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AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
I really wanted Kyle's mom to just be a normal lady. Maybe the Christians next door could have been nice. This show, you guys.

So are we going to see Cordelia going off on Fiona for ruining her fertility plans? I felt so bad for her in that scene.

Also, wow, making me feel kind of bad for LaLaurie. She really has no idea what's going on and has no agency whatsoever. Kathy Bates is my favorite part of the show, now.

(I really could have lived without seeing Gaboruey Sidibe faux-masturbating.)

AGirlWonder fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Oct 24, 2013

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AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

Postal Parcel posted:

Oh yeah, I love when Fiona was just like "I voted for him[Obama], twice" and you could feel the disbelief from LaLaurie. Then she compounded it with the whole "There have been multiple black people in positions of power :smug:".
Though her whole "There's nothing I hate more than a racist" made me laugh a bit. I mean, it's definitely good and it keeps us from needing any sort of redemption or "Oh she's evil and racist too" elements, but it was just hilariously read.


Y'know, I feel like that bit was out of place. The conversation between Fiona and Laveau in the salon was about forms of witchcraft, but there's obviously something troubling about a white woman talking down to a black woman about "hammers chasing nails." They haven't established the reason yet for why the Salem witches and the Voodoo practitioners hate each other so much, have they? Those interactions are very racially charged, I think.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

Coconut Indian posted:

I'd have to watch the scene again, but now I'm taking from it that Fiona wasn't belittling Marie because she was black, but because she comes from a coven wherein the magic is potion and spell based. Fiona sees her own "tribe" as better because their magic is innate and based on focusing your mind. In the first episode, she's a bitch to her daughter about her "little potions [and plants?]" maybe because that falls more under Marie's type of magic. I think if she thought black witches were beneath her, she would not even allow Queenie to be in that house.

Or maybe she's just loving with LaLaurie, I don't know.

It's definitely primarily about voodoo versus traditional "witchcraft." But given that all of the former are black, and all* of the latter are white, there's a racial overtone. Fiona's speech about Tituba being an ignorant slave doesn't help.

*Queenie states that she is descended from Tituba, who was one of the voodoo practitioners.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

xeria posted:

It'd feel kind of weird if they try to redeem her outright, because she's an actual historical figure who was just loving evil as poo poo.

But she's already so funny and kind of sympathetic.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

Blazing Ownager posted:


My theory (mostly knowing outside information on the show's creative staff) is that they'll justify it as needing to be female on the inside, pretty much. I don't know why but I got the exact same "All the warlocks are likely gay" vibe.

Would they really do that? It's a very insulting/homophobic way of looking at gay men, that they are "female on the inside." I would be incredibly disappointed if they actually went with that.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

Women's Rights? posted:

I still love Julia's "I'm gay until I get a good dickin!" arc from Nip/Tuck

:stare: I only watched a bit of N/T, I was kind of young for it. That's horrible.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Uh, no. That thing is the reason I have to fast forward through the opening every week.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

ThatPazuzu posted:

Really? Huh. It's the least scary part to me because the CGI looks so fake and plastic to me.

It's something about the way it moves. And it's looking at you.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
She stuck her arm into boiling oil to burn a man for cursing at her over a burger. She stabbed a knife into her hand to get back at Madison for being catty. She masturbated the Minotaur.

Girl's got problems.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
I don't see any reason for Laveau to ever let LaLaurie die.

I'm so frustrated with Queenie for playing her like that. It's never cool to lie to someone's face about being their friend.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
It's neat that we have two "bad guys" (Delphine and Marie) this season who are both sympathetic (150 years in a box; lives to see friends and lovers killed) and both deeply racist.

I love to hate Laveau, though. She's so evil. I think I enjoy her scenes more than Fiona's.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
That explanation doesn't make sense, though. If the Salem witches' power is genetic, then how could it have started with Tituba?

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Hiring a witch hunter to genocide all the Salem witches looks like a villainous action to me, personally. Especially when it appears that it was the first act to violate the truce.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

That too. I honestly don't know why they even needed the enema scene from earlier, I mean who cares we already have an abusive mother plot, but a woman who murdered her husband with bees? That's an amazing image.

I really hated the enema scene. I know that this show is all about going over-the-top, but who the gently caress does that? Seriously. There are much more believable forms of child abuse (like what we'd already seen). Can we have one decent mother?

