TV Review: AMERICAN HORROR STORY: Season 11, Episode 5: Bad Fortune / Episode 6: The Body

American Horror Story: NYC: Bad Fortune and The Body

FX‘s American Horror Story: NYC: Season 11, Episode 5: Bad Fortune and Episode 6: The Body TV Show Review.

The occult dominates this pair of episodes, through tarot cards and a hidden body in the sand unearthed by accident.

Bad Fortune

Another tenuous connection to the supernatural is made when Fran takes a gig as a storefront fortune teller, offered by Kathy Pizzazz. Fran admits she doesn’t have a psychic bone in her body. But that means nothing to Kathy. In true entrepreneurial spirit, this is a matter of commerce. Fake it, she advises, and ‘all news is good news.’ Nothing ominous, no declarations of doom, only feel-good pandering for the clients. The cards themselves, however, have something more in store for the curious. All of the principal characters, just about, show up for a reading; Adam shows up twice. Without exception, all get more than they bargained for, even Fran and Kathy, as conduits to dark declarations and a black-winged apparition with messages country miles away from anything encouraging. Meanwhile, Death Angel Big Daddy strangles Barbara in the shower very soon after she and Patrick divorce amicably. Whitely aka Mai-Tai Killer puts the finishing touches on his last kill using two men he abducted during the blackout.

The Body

This episode is about secrets that won’t stay buried, when a disembodied, hooded head gets inadvertently exhumed on a Fire Island beach. This begins an intriguing exposition where Patrick, Sam, Henry, Whitely, and (lastly) Gino are pulled into center of the backstory, which goes like this: Patrick had cheated on Barbara with a kinky Fire Island threesome on Fire Island with Sam and another young man, resulting in the accidental drug-hazed death of the latter. Sam had called Henry to cover up the deed. In turn, Henry had brought in Whitely in as a ‘subcontractor’ to dismember and dispose of the body.

Happenstance allows Patrick to find out about the head’s discovery before anyone else, who informs Sam. Time is of the essence, so Patrick and Sam are off to the Island. Patrick gives Gino the same reason he gave Barbara: police business. Gino, however, isn’t buying it. He enlists Henry’s help to catch the pair red-handed on the beach, demanding — and getting — the whole story. Whitely’s secret as the serial killer is also brought to light, which Henry pays dearly for but saves Gino in the process out of unrequited love for the journalist.

Conclusion

Thus far this street level mysticism is about as close Season 11 gets to that of the previous seasons. The horror comes from the craziness we’ve all become used to rather than the Outer Darkness. The episodes seem to be edging toward a very solid mystery/soap hybrid. As such, it’s juicy enough, and despite conveying a sense of urgency, the epiphanies are slow in coming. The AIDS-like illness subtext is a series of signposts that mimic the actual epidemic, for the most part: a lack of real public scrutiny, plus a lot of misinformation and conjecture; Hannah’s commitment to confidentiality as a doctor doesn’t allow much room for discovery or revelations of her own, despite her best workaround efforts.

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