Wednesday, September 20, 2017

My Review of American Horror Story: Cult - Neighbours From Hell


Written by James Wong
Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton

Meadow: "Hello les. I think you're a horrible racist."
Ally (to Ivy): "That bitch hung up on me."

In this episode, Ally's accidental killing of Pedro could've had more consequences for her but it didn't. Basic self defense laws (in spite of Pedro being an innocent man) meant that she didn't face any jail time for her actions but it certainly brought about a lot of ire as she became labelled the "lesbian George Zimmerman" and incurred the wrath of her quirky neighbours from hell.

The Obama hating, gun collecting half gay/straight coupling of Harrison and Meadow decided to spend a chunk of this episode being suitably vile to Ally by calling her out on cultural appropriation (hilarious when they were wearing the sombreros themselves), putting up some horrible ads on Craigslist and giving Oz a pet guinea pig, which later came to an unpleasant ending that wasn't entirely shocking for this show.

Ally tolerated some of their new neighbours torments but the last one was enough to make her slap the shit out of Harrison before threatening to kill both him and Meadow. In those moments, I quite liked Ally. For the rest of the episode, the character still grated at times that when Ivy slapped her over the whole Winter situation from last week, I actively cheered the latter on.

However, whatever animosity there was between Ally/Ivy and Harrison/Meadow, the episode ended with them both set up as future targets for the killer (that smiley face in blood) and with Meadow supposedly missing as well. I don't know if Meadow actually is missing but I do know that both her and Harrison are linked to Kai and he certainly seemed to working on turning the pair against each other during his pinky scenes this week.

Kai mainly seemed to be taking a bit of a backseat this week but at the same time, it's like every episode has to go out of it's way to find some way to have him and Ally interact though. This week he was commending her for defending herself while trying to protect her from an angry mob. I have no idea what their next encounter is going to look like but I get the feeling that Kai will sink his hooks into Ally pretty soon as she's further isolated from Ivy.

- Rudy the therapist definitely seems to be involved with the cult in some way as that couple at the start were trapped in coffins to die pretty soon after his session with them.
- We properly saw Beverly Hope this week in at least two scenes and next week another familiar actress is back. Also are Harrison and Detective Samuels an item too?
- So is who is spraying the gas on Ally and Ivy's lawn in the middle of night and why hasn't Winter been fired yet?
- Chronology: From where the previous episode left off.

Bit of an oddball episode for me. Neighbours From Hell didn't advance the cult stuff too much and again, Ally's hysteria is beginning to lose my sympathy for her, even if she is being gaslighted by certain people. The scene where she talked about "cisnormative pet names" was some of the most vomit inducing dialogue ever spoken on the show. On the other hand, next week's episode looks really good.

Rating: 6 out of 10

No comments: