TV Review: AMERICAN HORROR STORY: Season 11, Episode 1: Something’s Coming / Episode 2: Thank You for Your Service [FX]

American Horror Story: NYC: Something’s Coming and Thank You for Your Service

FX‘s American Horror Story: NYC: Season 11, Episode 1: Something’s Coming and Episode 2: Thank You for Your Service TV Show Review.

While much of the AHS veteran cast populates American Horror Story: NYC, the nighttime opening scene — a garbage-laden city street — suggests a mood gritty rather than supernatural.

The 1981 post Stonewall gay subculture gets properly centered around Christopher Street, the Docks, the Baths, and Fire Island. But it lacks, possibly intentionally, the high-pitched hedonistic covert energy which drove that period. Instead it evokes the feel of a fever dream, sultry and disillusioned.

Something’s Coming

This episode explores the contradictions of sexual liberation with respect to its dangers, focusing on the leather scene that serves as a strong subtext throughout the series. William Friedkin’s 1980 film, Cruising, which caused quite a ruckus in its day, has a similar foundation backstory — a serial killer acting out his suppressed homoerotic feelings by way of the S&M substrata.

In this series, however, the killer seems to inhabit two personae. One is a strapping, seemingly spectral palooka in full leather gear known as ‘Big Daddy,’ prowling in the shadows, the other a deranged Vietnam veteran, later identified as ‘the Mai-Tai Killer,’ using gruesome murders that draw the attention of a pair of protagonists at loggerheads. Patrick (Russell Tovey) is a closeted-at-work NYPD detective, who lives with his very much out-and-proud, yet cynical lover, Gino (Joe Mantello), a journalist for the “New York Native,” a firebrand newspaper for the gay community.

Also brought into the mix is Hannah Wells (Billie Lourd), a research physician who discovers a mysterious zoonotic virus on Fire Island, lesbian activist Fran (Sarah Bernhard), gay mafia hitman Henry (Denis O’Hare), avant-garde photographer (reminiscent of Richard Mapplethorpe) Theo (Isaac Powell) and his manager and main squeeze Sam (Zachary Quinto), plus Adam Carpenter (Charlie Carver) investigating the disappearance of his best friend, Sully, after a meeting with Big Daddy. Leslie Grossman as Patrick’s supportive ex-wife Barbara, and Patti LuPone as cabaret singer and bathhouse owner Kathy Pizzazz, both round out the major players in this episode. In style and substance this episode is film noir, very similar to the concurrent series, Dahmer.

Thank You for Your Service

Covert investigations, hints of a conspiracy, measured exposition, and more on the Mai-Tai Killer’s identity mark this episode. Rare and exotic diseases in her gay patients puzzles Dr. Wells, especially its similarity to an infection among the deer population of Jones Beach Island in which all were slaughtered. But Fran offers an explanation — experiments on prisoners and indigents she observed while working as a lab technician on Jones Beach at a secret government bioweapons laboratory. Fran teams up with Gino at The Native, and Gino talks Patrick into canvassing the leather bars to look for his abductor, who let him go after discovering his veteran status.

The NYPD reacts to Adam’s accusatory statements about them to Gino in “The Native” by arresting him. He resists the pressure they put on by getting smacked around by a Big Daddy doppelgänger — a muscular black dude in a jockstrap and Stetson hat (a scene also featured in Cruising). More determined than ever, he goes in search of Sully at a soiree, Grand Guignol style, where he hooks up with Theo. Sam recruits a slave by way of a phone call. Continuing in the film noir genre, this episode is further distinguished by the trust and faith tested between individuals.

Conclusion

This somewhat modified retelling of the advent of the AIDS crisis is grim, solemn, with the timing slightly off kilter, as though taking place in an alternate universe. For example, Dr. Wells identifies the bug causing the illness at once, unlike the guessing game that baffled the medical community for months until the HIV retrovirus was finally identified. An interesting anachronism: Patti LuPone covers “Calling You” from the film, Bagdad Cafe, released in 1987.

On the social front, the challenges facing the gay community at that time are treated fairly and convey a certain authenticity. The mounting ominous undercurrent comes through, different than the sensational scares that are hallmarks of previous seasons. Thus far this story appears to expand on the underbelly of gay life — a one-sided exposé. The typically skilled effort by Murphy and Falchuk is good as far as it goes, and there is much to appreciate, especially by his fans (like myself). But whether or not AHS: NYC becomes a fan favorite remains to be seen. The creepiness is all there, but its tempered pace compromises much of the joyous kick their brand of horror usually provides.

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