At what point does a celebrity’s involvement in a project become a distraction, something that takes the viewer (or reader, or listener, or what have you) out of what is supposed to be an immersive experience? One episode in, this is the problem that threatens to derail American Horror Story: Hotel. FX has shown us precious little in regards to the plot – which is par for the course when it comes to AHS promotions – but it has shown us a lot of one aspect of the show: Lady Gaga. There are even commercials for the show where the title American Horror Story pops up, and underneath it the words Hotel and Lady Gaga appear in turn, flickering like dying lightbulbs. It’s clear what the purpose of this season of AHS is: Lady Gaga is great, and if you don’t agree, you can fuck right off. Moreover, if you don’t agree, should you even watch?
I’m not a fan of Lady Gaga. Her music is bland, predictable pop, and if she didn’t show up to the Russian Emmys wearing a dress made of kangaroo vulvas or whatever the fuck she does, we would never, ever talk about it (and I don’t care what anyone says, “Born This Way” is the most blatant pandering I’ve ever heard in a song). So viewers like me are going to bring their own baggage to the show, and to be honest, Hotel loses a lot of goodwill by its opening credit sequence, which lists the entire cast, with “And Lady Gaga” at the end. No, fuck you, FX; fuck you, Ryan Murphy; and fuck you, concept of false modesty. You don’t get to build your entire promotional campaign around someone’s involvement and then give them the “and” credit. It didn’t work when Sylvester Stallone did it in commercials for The Expendables, it didn’t work with Emma Stone and Easy A, and it’s not working now. I know that’s a very specific gripe, and yes, I’m aware of how pedantic and petty I sound.
So, how was the actual show?
Not bad, not great. American Horror Story is typically strongest in its first episode, which is generally its creepiest, and most focused, serving as a way to introduce characters, conflicts, and setting before everything inevitably goes to shit (the most notable exception being Ian McShane as Murder Santa in AHS: Asylum). Hotel has a suitably creepy setting, the fictional Hotel Cortez, located in Los Angeles, and gets off to a good start. We meet Iris (Kathy Bates, thankfully not speaking in her weird-ass Baltimore accent from Freak Show), who is in some kind of thrall to, sigh, the Countess Elizabeth (Gaga), who runs the Cortez. The Countess is a vampire, which Hotel smartly reveals right away, in the first of many scenes that look like a Lady Gaga music video fever dream.
In many ways, the Cortez is one of AHS‘s most striking sets, because it’s either my favorite locale, or my least favorite. It’s got this cool Art Deco BioShock thing going on, with bright splotches of neon and a room full of kidnapped children playing old school Game Boys. It’s deliberately anachronistic, and it works well for the show. (Also, kudos to Hotel for getting some references to The Shining out of the way quickly: we get creepy kids in a hallway, and a boy throwing a ball against a wall repeatedly, a la Jack Torrance.)
Another place “Checking In” succeeds is in its pacing. A lot happens, some of it inconsequential – such as New Girl‘s Max Greenfield getting fucked to death by a drillbit dildo, in what looks to be a Seven reference – and some of it hugely important, such as a killer luring detective John Lowe (Wes Bentley, excellent) to the Cortez by telling him he’s staying there. We get a huge amount of backstory, which is one way to justify the overlong running time, but I liked seeing the origin of some of these relationships this early on. Knowing that Iris is responsible for the death of Sally (Sarah Paulson, doing her best impression of Daryl Hannah from Blade Runner) is a nice touch, especially considering that Sally (also a vampire, btw) is responsible for Iris’s son Donovan OD’ing on heroin. (The Countess turned Donovan into a vampire. There’s, uh, a lot of vampires here.)
There’s a lot to like here – but remember, AHS is always strongest out of the gate. My worry is that Lady Gaga’s involvement will sideline everything else, because for those of us who don’t like her – or at least don’t feel that a hugely successful TV network needs to spend tens of millions of dollars filming and broadcasting a show about how awesome and badass she is – that could turn the whole season into a real slog.
A Few Thoughts
- “Profession listed as ‘Oscar blogger'”
- The way Bates says Chateauneuf de pape granache blanc shows why this woman has an Oscar. One line, delivered in that flat, disinterested manner, speaks volumes about Iris
- Do kids actually face time their parents for story time? I feel like that only happens in movies and TV
- Although John’s domestic situation was hard to follow at first, Bentley and Chloe Sevigny are great together, and their chemistry kept the domestic scenes from derailing everything else
- That was the realtor from season one, by the way
- I was really, really hoping we wouldn’t hear “Hotel California” in a show subtitled Hotel. Thanks for nothing, Ryan Murphy
- Lest it sound like I’m being too hard on Lady Gaga, I think she’s doing fine work as the Countess. She’s not blowing my mind or anything, but she definitely has presence. If the credits said “And Stefani Germanotta” that would be one thing. But Lady Gaga is a brand, and it’s potentially distracting
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