American Horror Story: Delicate
A review and analysis of what went wrong (and, no, it can't all be blamed on Kim K).
I’ve been imagining writing this article since the 12th season of American Horror Story (AHS) premiered in September of last year. In the hiatus between part 1 and part 2, I even read the book Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine, so I could do a book-to-show comparison.
But when the finale came and went a couple of weeks ago, it was just so bad that I kind of blocked it out of my memory and stopped forming thoughts on the matter. This was me:
One 5-minute YouTube recap later, and I’m ready to talk about it.
One reason I’ve struggled is because I hate to be a hater. I’d much rather talk about the many things I love than waste any more energy on things I don’t like, but it is a good week to be a hater, after all (cue BBL Drizzy).
Let’s Start with What I Liked:
Our main protagonist, Anna Nicole Alcott, played by Emma Roberts
Robert’s portrayal of this character at the helm of the show kept it from going completely off the rails. Her bleach blonde hair, pale skin and chic grey outerwear with pastel pops, had me seated.
Did I go out and buy a grey coat and a light pink hat? Yeah, I did. Which is insane. But that’s how good the outfit was. It was a “Cady wears army pants and flip flops, so I bought army pants and flip flops” moment for me.
The aesthetics of the show overall were really strong, especially the modern, upsacle New York City setting, which is totally new territory for AHS, and I was loving the architectural elegance of it all.
Speaking of… I have to talk about Emma Roberts’ amazing Architectural Digest tour, featuring her iconic weird doll wall… I mean I was hyperfixated on it for at least a week.
Back to the story, though: I liked her character a lot. We don’t always get relatable protagonists in AHS, and Anna felt like a real person. As a pop culture fan, it was interesting to follow the life of a celebrity rising to fame. It gave the audience an opportunity to see the other side of celebrity, and how she coped with the pressure of being stalked and ridiculed online. (Answer: Not well, bitch!)
Speaking of our culture’s obsession with all things celebrity, let’s talk about the Kardashian of it all.
What Didn’t Work
Kim K’s been having a rough month (sorry, Aimee), so I’m not going to pile on. I’ll just say, I wasn’t surprised when it was announced that she was joining the show. If you’ve been following AHS, you know creator Ryan Murphy has been introducing more and more non-actors into his projects.
The (terrible, sorry) anthology series American Horror Stories has premiered nepobaby supermodel, Kaia Gerber, featured scandalous former child star, Bella Thorne, and even featured plot lines surrounding micro-celebrity influencer “culture” that name dropped Tana Mongeau. It’s clearly a special interest of Murphy’s and potentially a selfish plot to gain celebrity friends and increase his personal clout? I won’t speculate.
AHS is incredibly pop-culture driven, always has been, and Murph is gonna choose the “iconic” thing over the better artistic choice. This season isn’t going to go down in history as an amazing piece of television, but it will go down in history as the show to premier Kim K’s acting career. So it has that going for it, I guess?
I will say that if they keep making these choices, sacrificing their art for what really comes down to clicks, it’s not gonna end well for AHS. And Kim K is never beating the Illuminati allegations after this role. So I doubt if either is all that thrilled with how this panned out.
And, lest we forget, Kim K isn’t the only non-actor on the show. They also cast Cara Delevigne, and although it wasn’t her first role, I still think she falls into the non-actor category, considering that her performance made Kim K’s look Oscar-worthy.
But even the best actors (I thought Annabelle Dexter-Jones as Adeline and Sonia was particularly well-played) couldn’t save the show from its subpar second half and truly terrible ending.
The Second Half
This is AHS we’re talking about. The show famously never sticks the landing. I think Coven is the only one with a satisfying finale, which is why it’s my favorite of all time (check out my ranking here).
The ending/last half doesn’t work because the show wastes time spinning up shiny new storylines instead of concluding what’s already been established.
