American Horror Story

AHS may no longer have the element of surprise on its side, but it remains, to quote the lyrics of a certain David Bowie tune performed by Lange, the freakiest show. One of us? Count me in.

Whom to vote for--Dot or Bette? Or will Paulson end up splitting the vote? The special effects are so seamless and Paulson's performance so memorable that it's not a completely incidental question. Then, of course, there's Lange.

Humor, terror, sex, death, camp, karaoke: No show on television has all these ingredients but American Horror Story.

There’s enough talent and intensity here for me to step behind the tent flap, to see if all this can cohere into something super freaky.

It's magisterially trashy: sweet, glorious madness.

Homicidal clown Twisty (John Carroll Lynch puts the horror back in Horror Story, and runs neck and neck (and neck) with Paulson’s Tattler twins as “Freak Show’s” most intriguing breakout character.... Elsa initially comes off as more cartoonish and less complex than Lange’s previous turns. That changes for the better once Lange lays bare the vulnerability beneath Elsa’s hardened exterior in a few poignant scene.

Freak Show starts off strong, offering more than just a taste of the spooky, bloody, quirky season to come.

The balance of story potential is more evenly spread this time out [compared to Coven].

It’s hardly [his crowning achievement], lacking the aggressive whimsy and emboldened storytelling that’s made him the pied piper to a nation of TV-watching weirdos, mocked and ignored. But there’s a seriousness with which he’s given this first Freak Show outing that actually piques more of a curiosity than trotting out the expected onslaught of spooks, one-liners, and cheekiness could’ve possibly be done at this point in the American Horror Story run.