The Seven Wonders of American Horror Story makes me hope they've got a series in the works

I looked forward to American Horror Story: Coven every Wednesday night because it was the kind of garbage that I really like to watch and sadly, it's over. So now I feel I must weigh in on the season finale called "The Seven Wonders" because I have oh so much to say about it.

To get the good out of the way, AHS: Coven was as insane as its predecessors and that's a good thing. Chicks casting magical spells and dying only to come back to life to just die again was done in grandiose and oftentimes ludicrous fashion. And how can you go wrong with Stevie Nicks just randomly turning up for a music video of "The Seven Wonders" to hand out shawls to all the girls who are trying to become the Supreme? And that's basically where the good ends.

The bad (as usual) starts with questions. I know...why must I ask questions? Why can't I just watch and be done with it? I guess that's just how my brain works, so here they are:

Why was Stevie Nicks even there? She's not a witch, yet she randomly shows up to hand out shawls? Maybe it was for the benefit of Misty Day who had a real honest to god chance to be the Supreme, only she died and her body became dust. Which leads me to my second bone to pick with this series. Why oh why was a character as cool as Misty Day just allowed to die and turn to dust? This is the same witch who brought alligators to life so that they'd eat a camp of hunters, the same witch who healed Frankenkyle and who brought Myrtle back after she got burned at the stake. This is the same witch that kicked the sh*t out of Madison when Madison buried her alive.

Coven was also as disjointed as HBO's True Blood (that has six-hundred different characters). Was this show supposed to be about a magical sisterhood? Or was it supposed to be about an ancient rivalry between an immortal witch and the most powerful witch of her generation? Or was it supposed to be the story of a young girl cast out of her home to find solidarity with others who are like her? Or was it supposed to be about a Bible-banging, husband-murdering woman with an incredibly handsome and innocent son that she abused by giving him borax enemas only to kill him and burn his body to ashes? Or maybe it was about trying to find some kind of redemption for a truly rotten woman that didn't quite work out? Or last, maybe it was about witches gathering together to take a stand against an ancient order of witch hunters who own a billion dollar corporation and want nothing more than to stamp magical women out of existence?!

And oh the extraneous characters! Why did we even have Luke? What purpose did he serve other than to be some lame love interest for Nan who ended up getting sacrificed to the ruler of the underworld: Papa Legba? And Luke managed to uncover something terrible his mother did right before she murdered him, only to get murdered by Nan. And Marie Laveau died by falling down some stairs? Seriously? Honestly, there was no point to any of this. And why did Cordelia end up being the Supreme? She was completely useless all season, and in the season finale, Myrtle turns to her and just randomly says, "It must be you" or something like that and of course she is. The whole "Supreme" reveal was lame. Half of the coven died off under Cordelia's watch, she stabbed out her regrown eyeballs to get her powers back (and that didn't happen), and she was so incompetent she didn't know her husband was a witch hunter.

Coven was ALL of these things all at once, and that's probably why it felt like there was too much going on at times. Any one of these stories could have been a great season unto itself, but I think it tried to do and be everything when what it needed was more episodes and more focus.

However, I did love the idea of the witch coven, and I thought the test of the seven wonders was brilliant. Who knows, maybe there's enough material here to warrant its own series in the future. I think that might make me happier (and maybe I'd stop referring to it as indulgent trash fiction).

Did you watch American Horror Story this season? If so, what did you think of it?

Is Luke the new supreme on American Horror Story

Poor shirtless Luke and his mother prior to the
Borax enema that she forces him to use
in order to clean the evil out of her son. He's
becoming a more interesting character with
each new episode mmhmm

This week's episode of American Horror Story (it shows late Wednesday night on FX) had the coven witches basically looking for their next Supreme. For the uninitiated, there is always one witch of every generation who demonstrates powers above and beyond the rest. When this new person arrives, the powers of the old supreme begin to fade and the new one begins to come into their own.

Previously, I assumed that the new supreme must have been Zoe. But that is way too obvious for this show. So I started to look deeper. With the appearance of a male witch on the council, it started me thinking that (if a man could be a witch) a man could be the supreme.

Enter Luke Ramsey (played by Alexander Dreymon). Earlier in this season, Nan and Madison paid a visit to the next door neighbors (where Luke lives with his super religious mother) and we just assumed that Madison set the drapes on fire. But I don't think Madison is the one responsible. I think Luke set the drapes on fire because he was also in the same room. Additionally, in the Halloween episode where the zombies sent by Marie Laveau were thwarted (seemingly by Zoe) Luke was in the car outside with Nan and it's possible he may have been responsible for what happened to the zombies. Marie Laveau woke up and said, "They've got some kind of power in that old coven house!" or something similar to that when the zombies all collapsed back into moldy corpses.

A funny pie chart that doesn't include Luke, courtesy
of starcasm.net.

Other evidence that Luke is the supreme? We know a supreme is super healthy and we've seen enough of shirtless Luke to know he fits the bill. Additionally, his own mother says that he's got some kind of evil inside him, even going so far as to give him a (was that borax?) enema in the tub just to clean him out from the inside (what a disturbing scene) and then locking him in the closet.