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
Introducing Dex’s affair at the final hour was a perfect example of this — particularly sloppy and unsatisfying. And I knew it was coming! This happened in the book, so I was expecting the reveal that Dex was having an affair with the fertility clinic receptionist and that her involvement would explain some of the confusing things that happened to Anna early in the season. Yet, the way the show played it, I was still confused.
When Anna happens to run into the mistress (sloppy), and the woman just admits to it on the spot (so weird), I literally had to pause and be like, who the hell is this? We hadn’t seen her in literal months! Where was the foreshadowing?
Instead of building toward this affair or the “big reveal” in the finale, the show spends too much time on unnecessary elements like:
Dex’s dad being a Satanist and killing his mom.
The flashbacks from the super olden times.
The Rosemary’s Baby flashback/re-telling.
Ashley and Ashleigh, what was the point of them, and where did they go?
Those are just a few examples of screen time wasted that I wish they would have used to make the ending satisfying.
Now let’s talk about the literal ending, the final moments, where after having her satan baby, Anna wakes up, and Kim K’s character Siobhan literally monologues the entire plot: That she’s eternal and making a master race to form a matriarchy. Oh, and she’s so super powerful since she’s been alive and calling the shots for decades. Oh, and also, she’s actually Dex’s mom.
SURE, FINE, WHATEVER. It’s all crazy, which is fine, good even. I like crazy shit. But we cannot get all of these insane details in a monologue; show us, don’t tell us!!! We’re revealing the entire plot in the last 5 minutes of the show.
Anna decides, what she’s always decided (there’s no character arc, really), that she does want it all. She didn’t sign up for this satan baby witch life. She’s just a woman who dared to want both a career and a family. So she and the ghost?? (unclear) of her husband’s ex, RECITE THE HAIL MARY, and that literally explodes the villain's face off.
Is that not literally a deus ex machina?? I felt like I was being punked at this point and turned off the TV, pissed, and probably chugged a glass of wine, it’s a blur.
Fumbling of the Themes
The central theme in both the book and the show is the struggle women face in having to choose between excelling in their careers and having a baby. This is where the source material far exceeds the show.
The book Delicate Condition does what I think is the best thing a horror work can do: hyperbolize a real-life horror. The real-life horror in question: fertility struggles, IVF, the patriarchal industrial birthing complex, sexism in career (especially for women in arts and entertainment), cyberbullying.
This is fictionalized through devil-worshipping fertility cults, monstrous babies clawing their way out, thinking you’re going insane, trolls stalking you with voodoo-esque Barbie dolls — you get the gist.
Dex’s malignant gaslighting and Dr. Hill’s snide patronizing both showcase this concept really well. The way Dr. Hill looks at Dex and not Anna while he’s talking about what’s going on inside her body — I think a lot of people can relate to that. The book gets all of this across really well: Trying to have a baby while trying to excel in your career will make you FEEL FUCKING CRAZY.
The book explores the way women are villainized for wanting to have a career and a family. How it is the norm in our society that women should have to go through tremendous pain in order to get what they want, then they must smile and wear it as a badge of honor. No one ever asks, maybe this shouldn’t be so terrible? Maybe women shouldn’t have to endure this?
The men in the story are essentially sperm donors rather than fathers. They don’t have to choose between career and family. They don’t have to suffer to get what they want. It’s like that Fleabag quote, “Women are born with pain built-in.” It’s understood in our society that women must endure pain and suffering. Men, eh, not so much.
The show fumbles this important message. In fact, I think it perpetuates the narrative that women who try to “have it all” are evil, are willing to “sacrifice their baby” in order to have careers. The main antagonist in the show ends up being Siobhan, who is the epitome of trying to have it all as a woman, and she’s the villain. She’s contrasting with Anna, who really wants the same thing, making it not a real conflict. Which maybe is why they only gave us 5 minutes of screen time to sit with it.
I don’t mind that the show veered from the source material. I think all screen adaptions of books are forced into that conundrum. I just don’t think the show handled the complex themes with the care that they deserved in order to really resonate.
Rant over! What did you think of the show? Anything I missed?