‘American Horror Story’s’ latest season finds the fear in an oppressive reality where we are the boogeymen

“It’s the politics of fear. It always works.”

What frightens you the most?

Is it serial killers? Unrelenting ghosts? Murderous dolls? American Horror Story has been able to sustain itself for seven seasons by indulging in those fears of the things that go bump in the night. Moments into this latest season, right after Donald Trump is shown winning the Presidential election, a character remarks, “It’s the politics of fear. It always works.” This statement is met with many people commenting on how the “impossible” has suddenly happened. You think vampires, zombies, or aliens are impossible? You think murder houses and witch covens are impossible? This is the impossible. You’re living it.

This is a bizarre time when someone in a red baseball cap with four simple words on it can be just as terrifying of a sight as someone wielding a machete or chainsaw. AHS: Cult is all about tapping into that energy. Scenes of racist Trump supporters feeling empowered and validated so they’re able to prey on minorities because “their guy” is in power are put into great effect. These scenes are just as threatening and imposing as if an actual monster were attacking these people.

Cards on the table, American Horror Story is a series that I always want to be enjoying a lot more than I am. I admire the hell out of its ambition and the recent world-building it’s been doing, but it’s almost always a series that loses steam ¾ of the way through the season where the final episodes are a messy slog to a conclusion. Asylum is the one year that I think was actually able to properly contextualize all of its “everything and the kitchen sink craziness” (seriously, that season zips from Nazi body horror to Murder Santas to aliens, yet somehow makes it work), but it’s a series that always seems to have the best intentions.

Last year’s secretive, unique bifurcated approach for Roanoke was the right sort of idea and showed that this series was still capable of being innovative, but still ultimately crumbled under its own weight in a lot of ways. This season has gained a lot of attention already for not only being the first non-supernatural season of the show but that it’s also basing itself around last year’s tumultuous presidential election. Real life is scary enough at the moment, so why not dig a little deeper into that idea? In a lot of ways, this weird freedom allows the show to feel the most rejuvenated that it’s been in a long time and the series certainly has my attention in a way that it hasn’t had for years now. While it’s still entirely possible that this year could screw things up later down the road, AHS: Cult kicks off to a strong start that bodes well for where things are heading this season.

This season is really all about the people that are reacting in the most extreme manner to the results of the election. This puts Sarah Paulson’s Ally Mayfair-Richards and Evan Peters’ Kai Anderson right in the spotlight. Right from the beginning, the two are juxtaposed against each other in an effective manner that speaks to their power dynamic for the season. Kai celebrates boisterously, thrusting his pelvis at his television screen while praising, “The revolution has begun,” as Ally suffers a complete and utter breakdown. These moments might feel a little on the nose at times, but it doesn’t reduce any of this of its power. It’s a strong, obviously relatable way to launch the new year.

Both Ally and Kai and their opposing point of views are very much the guiding forces through this season and every scene that Paulson and Peters share is tense, electric stuff. One scene sees Ally and Kai having a tense chat about safety and power while metal bars between them keep them separated and really hits the point home. Kai essentially wants to use fear to “liberate” people and then use this power to lead everyone into a new age. Kai basically wants anarchy and with Trump leading the country he thinks that this is now possible. In a very twisted way, Kai is empowering others to act up in the same way that Trump has done with him. He wants to “make the world wrong” with his Project Mayhem-like cult, which seems especially focused on distressing Ally.

On the other side of things, Paulson’s Ally is a very damaged, vulnerable person and Trump becoming president has triggered all of her bad habits to return. While clearly meant to be the audience surrogate in a lot of ways, she seems to be somebody that puts a tremendous amount of stock in politics and the world around her. It’s rather telling that after every bad thing that happens to Ally, she continues to fall back on everything being even worse because of the election. It becomes her catch-all for everything and her go-to excuse.

One of Ally’s aforementioned triggers is her intense coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. This unfortunate fear of hers begins to attack her in what begins to feel like almost every other scene. Ally’s breakdowns are beginning to ruin her marriage with Ivy (Alison Pill) and her relationship with their son, Oz. Things need to improve for her, but Ally continues to become increasingly frayed and weak. As ridiculous as moments like Ally’s supermarket clown onslaught may be, they gain a lot more weight when hinting at the broken women and the truth that’s hiding behind it all. Plus, that Three-Faced Clown and Shocked Lady Clown are all sorts of freaky.

