When a new season of American Horror Story grows near, chatter abounds: What’s the theme? Which actors from previous seasons will return? Will Jessica Lange ever come back? (Probably not.)
Fan speculation took a turn leading up to this sixth season —American Horror Story: Roanoke (Season Finale, 10 p.m. Wednesday, FX) — as few details were announced in advance. Even the cast list was kept largely under wraps.
With minimal clues and hints dropped in teasers (emphasis on the tease), I predicted the theme would involve some kind of “meta” show within a show, a theory perpetuated by many fans and conspirators online. My guess was the plot would take place behind the scenes on the set of a horror film. Not spot-on, but not too far off, either. The show within American Horror Story: Roanoke — the first of a few, actually — was My Roanoke Nightmare, an A&E channel-style docuseries about a family that claims to have lived through an intense paranormal experience after moving into an old home in North Carolina.
My Roanoke Nightmare features interviews with the family as they recount their experience plus reenactments by a cast of actors. So nearly every character throughout the show is portrayed twice — once by an actor (for example, Lily Rabe as Shelby) and again by an actor playing an actor playing that character (so, Sarah Paulson played an actress named Audrey who was portraying Shelby).
Got that?
Halfway through this season, the docuseries ends and AHS breaks that show-within-a-show format. We watch a sleazy producer plot a second season of My Roanoke Nightmare — a reality special where the people who lived the original haunting and the actors who portrayed them all return to the scene to see if this crazy story is true. It’s the first time we see the group of actors as themselves, which really gives the famously stellar cast a chance to flex its skills — the caliber of which can’t be ignored even if you hate the concept or overall result.
We watch Return to Roanoke: Three Days In Hell not as a completed show, but in real-time through the surveillance in the house and the characters’ own footage on phones and camera. And let’s just say the horror becomes very real.
Notice how there’s more talk about the concept and twists than the story itself? That’s because American Horror Story offers more tricks than treats. The miniseries has devolved into a glorified Where’s Waldo for fans tuning in to see which of the many AHS actors who’ve returned for multiple seasons have returned again. True horror has given way to the creepily jarring, and while the acting is top-notch, the underdeveloped characters have begun to fall flat. And yet, each week I come back for more. It appears my persistence is about to be rewarded in this week’s season finale, when a really satisfying crossover is revealed: Lana Winters, Paulson’s character from Season 2’s Asylum (a journalist who gets Briarcliff Mental Institution shut down after being unjustly institutionalized in the 1960s) will interview Lee, the sole survivor/murderer from My Roanoke Nightmare. This will be the third role that Paulson has taken on in this season alone and the third television program within AHS: Roanoke.
Meta!
AHS has taken on a life of its own — it’s an entirely different beast than it was six seasons ago. It’s become something of a game for longtime fans. And even if there’s no winner, it’s still pretty fun to play.
Picks of the Week
Undercover (Series Premiere, 8 p.m. Wednesday, BBC America) – In this miniseries written by Peter Moffat (of Criminal Justice, the basis for HBO’s The Night Of), a British lawyer is to become the first black woman Director of Public Prosecutions, only to have her personal life turned upside-down.
Search Party (Series Premiere Monday, 11 p.m. TBS) – Arrested Development’s Alia Shawkat stars in this dark comedy about a 20-somethings who launch an investigation when an old college friend goes missing.
CONTACT JAC KERN: @jackern
This article appears in Nov 16-23, 2016.