By Gabrielle Smith
Assistant A&E Editor
On Tuesday, Sept. 5, American Horror Story premiered its seventh season, “Cult.” This season takes place right after the election of President Donald Trump last November and revolves mostly around main-character Allyson “Ally” Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson.)
Allyson has multiple phobias, the two main ones are fear of clowns, caulphobia, and fear of small holes, trypophobia. When she is first introduced, it is known that through a lot of therapy, she was able to control her fears and keep it from ruining her life with her wife Ivy Mayfair-Richards (Alyson Pill) and young son Ozzy (Cooper Dodson.) But her overbearing distress caused by the election has triggered these phobias to affect her in radical ways.
We are introduced briefly to a few other characters who seem to all be connected in a demonic way, which seem to be referring to the self-named theme of the season (Cult) but has not been confirmed as of recently. Kai Anderson (Evan Peters) is a young man who is overly ecstatic about Trump’s win, calling it a revolution.
Throughout the last three episodes that have aired, there is a small group of people who are dressing as clowns and terrorizing Allyson when she is by herself, making her seem crazy. Things start getting weirder for her and her family, such as murdered neighbors, blackouts, protests, creepy new neighbors and spooky events lurking around their neighborhood at night. Somehow, Kai seems to always show up in the middle of it all.
Every season of AHS has different themes and story lines with some actors coming back to play different characters each year. Ryan Murphy, the creator, always shows a different kind of horror. So, those expecting a group of undead, killer clowns harassing a town and spilling blood in every other scene are not going to enjoy this season so far.
Even though the season is starting off slow, as they usually do, a solid story line seems evident. Every episode reveals a little bit of the mystery and while it may seem to drag, it gives viewers the sense of urgency to keep sitting down in front of the TV every Tuesday just to be able to find out what exactly is going on with this season. What is the big secret that ties all of these wacky characters together? What is the real reason they are targeting this terrified, mentally unstable woman and her family? It is like an itch that you just cannot scratch. You cannot put all the pieces together yet so you just have to keep tuning in. That itself makes the show intriguing and worth watching.
