Zoe Benson, a teenage girl, discovers that she is a witch and is sent to Miss Robichaux's Academy in New Orleans, Louisiana. She meets Madison, Queenie and Nan who are also young witches in training . Cordelia Foxx is the headmistress and her mother, Fiona Goode, is the Supreme of the coven. Other characters include fellow witch Misty Day, Fiona's rival Maria Laveau who is an immortal voodoo priestess, fellow immortal slave murderer Delphine LaLaurie, a cute frat boy named Kyle who is killed and brought back to life, and the ghost a serial killer called The Axeman. The season follows the plight of Fiona who is aging and is desperately doing all she can to stay young, the young witches each vying to be the new Supreme, a love triangle, Delphine adjusting to the modern world after being buried alive for a couple hundred years, witchhunters,Fiona's volatile relationship with her daughter, and her feud with Marie.
The majority of what I watch consists mostly of Asian dramas but I still occasionally watch American and British tv shows. American Horror Story is a show that I have kept up with since the first season. Although I really enjoy the show and find it unique compared to the usual shows found on American cable, I have to admit that the 2nd and 3rd season still fail to live up to the high standards set by the first. Covens and witchcraft are such interesting topics that are rarely seen in television land so I was quite excited by the premise. Sadly, the third season committed the same sins as the second by containing too many elements instead of focusing on a few. The first season focused solely on the house and the events related to the house. The second season, while still enjoyable, had way too much going on and that left little time for any one element to be concentrated on-aliens, a serial killer, genetic experiments, Nazis, religion, exorcisms, mental disorders, civil rights, etc. Like I was saying before, witchcraft is such an interesting subject that the entire season could have just concentrated on the coven and witch academy. But the creators felt it necessary to throw in racism, voodoo and slavery which could have had their very own season.
I felt that a lot of the characters and central story lines didn't get enough screen time because of all the other elements vying for attention. The character of Kyle is a prime example, he had the potential to be a great character but because of everything else going on he became merely scenery, a toy that Madison and Zoe fought over. His character became so unimportant that he was really a unnecessary part of the show. Evan Peters is a good actor and his characters were great in the first couple of seasons but he had little to nothing to work with this time around. Kyle's relationship with Zoe was also very unconvincing. I love the Tate/Violet relationship from the first season but that couple worked because there was build up and time focused on them, in Coven Kyle and Zoe did not receive the same amount of screen time and attention.
Along with Kyle, I felt that Zoe and Madison were extremely poor characters. Again, this mainly had to do with the amount of screen time the characters were given leaving little room for development. Taissa Farmiga was great as Violet but only decent as Zoe. Far worse was Madison, more so due to the actress. I haven't seen Emma Roberts in much else but her acting was pretty terrible-most of her lines and actions came across as forced and insincere. This was made all the more apparent due to the otherwise amazing talent of the rest of the cast.
Despite it's many flaws, I still enjoyed this season overall. Lange, Bates and Bassett were all wonderful and the characters (not mentioned above) were interesting. I hope that the upcoming season will choose to focus on a central theme but AHS is still a unique viewing experience that continues to fascinate with each new iteration.
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