Oh my, what a colossal shit-show of a finale.
I hate bashing this show. I really do, and I’ll reiterate my love for Asylum. However, when I’ve just wasted nearly 13 hours of my life hoping that the show would capture some of its earlier magic, you can imagine I’d be disappointed with the outcome. What we get with “The Seven Wonders” is a sloppy, rushed, and unsatisfying conclusion to a mediocre season.
Let’s start at the end with the Fiona-Cordelia scene, which in itself encompasses the season’s wasted potential. In fact, that may be my favorite scene of the episode, and I say wasted potential because it zeroes in on that mother-daughter tension that could’ve permeated the season and been a nice backbone for the plot, but wasn’t. Instead, the writers decide that because it’s the finale, now is the time to throw it in there for some emotional stakes. The problem is, we’ve spent the whole season wandering all over the place with Fiona and the Axeman and Cordelia and her eyes.
That’s probably the aspect that most hurts this season: the inability of the writers to pick and choose, to really put their efforts into several storylines rather than the plethora they actually have. As much as I was excited with the casting, I now realize that such an expansive group of characters only harms the show; there are a bunch of scene-stealers, but we never spend time with any of them to really connect with their plots.
That’s mainly the writers’ fault. Especially after watching this finale, it’s become evident that they just haphazardly threw things together in hopes of some kind of cohesiveness. Yeah, nice try. Also, in this finale, we see what’s probably the least interesting element of the season: the search for the new Supreme. I don’t see any reason to care about who’s going to be it and why she wants to be it; it’s just there, and it’s dragging down the rest of the show in the process.
But lo and behold, we get an hour of a cross between Top Chef and America’s Next Top Model to enjoy! Seriously, these witch competitions are the dullest witch competitions ever, and when Zoe’s Hell involves her breaking up with Kyle over and over, I’m at a breaking point myself. What happened to all that intended social commentary, Murphy? Where’s the feminism angle here, huh? This season has to be some of the worst, half-assed attempts at social commentary I’ve seen in my life, and to find out in the end that this is all just a big metaphor for gays? Please throw my television set out the window. Just give us the pure entertainment, not the “clever” handlings of race and gender and class, all of which you’ll inevitably shit all over.
In the end, we get Cordelia as the new Supreme, and it’s not very interesting. Madison leaves, Zoe dies, Misty dies, Zoe is resurrected (because of course), Fiona is alive…these should all feel like momentous changes. They’re not. I do have to say, though, that Myrtle Snow–the most consistent source of entertainment throughout the season–goes out nicely, yelling out “BALENCIAGA” while she’s being burned at the stake.
Finally, I have to say that I’m disappointed with Misty’s death. The show seems to just be saying that sometimes, life isn’t fair, but damn it, she was one of the most interesting characters in the early goings. I wish we could’ve seen more.
Okay, I’ll stop. Let me just say one more thing: That was awful, I hated it, I don’t know why I watched it, I’m glad it’s over, and I don’t want to speak of it again.
OTHER THOUGHTS:
-I did enjoy Stevie Nicks’ music video at the beginning. That had me kind of excited.
-Why can’t Madison just make Kyle stop choking her? Oh, logic. What a thing you are.
-Liza Minnelli talks about her new hip.
-I was hoping the joke that eventually became a Sound of Music jab was referring to Glee.
-I’m happy Reddick seemed to be having lots of fun with the character. It was about time he got to let loose a little; too bad it was in a shitty season.
-Those The Americans promos…best part of the night
-I wanted everyone to just die at the end. Of course, knowing the show, they’d all be resurrected halfway through the credits.
-There goes my hope of getting more Dylan McDermott tearjerking.
-How’s Fiona in Hell when she has no soul?
-That does it for my AHS coverage this year. It started off fine–I was probably high off of last season’s brilliance–but it quickly turned to shit. Join me next year for something in the 1950s, although I’m holding out hope we get something about a circus. One more question before I go…
-What was the point of this season? Seriously.
GRADE: D
Season Grade: C
Photo credit: FX, American Horror Story: Coven
Polar Bears Watch TV 
Yeah pretty much agree with everything here. I liked the season better than you did, but this finale was so so disappointing. I especially hated how they treated Misty in the episode.
Definitely not up to par with Murder House, and nowhere near the same league as Asylum.
Yeah, Misty’s fate…pretty depressing stuff right there.
This episode should have happened right after the Witch Hunters were revealed. They could have gone with either: Fiona is gone or simply does not care about the Fate of the Coven or: She is too weak to help, so a new Supreme is needed in order to save the Coven from the Witch Hunters. Instead there were no stakes except death. No one really cared about becoming the Supreme and neither did I.
I’d like to believe that the Sound of Music bit was about Glee, too, but let’s remember that NBC cancelled “The New Normal,” shall we?
Wow, it’s crazy, this review basically sums up exactly how I felt about the finale(I also reviewed it, and we both seemed to like and dislike the exact same things). Madison’s death was the worst though, she blew up a bus and all it took to kill her was Kyle strangling her(facepalm).
I’d say there was about half a season of good stuff to be found in AHS Coven. The major flaw was there was no tension. The fact nobody could really die deflated any real stakes with all the characters. You hit the nail on the head with this review, especially the lazy writing pertaining to hell. It would have been way more interesting to do 4 stand alone episodes with each character’s personal version of hell instead silly shallow vines.
Thanks for the recaps.
“The major flaw was there was no tension. The fact nobody could really die deflated any real stakes with all the characters.”
Yup, exactly, and it got to a point where even if the deaths became permanent, I just didn’t care enough about any of the characters for them to have any impact whatsoever. The characterization as a whole was just lazy.
Interesting idea about the 4 standalone episodes. I like it.
Thanks for reading!