My Review of American Horror Stories: "Milkmaids"

 

Written by Our Lady J

Directed by Alonso Alvarez

Pastor Walter (to Thomas): "Never trust a milkmaid."

Er, actually if this episode was anything to go by, it's more a murderous child that you shouldn't be trusting. The milkmaids in question were actually trying to do some good for their smallpox infected village. Too bad no one actually bothered to listen to them.

Yes, the milkmaids included a current prostitute named Celeste (Julia Schlaepfer) who had sex with the absolutely abhorrent Pastor Walter (Seth Gabel) who spurned her once he had seen her sores and pusses while at the same time also being talked into another cure for smallpox by grief stricken father, Thomas Brown (Cody Fern).

The cures for smallpox in this episode were either puss by Celeste or eating smallpox victims hearts. Neither was a particularly appealing prospect but in terms of characters, this was an episode where the male characters were anything but sympathetic. Walter aside, both Thomas and his psychopath son, Edward (Ian Sharkey) also had their terrible moments.

As the episode unfolded we learned that Thomas was married to Celeste and took Edward away from her and when Celeste reunited with the latter, she ended up dead as a result. Not to mention that Thomas was willing to kill Celeste when he realised that she was involved with fellow milkmaid and woman of science, Delilah (Addison Timlin).

The romance with Celeste and Delilah was the better part of the episode. Some great chemistry with the two of them as we saw a newish take on the faith vs. science debate regarding the smallpox plotline. Too bad that the relationship ended on a deadly note.

As for the smallpox plot, it was done decently and hopefully by doing it here, it'll likely stop the main series from doing something more current. However given some of the rumours circling the upcoming season, this might not be the only time we see this sort of theme in this franchise.

- This episode was meant to be the seventh one this season but got moved up. I'm still not sure why episde have been shuffled this year.

- This episode was written by Pose scribe Our Lady J while Julia Schlaepfer played Alice in The Politician.

- For some reason, this episode wasn't online this morning but at least it got released a few hours later.

- Chronology: 1757 New England.

Milkmaids definitely had some really gory moments that made me glad that I wasn't eating anything at the time. Gory stuff aside, its definitely the strongest one since the opening episode and this season has continued to show an improvement.

Rating: 7 out of 10