SEASON PREMIERE: This new season of
American Horror Story begins on Election Night 2016, with both liberals and conservatives watching televised election returns, with polar opposite reactions, as Donald Trump wins enough votes in the electoral college to ascend to the presidency. Sarah Paulson and Alison Pill – stars of Aaron Sorkin’s
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and
The Newsroom, respectively – play a liberal lesbian couple haunted (in some cases literally) in the wake of the Trump victory, while
AHS stalwart Evan Peters plays a cult leader killer who revels in the new political and emotional climate. Some of the allegories are a bit obvious, but by the end of the third episode,
Cult has veered away in impressively unexpected directions – and there’s something to be said for the audacious approach of presenting the start of a new
American Horror Story merely by replaying TV coverage of election night – and underscoring it with ominous horror music.
For a full review, see Ed Bark's Uncle Barky's Bytes.