By Dalton DeStefano ’16, Arts and Entertainment Editor

Combining horror, dark comedy, drama, and stellar acting, American Horror Story has rapidly grown to become one of the most popular shows on television. With each of its four seasons, the series has become more and more mainstream; the show has become a ratings powerhouse, which has culminated with Freakshow, the series’ current and most popular season. Freakshow focuses on one of America’s last freakshows in the 1950’s and its struggle to stay relevant. The show employs the notion of a “freak” to represent a broader universal theme of oppression and marginality that affects various different minority groups around the world.

While this season seemed extremely promising during the off-season (many fans had been hoping for a carnival-esque season since the show’s inception), many die-hard fans have complained that this season is by far the show’s weakest. Many claim that the show has “lost its touch,” especially coming off of last year’s similarly polarizing season, Coven. Despite being diehard fans of the show for years, many people, including myself, have stopped watching the season entirely. The major issues in this installment of the series come in its tone and execution. The first few seasons struck an impeccable balance between a dark, horrific tone and a light, comedic tone. However, Freakshow seems to get lost within itself—the showrunners are trying too hard to convey a message and, in the process, are forgetting what made the show great. The “horror” in this season comes in very small, contained doses, rather than it did in a season like Asylum, where the horror permeated the entirety of the show.

Another grave mistake made by the showrunners was killing off the season’s villain, the grotesque Twisty the Clown (whom many people have undoubtedly heard buzz about on various social media outlets). By ridding the show of its most terrifyingly fascinating character, the series seems to be floundering in a whirlwind of sloppy storylines that, frankly, are not very interesting. People watching a show called American Horror Story are watching for horror, and when a season is lacking in horror, it becomes no different than any other drama on television. Many fans are crying out for a return to the early days of the show, before it was commercialized for mainstream media, when it was truly a horror show. Nowadays it seems as though the showrunners care more about outrageous plotlines that attract media buzz than focusing on genuine thematic depth. It seems that, in order to gain a large portion of its fan base back, American Horror Story will need to return to its roots, rather than sacrifice the show’s quality for the sake of mainstream appeal.