This episode was "A Christmas Carol". That's it. That's all. Multiple Scrooges being shown their past, present, and/or future by ghosts. Why? Is this for people that haven't seen "It's a Wonderful Life", or for the ones that are nostalgic for it? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Russell Tovey, and I'm glad that he's finally allowed to show some emotional range other than "tough guy" here. This doesn't pull at the heart strings the way his role as George in "Being Human" did, but he's really good at tears and regret. And I love Patti LuPone, both as a Broadway superstar and as an occasional guest on AHS. But her appearance in this episode was PURE CRINGE. It took a perfectly acceptable dramatic moment and poured hot, melted cheese all over it. It was an absolute "oh, no, they WOULDN'T" experience. And the entire episode was a metaphor. I think. It's hard to tell with AHS these days. Yes, hospitals are scary for some people, but nothing that happened is old-school AHS-level of scary. Nothing as horrific as the Minotaur in "Coven", certainly. Nothing as horrific as any of the doctors in "Asylum". Nothing horrific at all, just sadly realistic. That's not why a lot of us watch AHS. We watch it for the weird. We watch it for the absurd. Not for, "Hey, this really happened. And it happens to people every day." That's what documentaries are for, not previously entertaining horror series. And I'm clearly not smart enough to figure out why the ghosts have sparkly antlers, but I'm sure it's a very serious and important reference to something. I hope there's a follow-up special that explains the metaphors in detail for those of us that can't be bothered.
Review of Requiem 1981/1987: Part 1