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Wait. Fundie Mom only knew that Fundie Son knew about the murder because Nan told her. He then started rambling about it right after waking up. If Nan hadn't convinced her that she could read minds and was speaking for FS, would FM have killed him? Is Nan indirectly responsible* for his murder?

*I mean obviously FM killed him so she's the one who's actually responsible.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

Fruity Gordo posted:

I do social work, and it's a lot more common than you'd think. :( Plus it's quite a well-worn trope in fiction about child abuse, Sybil being the most obvious case.

Family Values posted:

In the old days it was incredibly common for parents to administer both enemas and laxatives to their kids:

:stare: It's one thing for it to be a necessary medical administration, but holy hell I did not know it was used as abuse. That's awful.

EDIT: Well, castor oil as torture I knew about.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
A few things have been bugging me:

1. How did Misty have Stevie, her cabin, her knowledge of swamp water's properties, etc. two weeks after being burned? I thought she was part of the group that murdered her; she was shown worshiping with them, after all. Wouldn't she have lived with them as well? [Does anyone else think Misty would have worked better as the victim of a burning a decade or so in the past?]

2. Madison's heart murmur (or whatever) kept her from being Supreme. Do other conditions-- Down Syndrome, perhaps?-- have the same impact?

3. The witch hunter said they've been fighting witches for centuries, well before Salem. Doesn't this show Laveau's version of history (that the Salem witches stole their magic from the slaves) to be a load of poo poo? Why would she lie? Who started that narrative?

There's definitely more, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

VV That's fair. My phrasing was poor. VV

AGirlWonder fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Dec 15, 2013

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
I don't know, last episode was incredibly funny. I need Kathy Bates's singing as my ringtone, alarm clock, personal theme song, etc.

EDIT: I was under the impression that heart murmurs are a congenital defect. Down Syndrome/Trisomy 21 is, obviously, a genetic disorder, but I would assume they'd both negate the carrier from being Supreme.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
It's hard for me to see the actress, who is a DS awareness advocate, being willing to act that out.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Laveau's a caricature much like Fundie Mom. They don't represent who they are based on, or any real practices within those sects.

EDIT: And the people that killed Misty. Coven's really bad at portraying religion with nuance.

AGirlWonder fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Dec 17, 2013

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Screw that, I want to marry Kathy Bates.

VV I want the tiger shirt but if I wore the jersey I might get shot VV

AGirlWonder fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Dec 20, 2013

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
^^ That's an action/effect, not a motivation.

I just finished Asylum in a binge over 24 hours. Wow, it was great. I was concerned at episode 11 that the last three episodes were going to lag, but it worked out.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
That's fair.

I'm watching the pilot now. I didn't realize the crying masturbation scene (not really a spoiler but whatever) was in the very first episode. It's kind of hilarious.

EDIT: Also why would you not immediately tell your wife about the maid masturbating on your sofa? I feel like the overarching theme of these three seasons is ~People Are lovely At Communication~.

AGirlWonder fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Dec 26, 2013

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Something that really impressed me about the pilot was the argument between Dylan McDermott and Wife. Both the acting and dialogue were painful and awkward, which is exactly what fights like that are. It was hard to watch.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

ThatPazuzu posted:

This was my favorite episode this season. I mean, it wasn't great, but it was hilarious and in someways chilling. I'm not going to say it was flawless, the characters are one dimensional and the drama is artificial, but really it delivered on almost I want from this season at this point.

Agreed. This season is a total mess, but it's funny. This episode was hilarious. Boom, Misty's out. Laveau and Fiona look at each other and the next scene is Nan drowned in the bathtub. It's great.

One thing- that guy Madison brought back didn't look like he was all there. Maybe he's not.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

Random Stranger posted:


Papa Legba was cool. Why couldn't Fiona sell the show's plotline to him in exchange for being interesting?

This show has no plotline.

Coconut Indian posted:

I got the feeling that when he told Fiona that she didn't have a soul to trade, she was like, "Oh, yeah. Forgot about that."

I think so, too. "You don't have a soul" should be an earth-shattering statement, so her lack of reaction makes it seem like she's already lost it for something else.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
The season ends with Rogue waking up at home, realizing it was all a Freudian dream about her fear of sex and the loss of her virginity.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

nutranurse posted:

You know, I was typing up a post full of righteous indignation at the thought that some people might like the sadistic serial killing slavemaster, but who the poo poo am I kidding. She's probably the hero to some.

