Review: American Horror Story: Hotel, ‘Mommy’

American Horror Story: Hotel has already gotten negative attention this week from the Parents Television Council who claim that the show contains “the most vile and shocking content I’ve ever seen on TV. Ever.” This can only mean one thing: Hotel is doing something right.

I have found myself, on several occasions over the past two weeks, wondering how they have gotten past censors to show some of the more….risqué scenes. The truth is, if you have young children that are staying up late enough to watch the show, that is a problem you should be taking care of in your own home because the rest of us are enjoying the show.

If those right wing parental groups haven’t liked the past two episodes, I am sure they didn’t appreciate tonight’s episode either. There was blood, murder, and gasp….homosexual innuendo. How dare they?

Angela Bassett finally makes an appearance this season as Ramona Royale, a 1970’s blacksploitation movie actress modeled after Pam Grier in her Foxy Brown days. Ramona is an ex lover/vampire creation of The Countess (Lady Gaga). They were together for a decade before Ramona fell in love with an up and coming rapper, the love of her life. The Countess, not happy to be left for another and not happy that her creation was creating, murders the rapper out of pure anger. Now Ramona wants vengeance on The Countess by killing the love of her life.

Iris (Kathy Bates) seeks the help of Sally (Sarah Paulson) to die after Donovan (Matt Bomer) professes his hatred for her. When he realizes that, despite all of the horrible things he went through with her as a child, no one will ever love him the way his mother does, he goes to the extreme to bring her back to life.

Tristan (Finn Wittrock) and The Countess plot to kill Will Drake (Cheyenne Jackson) and inherit all of his money. The Countess lost all of her money in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme and she keeps herself wealthy by marrying wealthy. I think this is another hint towards her being the ex wife of Mr. March (Evan Peters).

Alex (Chloe Sevigny) files for divorce from John (Wes Bentley) after Scarlett (Shree Crooks) reveals a crazy sounding story about his missing brother Holden (Lennon Henry). She believes that the family’s inability to move on after Holden’s disappearance has caused mental trouble for their daughter. This is, of course, until Alex discovers Holden in the hotel while visiting John.

John continues to search for the Ten Deadly Sins killer, as I have dubbed them. It will be interesting to see who the killer actually is.

This week wasn’t as envelope pushing as the past two weeks have been, but it certainly had some great plot building points towards future episodes. The upcoming war between Ramona and The Countess could potentially rival that of Fiona and Marie from Coven should they choose to play it that way. For now, however, I am more excited to see what comes from Alex’s discovery of Holden and I really want to see more of Mr. March as he is still the most interesting character on the show thus far.

Hotel is shaping up to be the best season since Asylum and I cannot get enough.

American Horror Story:Hotel airs Wednesday nights at 10PM on FX

========================================================================================================= Ann Hale is the horror editor for Pop-Break.com and a senior contributing writer, reviewing horror movies and television shows. Ann attended East Carolina University, majoring in English Literature. She is a collector of Halloween (the film) memorabilia and is a self-admitted opinionated horror nerd. You can follow her, her collection and her cat, Edward Kittyhands on Twitter and Instagram @Scarletjupiter
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