Red Tide initially showed promise as a Shining-meets- Faust story about a struggling writer ( Finn Wittrock) who after relocating his family to an isolated coastal town, is offered a black pill that will bring him great creative success with terrifying side effects in the form of Salem's Lot-style creatures. Like the back-to-back genre flicks in the days of drive-ins, this installment is split into two tales: Red Tide 'by the sea' and Death Valley 'by the land.' But what could have been an intricate, interwoven storytelling feat is instead one season's worth of resources spread thin between separate and stale plotlines, much to the dismay of fans eager to see the season that Covid had delayed by a year. While we're used to seeing AHS shake up its format (it is an anthology, after all), season 10's Double Feature is a complete departure from the series' norm. But if you're an AHS superfan (or just prefer shows that make sense), you'll be sorely disappointed in Cult's clownery. That said, Cult's chaos is somewhat enjoyable if you stop trying to understand it and simply indulge.

A good rule of thumb for FX: stick to the horrors of worlds we're not currently living in, and leave the political commentary to American Crime Story (the new Impeachment season far surpasses this one). If Paulson's meltdown about Merrick Garland wasn't cringey enough, Peters coating his face in Cheeto dust and rattling off the President's worst one-liners sure was. In the grand scheme of artistic social criticism made during the Trump administration, Cult is at the very bottom of the bucket - and this list. Add in Cult's attempts at political satire that are about as articulate as your far-right uncle's Facebook posts, and you've got an anthology deep in an identity crisis.Īre we meant to focus on Sarah Paulson's phobias being exacerbated by Hillary's loss, the tribe of killer clowns running suburban Michigan like the mafia, or Evan Peters' incel caricature rising to power in a local election? Paulson as the ever-paranoid Ally believes all of these headscratchers are part of a Trumpian conspiracy that's out to get her, but audiences were left struggling to connect the dots. It may be the best example of the trap Murphy- Falchuk collaborations too often fall into, being writers conjuring plot points like arbitrary numbers from a bingo machine (we're looking at you, final seasons of Glee).

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