because in the new timeline, Michael was dead and didn't burn their souls into nothingness. 3. Because Madison was the one who helped them and she's not going to tell the other witches she did something not-bitchy. No one went back because they didn't know they needed to. (Or they just went back off-camera...) 4. They remember the Antichrist was defeated because....this is the timeline in which the Antichrist was defeated (by running him over with an SUV). They remember the event because it happened. 5. Cordelia couldn't return Madison and Misty from Hell. Only Michael could, being the son of Satan. Now that Michael is dead in this timeline, he is not around to get them back. Hence, demon help for Misty. I'm not entirely sure anyone actually wants to go back for Madison now that they don't need absolutely anyone and everyone they can get to fight the Antichrist. Dienes fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Nov 15, 2018 |
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Nov 15, 2018 15:53
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:The no bone zone was Venable's rules not the Collective's. Jesus I totally missed that the 2 Kids at the end were the 2 from the first bunker episodes. I just thought the 23 and Me thing was a nod.
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Nov 15, 2018 16:17
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I have a feeling the two season renewal made them completely switch gears away from the apocalypse part of apocalypse. Billy Eichner's character was completely forgotten and he popped up to stab Billie Lourd in the stomach even though he was pissed off at Cocoa. I'm also pretty sure the promos showed some sort of zombie/mutant group amassing outside the bunkers which never was addressed in the season. All the flashback episodes also kept them from having to go into the apocalypse part. Not to mention the time rewind. I think they realized they couldn't make three seasons of Fallout so they hit the brakes hard. Or they were in midseason and Ryan Murphy was like gently caress CGI and smoke machines go back to set pieces!
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Nov 15, 2018 16:39
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Doltos posted:Billy Eichner's character was completely forgotten and he popped up to stab Billie Lourd in the stomach even though he was pissed off at Cocoa. I'm also pretty sure the promos showed some sort of zombie/mutant group amassing outside the bunkers which never was addressed in the season. All the flashback episodes also kept them from having to go into the apocalypse part. Not to mention the time rewind. Stabbing Mallory made sense - she was with Coco on the plane as her assistant, she 'stole' his spot. Which he references when he stabs her. I did forget about his character for a bit - he didn't have much of a reason to show up in the flashbacks. But it worked - by the time we returned to the bunker in current time, I was so focused on the witches that it was an actual surprise he jumped out to get stabby like he did.
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Nov 15, 2018 17:00
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He stabbed Billie Lourd 'cause he was pissed Mallory got a plane ride to the bunker and he didn't 'cause he was stuck in traffic. re: madison, mallory comments on bringing her back and says she's just going to let her stew in retail hell for a lil bit first for funsies e: fb on eichner the funny thing is if he didn't show up to stab mallory, people would prob still be complaining he's a loose end we didn't see die in the ep the rest of the bunker did also I saw the young couple as either a. a backup plan b. simply another way the prophecy could come about or c. michael's true purpose was to bring those two together. when he died fate found another way to do so and bring about the antichrist that will actually end poo poo properly rather than have doubts/be held back by revenge like michael esperterra fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Nov 15, 2018 |
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Nov 15, 2018 17:03
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It’s odd how everything about this show is of top notch quality but they can not and arguably have never been able to land the plane.
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Nov 15, 2018 17:16
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I think Murder House is the only season with a relatively strong ending, yeah.
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Nov 15, 2018 17:18
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