Friday, January 15, 2016

Recap/Review: American Horror Story: Hotel - Be Our Guest

Finale time and like previous one, expect a few deaths and an oddly feel good feeling as we take one last look into the Hotel Cortez and it's murderous residents.

Written by John J. Gray
Directed by Bradley Buecker


Plans For The Future: Since the Countess was taken out, both Iris and Liz effectively took over the Cortez, modernised the shit out of the place but with the likes of Will and Sally unable to quench their bloodlust, it was up to both Iris and Liz along with March to get the rest of the ghosts (Swedish girls, guy they killed, Miss Evers, hot lumberjack dude and Marcy the realtor to name a few) in order along with finding ways of keeping Will and Sally in line. This was achieved by inspiring the former (Liz excelled here) and introducing the latter to social media (Iris's bright idea). Now if only they had thought about these things earlier in the season. Oh well.


Death By Violent Kindness: This finale had Liz being the main point of view character and when her and Iris weren't bringing the Cortez into a whole new era, they were also talking to both Donovan and Tristan via the help of another past season character. We also had Liz become a grandmother and then learned that she had prostate cancer, which resulted in her decision to get the ghosts to band together and kill her so she wouldn't leave the Cortez. I have to admit it was a nice move having the Countess be the one to do it and a part of me did like the reunion between Liz and Tristan as well, even if the show should've done a better job earlier in the season fleshing out that relationship.


Ghost Whisperer: Keeping with the Murder House connections, Sarah Paulson pulled double duty for this episode by reprising her lesser known role in the franchise as medium Billie Dean Howard, who initially had contact with Donovan and Tristan before using the Cortez to host a couple of Halloween shows. However when it became clear that she was getting a little too over familiar with the place, a certain departed spirit stepped into sort that problem. As an aside, can I just say the episode missed an opportunity by not having Billie interact with Sally and why is it that Paulson looked more like an older version of Cordelia than Billie in this one?


Devil's Night: Because Billie somewhat overstepped the mark in this episode, it was up to John (who had been caught/killed by cops close to the hotel) to scare the living daylights out of her. He did this by introducing her to Gacy Jr, Dahmer, Wuornos, Rivera, Zodiac and March and the desired effect took place as Billie ran screaming from the place - with a little help from Ramona too. While John did die outside the Cortez, he visits the place once a year and reunites with his family (Scarlet escaped being killed or turned into a vampire), so in a weird way he kind of got a happy ending as did virtually everyone to an extent in this one.


The Jawline Come On: Being killed in the previous episode, the Countess was pretty much relegated to two scenes in this episode. The first one involved her role in Liz's latest transition while the second one saw her coming onto a handsome man who looked similar enough to Donovan by commenting on his jawline. Something tells me that pretty boy won't be leaving the Cortez by the end of the night. Twelve episodes in and Gaga pulled in a decent performance as the Countess but this season belonged to Denis O'Hare, Evan Peters, Mare Winningham, Kathy Bates and Sarah Paulson. That being said, if Gaga was to return for the sixth season in any capacity, it would be fine by me.

I'll be discussing/reviewing the show's sixth season when information surfaces. I may also do a Top 20 Character list for the five seasons of the show soon though.

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