The final two episodes of American Horror Stories, “Feral” and “Game Over,” should’ve been set up to be some of the best of the season. Then they actually aired.
The casts for each episode were the best things about them because everyone had great chemistry, but even they couldn’t save the episodes.
“Feral” tries to incorporate way too many things into a 40-minute episode. Is it skinwalkers, zombies, or ghosts? The audience is unsure until the very final minutes, all of which leads to an incredibly unsatisfying end.
The one bright spot is Cody Fern (American Crime Story), who’s playing a park ranger familiar with the area and its… inhabitants.
He tells Jay (Aaron Tveit — Grease Live!) and Addy (Tiffany Dupont — Brian Banks) about the people, the things he's interacted with in the form of a ghost story around the campfire. It’s a little spooky and a lot exaggerated and just what the episode needed.
However, it’s lacking in almost everything else. The premise is predictable at least in the sense of knowing the attack won’t come until the end, and that no one will survive.
You know almost immediately that Jay and Addy aren’t getting their son back from being kidnapped and that this is a ruse — and they still make it out to be a jaw-dropping revelation.
If “Feral” didn’t spend 30 minutes on build-up and 15 minutes on dark, hard-to-see jump cuts, or if the episode were a bit longer, it would be much better.
“Game Over,” on the other hand, has ins and outs for days, and I’m still not sure what actually happened in the episode. The convoluted storyline and timeline of the episode made following it hard and unpleasant.
This episode was somehow action-packed and still a snooze fest. We hopped out of and back into the video game multiple times – honestly too many times.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a video game for American Horror Story yet, but I know if the one from this episode ever came out I would not be spending money on it.
However, it is about time that someone just burned that damn Murder House down. The location was bought and new apartments were put in, with all but one ghost trapped in the house finally able to move on.
And unfortunately, the house burning down was the only memorable thing about this episode. Michelle dealing with trial and error in the video game sphere makes sense, of course, but with the multiple character arcs both old and new, it made for a very chaotic episode.
American Horror Stories relied entirely too much on the fact that the audience is meant to care for the characters we meet here — Michelle (Mercedes Mason - The Rookie), and Rory (Nicolas Bechtel - General Hospital), mother and son trying to create the video game together.
We also must deal with all of the ghosts already in Murder House, including Ruby (Kaia Gerber - Sister Cities) and the girls killed in American Horror Stories episode one, “Rubber (Wo)man”. Scarlett (Sierra McCormick - The Vast of Night) also returns as this episode takes place on and around Halloween.
Not a single one of them adds to the episode because what happens between Scarlett and Ruby is something we’ve already seen.
While we’re meant to feel bad for Rory, and even for Michelle, it’s hard to do so when Michelle is making such stupid decisions. There is no reason she should’ve bought the house just to immediately be killed, and that she’s so okay with leaving her son forever is… alarming.
Once again: the best thing about “Game Over” was when Murder House fully burned down. Let’s hope it stays that way.
What did you think of “Feral” and “Game Over”? Would you play the game Michelle made? Would you take a stroll through the national park featured in “Feral”? What was your favorite episode of American Horror Stories? Let me know in the comments below!
