American Horror Story Coven: Bitchcraft
The much anticipated (by me at least) third season premiered last night introducing the audience to a host of new characters including Marie Laveau and Madame LaLaurie – two well-known women from historic New Orleans.
First Impressions: The scenery and costumes are gorgeous in the flashbacks to the 1860’s and even the modern imagery is beautiful with lots of black and white contrasts throughout. The story centres around a new and growing coven of witches in New Orleans which somehow ties into the past with voodoo queen Marie Laveau and the evil, twisted Madame LaLaurie . We get a hint at the end of the episode but I want to avoid spoilers, so I won’t get into it.
So the past revolves around Marie Laveau and Madame LaLaurie and the present seems to be about teaching and training a group of young witches to face something bad that is coming. Jessica Lange plays Fiona Goode, the Supreme, an all powerful witch with multiple powers, whereas most witches only have one power. Sarah Paulson is her daughter Cordelia Foxx who is, or rather was, in charge of Miss Robichaux’s school for gifted girls. Mother and daughter do not get along. As for the girls at the school, there are 4, each witch having a unique power.
Taissa Farmiga plays Zoe who is totally thrown for a loop when her power is discovered. !!!SPOILER!!! I’m going reveal the power which is revealed early on anyway: she can kill people with her vagina. Yep, you read that right. She accidentally kills her boyfriend the first time she has sex and then she purposefully kills a college guy who raped her friend. I’m not sure how I feel about this special power. Compared to the others, I think it sucks.
Jamie Brewer returns as Nan the clairvoyant. Gabourey Sidibe plays Queenie who is a human voodoo doll. Not sure how that works but she stabbed herself with a fork and caused only one person in the room to be hurt. Maybe it has something to do with focus; I don’t know that much about this type of supernatural ability. And lastly is Emma Roberts playing Madison Montgomery, a young starlet with a bitchy attitude and the power of telekinesis.
We see a couple of other familiar faces but I don’t know what their roles in the story are yet. Evan Peters is back as frat boy Kyle who instantly connects to Zoe and Lily Rabe appears as Misty Day, a witch in a highly religious, rural community. Their stories contain spoilers, so I won’t get into them. Also back for more spooky shenanigans are Frances Conroy as Myrtle Snow, she’s odd, and Denis O’Hare is Spalding the butler at the school.
Final Thoughts: I liked the beginning of this new season. I wasn’t wow’ed but I did enjoy it. I love the idea of witches in New Orleans and the casting and characters are great. My one kind of huh, is Taissa Farmiga’s “power”; it seems a bit far-fetched. We shall see. All in all, I’m looking forward to watching the rest of the season progress although I could do without seeing the tortures that Madame LaLaurie inflicts on her slaves. Disturbing.
Dawning Creates 