So here's my educated guess (as I find these little mysteries insanely fun to figure out before the big reveal): Luke is the new supreme. What do you think? Yes? No? If no, then who do you think it is and why?

This week's American Horror Story brings up an idea that I find disturbing and wonder if it's true

Kathy Bates joined the cast of American Horror Story this season, and she's playing Madame LaLaurie, an actual woman from New Orleans history who did horrible things to her slaves. Transformed into an immortal through the magic of voodoo queen Marie LaVeau, Madame LaLaurie is a pretty despicable person. She's murdered babies for their blood to make a poultice to keep her young, mutilated people, and just in general expressed a lot of delight while others around her suffered.

Delphine LaLaurie and Queenie (in the back). Queenie's witch power
is to be a living voodoo doll. Basically anything she does to
herself can be inflicted on another person.

So in Wednesday night's episode, she's cutting some sandwich meat in the role of "maid" some 200 years removed from the actual time period that birthed her, and explains to Queenie (played by black actress Gabourey Sidibe) and states that she's trying to be good. She says, "I'm learning. That was a different time. I'm learning to be good from people like you."

Now, this episode had A LOT of things in it. We had our first undead threesome, we had one of the best "I'm a millennial and people assume we are all about entitlement and narcissism" speeches ever, and we saw that Marie LaVeau has a throne of alligators that outdoes Katy Perry's throne in the music video "Roar" (If you haven't watched "Roar" you should because it's full of awesome!) But the one thing that stuck in my mind was this line from Madame LaLaurie.

Marie LaVeau 1 Katy 0

Is she saying that "good" can actually be taught? If that's so, can "evil" actually be taught?

Guys, maybe I've grown up in a bubble, but I kind of believe that true evil just exists, and you don't have to be taught that. It just happens and those of us that aren't evil are left to pick up the pieces. The same way with good. If you are truly a "good" person, it just happens. There's not a cruel bone in your body. You feel compassion for others and you follow a moral compass that unabashedly points true. Someone that's "good" is the kind of person that would give someone the shirt off their back and make do without one. That's what "good" is.

So I guess I'm soliciting some opinions from you all on this. Can "good" actually be taught? Can "evil" actually be taught? Now just to be clear, I'm not talking about lawful or illegal behavior. I'm not talking about a person doing what's right because they make a choice based off of repercussions that might happen if they don't do what's right. I'm talking about actual goodness that goes down through all the layers and into the very center of who we are. Is that something that can be taught? Or is it something like blue eyes...you either have it or you don't.

I suppose that "teaching" is in line with this season's American Horror Story. After all, it takes place in a witch's school, and class is now in session.

Zombies with flesh falling from their ancient bones assaulting an old New Orleans mansion filled with witches is just plain awesome.

In glorious Halloween fashion, American Horror Story: Coven unveiled its best episode yet last night, and it truly makes me want to write a story about wicked witches. This season has been great. For those of you who don't know, American Horror Story starts and finishes a story arc within each season. They reuse the actors and actresses from the prior season, but the stories are completely unrelated. The first season was a haunted house set in the present. The second season was an asylum set in the 1960's. And the third is in New Orleans at an academy for young witches.

In Coven, New Orleans has been divided in half between two witch clans much like gangs would work out territorial boundaries among themselves in modern day Los Angeles. The "colored" witches as they are referred to in the show follow Marie Lavaeu who we now know is capable of granting immortality, eternal youth, and has the power to raise an army of zombies. She's essentially two-hundred (or more) years old and signed a truce with the former "Supreme" of the other witch clan so that they'd stop warring with each other.

Jessica Lange plays Fiona "the Supreme" in American Horror Story: Coven

The other clan of witches has a council, is mostly made up of white folks, and is led by a witch (the Supreme) who manifests an incredible amount of powers. Jessica Lange fulfills this role quite nicely and honestly she still gets the best lines. The one that caught my ear last night happened while she dressed in front of a mirror for Halloween and finished by donning a pointy black hat and said, ""Tonight I'm going to let the whole world in and get a good look at me. Who's the baddest witch in town?"

The council of witches. They've come to New Orleans to bring Fiona to justice. It's gonna get interesting.

I really like where this season is going. It looks like there's a war brewing between witch clans as the truce worked out between Marie Laveau and the former "Supreme" has been shattered by Fiona. I expect the fireworks to be impressive because Fiona seems to wield the more "in your face" powers like powerful telekinesis and the ability to manipulate fire while the Voodoo clan of witches has the power to create monsters. And lets face it, no horror story is good without some monsters. And zombies with flesh falling from their ancient bones assaulting an old New Orleans mansion filled with witches is just plain awesome.

I can't wait for next week and it actually makes me excited to know that the show creator, Ryan Murphy, is pushing to make this season spinoff into its own series. It's easily, the best one yet. So yeah, witches rule. But you women out there probably already knew that.