When I heard that the new American Horror Story (AHS) season would be a “freak show” I was a little unnerved. Asylum was creepy (one of the basic premises of AHS) and Coven was pretty original in considering the school for witches theme. I honestly thought that Ryan Murphy was feeding into the “freakdom” that were all of the freaks who were cast on the show. But, while that was not the case, AHS Freak Show was a really great season.

I recently read a TV review in which the reviewer said that AHS has peaks and troughs throughout the season. This is very true of the three past seasons of AHS, but I think Freak Show had more peaks or, to be more accurate, plateaued had the peak with relatively few dips in which the plot line slowed. The premise of Freak Show is based in 1950s Florida, where a woman, Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange), runs and is the headliner for her Freak Show. The cast is similar to Asylum and Coven, but has a lot more cast for there are all of the Freaks. The main character of than Elsa are: Sarah Paulson (two-headed girl), Emma Roberts (Fortune teller), Evan Peters (Lobster boy), Angela Bassett (three-boobed woman), and Kathy Bates (bearded lady). These are the individuals with the most screen time, and they were fantastic.

There are two additional sub-plots of Freak Show: crazy spoiled child who turns into a killer and a low-down dirty team who gets paid to add specimens to a freak museum. Unfortunately, while the actors were amazing and really portrayed the characters in awesome ways, I felt like the sub-plots detract from the whole premise of the Freak Show. There was a lot of material on freak show that could have been delved into that wasn’t touched. I found the historical perspective of all of the freaks very interesting: how they got to be the way they are, where were they born, and how did Elsa help them. The one character that was really well-developed was Pepper. And watch where she ends up!!!

The whole season of Freak Show was really very interesting and I enjoyed each episode. Especially that this season was full of strong female characters. If any theme could be extracted from this season, it would have to be: Women save the day. All of the women freaks band together, multiple times, and help each other survive the cruel world that they live in.

I really have no negative thoughts or cons to watching the season. I wasn’t a particular fan of Sarah Paulson’s characters, the two-headed girl, but that was because they were too ignorant for me. The creepy clown was also not exactly the most fun to watch. But, after hearing his story, my heart did break a little so I understood what he was doing and why. Other than that, it was great!

There’s 15 episodes, shorter than a traditional TV season, and they all run about 50 minutes, a bit longer than a traditional TV show episode. The scenes and costumes are amazing, and the plot is pretty creative. The new episodes are on Netflix so binge watch to your hearts desire!