Beginning its third season three weeks ago, the newest season of the ‘American Horror Story’ series is the best season yet. The great thing about this show is that if you miss a previous season, there’s nothing to go back and catch up on. Each year, there is a brand new storyline and it is a completely different show. The cast generally has stayed the same, with some changes here and there, and so the audience gets that feeling of having familiar faces around. The star of the show is Jessica Lange, and every season brings a thrilling new character for her to portray.
This new season is titled ‘American Horror Story: Coven’ and it is all about witches and their struggle to survive and avoid extinction. They must battle to gain control over their powers and try to use magic in ways that will not be disastrous to the world around them. Lange plays the role of Fiona Goode, the supreme witch who is the most powerful of them all. She is obsessed with trying to find a potion or spell to keep her youthfulness and turn back the hands of time.
In the premiere episode, she finds her way to the school that her daughter, Cordelia (Sarah Paulson), runs for young witches. At the school, Cordelia teaches the young witches how to survive in the modern world. Fiona and Cordelia have a very strained relationship, but Fiona makes it clear to Cordelia that she is there to stay in order to help protect and guide the girls with their powers.
This season stems from actions conducted during the Salem Witch Trials. Newly added to the cast to fill this story arc is Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett. Bates plays Delphine LaLaurie, also known as Madame LaLaurie, a Louisiana-socialite and serial killer known for her torturing and murder of slaves. Bassett plays Marie Laveau, a dangerous voodoo practitioner scorned by LaLaurie who framed her boyfriend.
Laveau later comes to give Madame LaLaurie a potion to make her look more youthful, but it is really a potion that curses LaLaurie with everlasting life. Laveau, along with the slaves that worked for LaLaurie, hang all of LaLaurie’s family and bury her in a coffin where she would remain until discovered by one of the girls of the school who could hear her trapped under ground.
It’s a great combination of magic, voodoo, and drama wrapped into an hour of television. The storyline is strong and the jumps between the two time periods are essential to telling the story. Superb acting is found throughout and each character brings something new and fresh to the show.
Viewers seem to agree, as the show debuted with 5.5 million viewers and was the series’ most watched episode ever. Critics are praising it and many agree that this season will standout from the first two seasons.
Only three episodes in, it’s not too late to catch up on this bewitching new season. It’s solid right out of the gates and is the strongest season of the ‘American Horror Story’ series to date. The all-star cast also includes Emma Roberts, Frances Conroy, Lily Rabe, Gabourey Sidibe, Patti LuPone, Evan Peters, and the return of Taissa Farmiga to the series.
‘American Horror Story: Coven’ airs Wednesday nights at 10/9 central on FX.
