Given that we're living through a real American horror story right now--no matter where you fall on today's political spectrum--FX's American Horror Story: Cult can be tough to watch. Last night's Season 7 premiere, "Election Night," opened with various characters' reactions to watching the real outcome of our real 2016 election play out through actual news coverage. If Trump's victory last year hit you like a cement truck, it wasn't easy to relive, especially so soon and so vividly.
AHS: Cult, the anthology show's seventh season, is seeking to lay something bare: The ability in any one of us to succumb to fear and make bad choices. It's using our real, fresh, ongoing nationwide trauma to shine an unwelcome light on human nature, as horror so often does.
Seeing Evan Peters' Kai Anderson scream in celebration and hump his television screen while Sarah Paulson's Ally Mayfair-Richards wailed in anguish was a perfect portrait of the divide plaguing this country. As American Horror Story well knows, this goes far beyond everyday politics.
Given the subject matter, American Horror Story: Cult might have been a lazy "good guys vs. bad guys" narrative. Thankfully, "Election Night" demonstrated that this show is smarter than simply "us vs. them." If its subtlety muddies up the message, all the better for comments sections and Tweet storms to dissect, debate, and spread the word.
Cult features Trump supporters, Hillary supporters, and protest voters. Not one group is decidedly "good" or "bad"--besides the gaggle of murderous clowns glimpsed in the premiere. And we're not even sure if they exist outside of Sarah Paulson's character's mind.
That's where this season gets you: In mirroring the questions that many Americans have found themselves asking on a daily basis since last November, ones that we can't help but consider, even as they drive wedges between us and our fellow citizens. What's true, and what isn't? Can we trust our own instincts?
Most importantly: Who's in the cult? No matter what box you checked off in that booth, you've probably found yourself asking the same, while in line at the store, staring around in traffic, or sitting on the train. Who around you is in the "cult" of the other side? Watching "Election Night" and trying to guess who's a good guy and who's bad elicited the same paranoid sensation.
Some seem obvious after last night's premiere: Peters' blue-haired Kai Anderson is definitely bad, while Paulson's Ally and her wife, Alison Pill's Ivy, are good guys. What about Winter Anderson, Kai's sister, played inscrutably by Billie Lourd? She worked on Hillary's campaign--or so she says--but she wasn't acting like one of the good ones in "Election Night." Cult has no dearth of bit players, from the MAGA hat-wearing store clerk to Ally's stone-jawed therapist, and knowing American Horror Story, any one of them might play a role later on as this season unravels.
We knew all along that American Horror Story Season 7 would be about the election to some degree. "Election Night" showed that it's just the jumping off point. Now we have to live in the aftermath.
"My fellow Americans," Evan Peters intones to a nearly empty city council meeting. "What do humans love the most? To what do we give our highest value? Is it family? Friends? Our homes? Money? Notoriety? No. Above all, humans love fear."
If that's the case, then American Horror Story: Cult is going to be a hit.
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