Thursday, August 04, 2022

My Review of American Horror Stories : "Drive"

 


Written by Manny Coto
Directed by Yangzom Brauen

Marci (to Paul): "I'm not doing this for the likes. I'm doing this as a public service. I am ridding the world of entitled assholes who think they're all that."

Okay, so the premise for this episode seems to be the combination of Urban Legend meets Promising Young Woman and boy, does this episode get it twisted in a way. I don't know what's going on with Manny Coto but he seems to have gotten his mojo back this season.

Anyways the episode focused on a young married bisexual woman named Marci (Bella Thorne) who has an open marriage, much to the clear frustration of her caring husband Chaz (Anthony De La Torre) and judgemental friend, Piper (Billie Bodega). Not that Marci's too bothered as she's having some fun times in her car with various men and women.

However the other reason why Marci's behaviour became a cause of concern for her loved ones was down to the fact that a serial killer was on the loose and people have gone missing. The episode allowed you to believe that Marci was going to become a victim of this mystery killer. It even went as far as to give a false impression as to who the killer might be as well.

This was where Paul (Nico Greetham) factored into things. Even though I knew there was a likely misdirect, even I entertained the idea of him being a killer and Marci going all vigilante to stop him. However this episode had a much different idea and one that actually worked so much better too in my opinion.

Revealing Marci as a serial killer and Paul as the good Samaritan who unwittingly signed his own death warrant by trying to save her was quite the surprise. Needless to say Marci gave Paul the lowdown on her method and the type of people she's been targeting before the poor guy suffered a pretty horrible off screen death in which Chaz disposed of his body.

Speaking of Chaz, he was about to leave Marci because he felt excluded only for her to turn around and give him a more active role in her work. I guess the couple who slay together also stay together. As for Piper, yup, it didn't end well for her either.

- Wyatt (Austin Woods) was also another of Marci's victims. The actor popped up last season on the parent series as a hustler.
- Marci told Paul that she had killed six people before she killed him. 
- The title sequence for this episode had a bit of a BDSM theme going on for it. Paul and Piper were bound and ball gagged before being killed off here.
- Chronology: I'm assuming 2022 in LA.

Drive was a pretty satisfying episode with a surprisingly solid performance from Bella Thorne as the morally grey serial killer. Even the slightly shorter run time managed to work in the episode's favour and it does seem like this season has gotten it's groove.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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