If American Horror Story: Cult does anything right in its introductory episodes, it’s that I already care about these characters a whole lot more than I have for the characters from other seasons, and that’s as soon as episode one of this year. It’s the most empathetic, human season of the series in years and that greatly helps in its favor. It’s surprising how much AHS: Cult gets accomplished in the premiere alone.

It’d also be impossible to touch on AHS: Cult’s heavy clown obsession and not mention that Twisty from the show’s Freakshow season is back! This is exactly the sort of “season stitching” that I want from the show. If anybody has to return, it should be this guy. His scene in the premiere tries to go against expectations while then shamelessly giving into them. It’s the sort of thing that feels like weird fan service at first and that it must be some sort of dream, only for it to eventually pull the rug out from under the viewer once more. It might feel indulgent, but it also leads to the reveal of Ally’s pivotal fear in the first place. With some of the other jesters that show up this year, Twisty almost looks like Krusty the Clown in comparison.

Clowns are creepy, sure, but a lot of the rest of this season’s irk factor comes from the way in which Kai manipulates his disciples. Kai puts into practice these pinky-to-pinky honesty interrogations that certainly take a page from out of Scientology’s auditing sessions. They’re moments where he gets to brainwash and learn everything about his followers. Watching him program Winter (Ryan Murphy putting his Scream Queens stand-out, Billie Lourd, to great use) to infiltrate Ally and Ivy’s life as a babysitter for Oz is really upsetting.

See, this is truly terrifying stuff. To have a psycho being in charge of someone’s child and in turn conditioning and brainwashing them against their parents is the real stuff of horrors. That messed up sort of behavior in plain sight goes on all the time and it hits a whole lot harder than some of the bigger horror set pieces from the past. Winter and Oz’ relationship is seriously unnerving, dreadful stuff. It’s very difficult to watch these moments. There’s a scene where Winter forces Oz to watch actual murder footage, insisting that it’ll make him stronger and “better.” It’s maybe the most disturbed I’ve been over this show in a long time, and this is still early on into things. Winter and Oz’ bond is certainly the most interesting and troubling aspect of the season so far.

Lourd is captivating in this role though and every scene with Winter is incredibly tense as you’re never sure what she’s really up to. Watching Ally get forced to become more and more dependent on Winter, who is just manipulating her, is also powerful stuff. Everyone is bringing their A-games with the acting this season, with Paulson especially getting pushed to the brink. That being said, her episodes become a little more reductive the more that they happen and hopefully the entire season won’t just be Paulson breaking down and being helpless.

There’s also an interesting development through all of this in the sense that Oz also suffers from night terrors (which lately seem to be filled with killer clowns) where he doesn’t have a firm grip on what’s reality and what’s a dream. With Ally going through an extremely similar type of trauma with her coulrophobia, the idea of having two characters that are unclear on whether what they’re seeing is real or not is a bold, but effective move. As long as it’s not run into the ground

On top of everything else, this season coasts off the idea of everyone being so convinced that they’re who’s right, which is pretty analogous for where things are heading. This season reduces graphic murder scenes to race-related issues and excuses to bring up deportation. The horror isn’t the blood on the walls, it’s in the police’s line of questioning. It all helps add to the overwhelming feeling that Ally is experiencing about the world falling apart along with her. Eventually, the issue of gun ownership is brought into the season’s discussion, with the results being highly inflammatory. AHS: Cult has fun with putting the “Stand Your Ground” law front and center and literally positioning one of the characters to be called a “lesbian George Zimmerman.”

Around the edges of all of this are Billy Eichner and Leslie Grossman as the judge-y neighbors next door, who certainly fit like a glove amongst Murphy’s stable of actors here. There’s also some evil chemical company spraying green gas everywhere that seems to have the season dipping into mind control or other crazy conspiracies, but we’ll see where all of that goes.

American Horror Story: Cult kicks off to a strong start, but there are still telltale signs of the show possibly falling into its old, frustrating patterns. There’s a strong, genuinely disturbing foundation to this season and Murphy and Falchuk’s dark, hyperbolized slant on reality fits perfect for a season like this. As long as things don’t become too repetitive and characters’ flaws aren’t hammered into the ground, then this could result in one of American Horror Story’s best seasons yet. Or as the president would say, it could be ‘uge.

This review is based on the first three episodes of ‘American Horror Story: Cult’s’ eleven-episode season.

‘American Horror Story: Cult’ begins on September 5th at 10 pm on FX.