Thursday, September 30, 2021

My Review of American Horror Story: Double Feature - Take Me To Your Leader

 


Written by Brad Falchuk And Kristen Reidel And Manny Coto
Directed by Max Winkler

Maria: "Mr President, it is you who will listen to us."

A tale of two seasons in one. A second half split into two. Perhaps they're taking the idea of duality a tad too far. Perhaps not. After six weeks in a cold town making up the events of Red Tide, how about a much warmer climate for the events of Death Valley?

Things open up with a normal housewife, Maria (Rebecca Dayan) finding her world turned upside down when an alien encounter results in her child being taken over and then herself. Maria then turn murders her own husband before taking her new fight to a higher place.

The higher place bring to the current President Dwight Eisenhower (Neal McDonough), whose already grappling with alien bodies and seemingly amnesiac and pregnant Amelia Earhart (Lily Rabe). He wants to reason with the aliens but they have their own plans and one President isn't going to stop that, no matter how reasonable he seems.

Cut to the present day and we've got some college students also about to be caught up in the extraterrestrial side of things. This includes couple Cal (Nico Greetham) and Troy (Isaac Cole Powell), wannabe Luddite Kendall (Kaia Gerber) and the skeptical Jamie (Rachel Hilson) who decide on a trip without technology to fall back on.

The trip in question doesn't last long when the group spot a sliced in half cow and end up having a strange encounter of their own. An encounter that then leaves all four of them pregnant. Yup, this opening segment threw in every possible alien cliche that the writers could think of.

With the two different timelines here and no clue as to how this will connect to the first half of the season as of yet, I really do hope the show hasn't bitten of than it can chew. Let this season come together and it make it make sense. 

- Sarah Paulson briefly appeared as Mamie Eisenhower. We didn't meet Angelica Ross or Leslie Grossman's characters yet.
- Legends Of Tomorrow tackled something with Amelia Earhart earlier this year, minus the pregnancy plot in this episode.
Death Valley got its own black and white title sequence.
- Chronology: 1954 for the first half of the episode, which was in black and white and 2021 for the second half of the episode.

Take Me To Your Leader definitely could have done with being a few minutes longer and while it didn't have the same impact as the opening episode of the season, it was a solid enough beginning for the second half. The younger cast were likable enough and hopefully the alien stuff won't be as cliched for the remaining episodes.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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