I liked her, but because she was one of the only fun characters this season. Her horribleness was entertaining, unlike Queenie, Fiona, or (for the most part) Laveau. And oh, how great it is that on the same episode Queenie tells Fiona to "have some respect" for Papa Legba, Murphy turns him into an analogue for Satan. My oh my.

Edit: I didn't like the torture porn aspect of Lalaurie. Her lines were funny as hell, though.

AGirlWonder fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jan 25, 2014

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

Doltos posted:

I don't care what her range is if she never has attempted to change up her acting in the last 40 episodes of AHS. It's probably not her fault that they typecasted her into a drunk old woman who used to be hot though.

The only person who really varied up her roles between the seasons was Lily Rabe. Everyone else is just a carbon copy of who they were in previous seasons. Again, not a bad thing, but I'm just getting irked over how much praise Jessica Lange is getting for stumbling around a set with a glass of whiskey in her hand every week.

I think Rabe is the only one with a wholly new character this season. Farmiga's Coven character is a weaker, wimpy Violet. Fiona is Murder House Lange. Kyle might as well be a cardboard cutout. Nan is a more fleshed-out Whatsherface.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
^^ Murder House was just so much better than Coven.

I liked the last two episodes, but they didn't make up for how horrible this season has been.

Hey, did anyone else get the impression that Madison never actually went to Hell? I got that vibe, but it may have just been me.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

P_T_S posted:

Flattered, but no. I came to that conclusion because there would be no other reason for Papa Legba to be in Axeman/Fiona's afterlife. (And to look so amused about it) The idea is that sometime before Fiona tried to summon Papa Legba, Axeman made a deal with him. It was most likely something cliched like he wanted her, body and soul or something. Fiona then is denied trading her soul for immorality because her soul is already involved in Axeman's thing, and Papa Legba seems fairly obsessed with rules. So he gets Axeman's soul as well as Fiona's and manages to Monkey Paw him by making his dream scenario into a nightmare wherein his lover doesn't even know what's going on every day.

As much as I like this explanation, I don't see any reason for Legba to not be in Fiona's hell. Queenie went to hers specifically to speak with him, and he claimed that Hell was his domain. Why shouldn't be be everywhere?

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Has anyone called Murphy out for how bad the writing was this season? I know Twitter regularly makes fun of Kurt Sutter, and I'm wondering if it'll so the same for AHS.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Hey who was Constance's fourth kid? Tate, Adelaide, Attic Guy, ???

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

ThatPazuzu posted:

Yeah, they committed on her having four but then couldn't fit them all in so they just forgot about the fourth child.

Oh, so they've always had problems with the writing. Gross.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Someone a few pages ago noticed that Madison was killed by the Frankensteined corpse of her rapists. That's troubling and gross.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
That's true, and she did rape him in turn. The whole situation with Kyle was creepy as hell.

quote:

Implying Kyle is only the parts he's made of, not the person he is.

I'll admit that I haven't thought much of Kyle as an independent person. He's not the same Kyle Zoe met at the party, and he's not Madison's rapist. But he doesn't really seem to have anything to him beyond "angry" and "loves Zoe." It's hard to see him as a person when he doesn't have a personality.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
I think I've realized part of what's missing from Coven. I just rewatched Murder House with my dad, and I noticed how engaging all the minor characters were. Everyone had a story, and everyone's story was horrifying. The Montgomerys were terrifying, the nurses and Elizabeth Short were murdered, Chad and Patrick were dealing with infidelity before their murders, etc. Every ghost in the house had their own horror story, and we saw it. It's much of the same with Asylum- the characters have these horrific backgrounds that we do (or don't) see. I'm thinking of Santa, here. It just makes everything so much richer. Coven just focuses on a few characters to the exclusion of everything else.

Speaking of the Montgomerys, something about the use of that piece from Dracula in their scenes makes them really great. I love those scenes.

AGirlWonder fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Feb 12, 2014

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

No Pants posted:

Someone noticed that Madison unknowingly found an object owned by Anna Leigh Leighton (the cigarette holder), and Cordelia didn't pass her last test until Madison was strangled. Which kind of raises questions that aren't worth thinking too hard about, I guess.

Didn't Fiona use that cigarette holder, though? I'd assume Madison had seen it.

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010

haveblue posted:



:stare:

Their names are Bette and Dot and I have no idea how they plan to accomplish the vfx on a TV budget.

As before, new thread when they release video.

Does anyone else think this looks really bad?

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AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
Is Taissa Farmiga not going to be in Freak Show? Boo! (Emma Roberts will, though. Great.)

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