Thursday, August 26, 2021

My Review of American Horror Story: Double Feature - Pale

 


Written by Brad Falchuk And Ryan Murphy
Directed by Loni Peristere

Belle (to Harry): "There's nothing more addictive than success. You've tasted it now and you're never going to be able to live without it."

Okay, so this first half of Double Feature has an overwhelming message what people are willing to do in order to tap into their innermost talents. You take the black pills (or the Muse as Austin referred to them), you either become something akin to a functioning bit hungry vampire or if you ain't got an artistic bone in your body, you become a flesh phantom.

Neither option has any real appeal but it's interesting to see both Harry and Alma succumb to the black pill and it's deadly side effects while Doris seems incapable of picking design patterns for one room, let alone design an entire house. I wonder if she's destined to become a flesh phantom in the next few episodes. I think she likely will.

Harry got an almighty high from the pill and wrote his best material, none of which we actually got to see while also succumbing to his own bloodlust, learning more about his new diet courtesy of Austin  and Belle. Harry even got himself a new set of chompers, courtesy of dentist meets tattoo artist, Leslie Feldman (Billie Lourd) or Lark as she likes to be called. 

While Lark was working on Harry's teeth and Alma took to eating animals to satisfy her own hunger, we also saw Mickey take the black pill too in order to finish his own screenplays. Karen, on the other hand, seemed adamant about not touching them, in spite of her own clear talent with painting.

I really enjoyed the scenes with Karen and Mickey in this episode. So far he's the only character on the show to have shown Karen some kindness, but like Karen, Mickey also has been depicted as an outcast. I was convinced he'd turn into a flesh phantom but that didn't happen here. Unless the process takes time. I mean at least one main character has to turn into one of them.

As for the origin of the black pills, Austin did give a bit of an information dump on it. Notably he referred to their creator, known as the Chemist and with four episodes left to go of this segment of the season, we better be meeting the character next week.

- Harry's script bagged him a Netflix deal and interest from Joaquin Phoenix, according to Ursula. I did cringe when he was gushing about Tarantino and Sorkin, though I got the point he was poorly trying to make.
- Belle talked about Burleson being a potential problem, which seemed to contradict her uninterested stance in the previous episode.
- Standout music: Massive Attack's Teardrops.
- Chronology: From where the first episode left off, then about a week passed halfway through. 

Pale kept up the pace, added more to the overall story while the Gardner family began to fall apart. The highlights though we're Harry's scenes with Austin, Belle and Lark more than his own family as well as the Karen and Mickey scenes. Two episodes in and this season has been off to a strong start.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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