Episode Title: "Bitchcraft"
Episode Grade: B
"Bitchcraft" is a season premier that begins with Kathy Bates ripping out the tongue of a slave who had sex with her daughter and placing a bull's head on him so that he can be her personal minotaur and ends with Jessica Lange removing her from the coffin in which she had been buried alive for approximately 170 years. In between, Julia Roberts' niece uses her mind to crash a bus carrying the frat boys who raped her, Gabourey Sidibe stabs herself with a fork in order to hurt Roberts and Taissa Farmiga sexes two guys to death.
So, you know, there's that.
It's impossible to go into a season of American Horror Story without hearing stories from those who are loyal viewers. Created by Ryan Murphy, the mind behind Nip/Tuck and Glee, American Horror Story is, if nothing else a thoroughly unique concept. A horror anthology that deals with a standalone story every season, AHS has a reputation as one of the weirdest, most spectacular shows on TV.
As there's precious little batshit crazy in my life not provided by the House Republican Caucus, it seemed like it could be fun jump to into the third season of AHS' run. And based on "Bitchcraft," well, it seems like that was a reasonable bet.
The premiere doesn't really rise to the level of insanity one often hears ascribed to AHS, and considering what I described in the opening paragraph that says something. There are some elements here that will make your eyes roll, and some moments that are surprisingly boring. But considering that this is part season premiere, part pilot, and considering the...let's call it "convoluted" subject matter, "Bitchcraft" is also a thoroughly intriguing introduction to the universe.
Let's start with the negatives and the elements that would seem to augur poorly for the future of the season. This starts with Farmiga, who plays "Zoe," the closest thing to a protagonist we have so far. Zoe is introduced accidentally killing her boyfriend during their first sexual encounter. It's a horrifying scene, surprisingly gory (Zoe's boyfriend puffs up and bleeds out quite grotesquely), and Farmiga doesn't convey the awfulness of the moment.
She is, in fact, largely inert throughout the episode. That works at certain moments, such as a scene toward the end of the episode in which she coldly, deliberately has sex with a comatose frat boy in order to kill him, but mostly it just makes scenes in which she's featured slowly wither and die. And this is a problem, as Zoe promises to be the focus of a lot of scenes this season.
Now, what works in "Bitchcraft?" This starts with the dynamic between Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson. Paulson is the head mistress of the Robichaux Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, the school for witches where Zoe is sent after her little episode. Lange is her mother and the existing "supreme," which makes her sort of the Mike Trout of witches: well-rounded and skilled in all the black arts. And Mom wants to help with the grooming of Paulson's charges.
And the two hate each other. The tension in their scenes together is noticeable and venomous. Paulson and Lange are both skilled, veteran actresses, and the edge to their interactions is one of the best elements here. Paulson puts a nice capper on things with, "When are you gonna die and stop ruining my life?"
But what truly marks "Bitchcraft" is the atmosphere that's nurtured throughout. This is sometimes achieved through setting and action; the attic torture chamber where Kathy Bates (who's is given the not-at-all-annoying-to-type name of "Delphine LaLaurie") keeps her mutilated slaves is particularly gruesome.
But there's also a lot that's achieved here just through camera work and lighting. When Emma Roberts, playing a movie star named Madison Montgomery, drags Zoe to a frat party, director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon makes a (rather massive and well-adorned) frat house look creepy and horrifying through the use of long, high shots and camera angles that make distort the setting.
The setting is paid off with a fairly predictable set of developments: Madison acts snooty and insulting, a jackass frat boy drugs her drink and he and a bunch of his brothers rape her and film the act. Then, as they flee the scene in their party bus, Madison concentrates and flips their bus end-over-end, killing seven of the nine brothers on-board. Which is less predictable.
Gomez-Rejon uses similar camera tricks to create a slightly different effect when Zoe visits the hospital in search of the (not nearly as rapey) frat brother she met at the party. The fish-eye lenses and wide, high angles don't so much make the hospital a haunted house as they frame Zoe's distance and alienation from everyone around her. She seems far away from people she's standing next to, almost as if she's a visitor to a distant world.
"Bitchcraft" is mainly table-setting, which is a reasonable enough ambition for a season premier. Exactly what's on the table is still far from clear. But that's very much to American Horror Story's advantage. Better to tease the crazy than to unveil it, shrieking and gibbering, too early.
Notes
- Kathy Bates is undone when Angela Bassett, playing the lover of the en-bulled slave, gives her an "eternal youth" potion that's apparently poison. Then Jessica Lange digs up her coffin and lets her out 170 years later, no worse for wear.
- Bates' slave attic includes a man with no face and a man whose eyes and mouth have been sewn shut.
- Lange (her character is named Fiona) is apparently obsessed with eternal youth and beauty herself. We'll see where that goes, but this is a fairly cliched plot, and it feels like we've seen all possible permutations of it.
- I hope Zoe's voiceovers aren't a continuing element this season. They're not of much use, though I'll admit I laughed when Farmiga matter-of-factly states, "So apparently I'm a witch," as if she just remembered where she lost her pen.
- Sidibe, who doesn't get much screen time, is a "human voodoo doll" who can hurt other people by hurting herself (she feels no pain). That seems like a useful, if limited, power.
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