As much as I wanted episode two of Coven to breeze past the infamous sophomore slump, it dabbled in the realm of mediocrity. One could claim that there was much action in this episode, but nothing followed through; it was mostly just exposition. Conversations were dry and were deprived of good character and Emma Roberts’s laughable acting did not help the story arch at all.
The one thing I loved about the first episode of the season was that it set the overall tone very well with it’s rich narration and storytelling. The episode was filled with amazing dialogue that made audiences fall in love with our favorite actors all over again, but tonight’s episode lacked this pizzazz.
It began like a late night crime thriller with previously dead witch Misty Day resurrecting two hunters’ alligator kills and forcing the reptiles to eat the hunters alive. The scene had some great special effects but I feel it was mostly done as a quick scare, making it no better than lame modern big budget horror films that just say “Boo!” the entire time. American Horror Story‘s fan-base isn’t composed of people who want jump scares; they enjoy eerie suspenseful situations with much build up and a large climax.
The main draw of last night’s program was the resurrection of everyone’s favorite frat brother Kyle Spencer (Evan Peters) after movie star witch Madison Montgomery flipped the party bus he rode in. Our two main characters waltzed right into a secured morgue facility with the explanation that movie star Madison Montgomery had previously learned how to break locks after shooting for a movie about a cat burglar. They then pieced together different parts of the fraternity brothers to make one perfectly featured gory boyfriend whom they then resurrected with a spell that Madison stole from the headmistress of their witchcraft school. Emma Roberts awkwardly repeated the words from the spell to the audience with strobe lights and smoke machines firing behind her. The girls drew a satanic pentagram on their new creation’s body and pledged to the underworld to bring back the soul of Kyle Spencer. All while this was happening, my face contorted into a quite displeased form as I was unsure if I was watching American Horror Story or if my hand had accidentally hit the remote and I was actually watching weird local programming.
The one thing I did like about this episode was the infertility battle that headmistress Cordelia Foxx faced with her husband. Early in the episode they visited a doctor who told them that it was unlikely for them to naturally conceive a child and Foxx’s husband suggested they use witchcraft to help increase their chances of conception, a thought originally denied by Cordelia as it dabbled in dark magic which she never wanted to touch. Nevertheless, later in the episode, she formed some sort of ritualistic circle with snake eggs and charcoal galore where she and her husband “made magic” and most likely finally conceived their future child.
Moving to the uneventful dialogue I was speaking of was Fiona Good’s conversation with the powerful voodoo queen Marie Laveau (Angela Bassett) who possess the fateful key to immortality, the secret which Fiona so wishes to uncover. We find out in their conversation that she and Fiona’s ancestors have been colliding for centuries now and the fact that Fiona wants something of Laveau’s is quite scandalous. The conversation “ends” with a snide remark from Fiona Good’s actor Azura Skye as she walks out the door of Laveau’s hair salon leaving the conversation open for the next time they meet.
Maybe I am being a bit eager with my story progression, but I am not one to leave multiple stories, even small ones, busted wide open so that later they can be picked up. I am reminded a lot of one of my favorite TV shows LOST, which was so ambitious in the beginning that they left so many things open at the end, and I hope Coven doesn’t fall into the same void of untwisted ends just like that show did. 7.5/10
Alex Troutt/Senior Staff Writer
