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American Horror Story has time and time again proven itself to have something of a winning formula. Whilst none of its later seasons have achieved the critical or public heights of Murder House and Asylum, many of them have nonetheless proven popular with fans, critics, or both.
Part of the show’s unique format is its cast. As an anthology show, the same actors appear time and time again in different seasons, but play different characters. Sometimes, these characters are similar to one another, but other times they can be drastically different. This can allow a performance to truly shine, but of course, there are performances that don’t match up.
10 Nailed It: Lily Rabe Shows her Range As Sister Mary Eunice
One of the standout performances from a standout season, Lily Rabe drew adoration from fans as a result of playing effectively two very different characters in one season. In Asylum, Rabe portrays Sister Mary Eunice as both her true, timid nun self, and also as the cruel, twisted, demon-possessed tormentor of Sister Jude and Briarcliff.
Rabe sells her role, making both performances completely believable, and even manages to switch between the two on a dime, sometimes within the same scene. As a result, her performance is acclaimed by fans.
9 Fell Short: Jessica Lange Disappoints As Elsa Mars
Jessica Lange features in American Horror Story’s first four seasons as one of the show’s most prominent recurring roles, having major parts to play in Murder House, Asylum, Coven, and Freak Show, compared to other returning cast members who often spent seasons out of the spotlight.
Having impressed fans as Constance Langdon, Sister Jude, and Fiona Goode, Lange’s follow-up performance as Elsa Mars, the manager of the season’s titular freak show, underwhelms. Lange fails to diversify the characters from her previous ambitious and ruthless characters with a soft side, and, not helped by the writing, Mars fails to have nearly the impact of her previous roles.
8 Nailed It: Emma Roberts Drips Entertaining Spite As Madison
American Horror Story: Coven tells the story of a group of trainee witches in the United States, with the early episodes often giving off the impression of being a very small high school, with Madison Montgomery as the queen bee.
The character herself is divisive, with fans disagreeing on whether she is delightfully evil and ultimately understandable, or simply petty and arrogant, but few fans can fault Roberts’s performance. She plays Madison’s nature to the hilt, completely selling a character who fans either love to hate, or simply cannot help hating.
7 Falls Short: Gus Kenworthy Underwhelms As Chet Clancy
Gus Kenworthy, previously known as an Olympic skiier, made his proper acting debut—rather than playing himself—as a main cast member of American Horror Story: 1984. In the season, he portrays Chet Clancy, a former Olympian athlete who was disqualified for drug usage and is bitter over that.
Despite a quality effort, Kenworthy never sells the role, despite the interesting storyline his character undergoes both before and after his death. Despite some interesting choices made with his charisma and his fits of anger, it never blends into a convincing cohesive whole.
6 Nailed It: Evan Peters Creates Sympathy For Tate Langdon
Evan Peters is one of the most prominent recurring cast members in the show, having appeared in nearly every season, playing both the same characters and different ones. All of his roles are considered well-acted, as well as receiving some of the best writing in the show.
Nonetheless, it is with his first role as Tate Langdon that Evan Peters truly shines. The character gets time in the limelight, but is a near-solely antagonistic figure, committing many terrible acts against the Harmon family and conducting a school shooting in life. Nonetheless, Peters’s nuanced but ultimately villainous performance won over many fans.
5 Fell Short: Dylan McDermott Fails To Give Depth To Johnny Morgan
After a much-enjoyed first outing as Dr. Ben Harmon in Murder House, Dylan McDermott reappears as the comparatively smaller role of Johnny Morgan, the son of the Bloody Face Killer, who menaces several people in the show’s ‘present-day,’ including an older Lana Winters.
McDermott’s performance is not bad as the new Bloody Face, but simply fails to give him the depth to match the other villains in the season. With little to his performance other than a large amount of anger, scenes with the character can sometimes feel monotonous.
4 Nailed It: Sarah Paulson Dominates Two Seasons As Cordelia Goode
With a slightly smaller role in Coven, the character of Cordelia Goode reappears in Apocalypse as the closest thing the season has to a primary protagonist. Sarah Paulson has played many roles over the course of the show, with one of her best regarded being Lana Winters in Asylum, but it is as Goode that she truly shows off her acting abilities.
Throughout her tenure as the character, Paulson shows Goode as protective, scheming, desperate, and, in one of the more visceral displays on the show, as preparing to gouge out her own eyes with gardening shears. Each situation she sells, with fans considering the performances some of the finest in their seasons.
3 Fell Short: Cheyenne Jackson Is Not Given A Chance To Shine As John Henry Moore
John Henry Moore appears to be a character with potential in Apocalypse, a powerful Warlock who nonetheless doesn’t trust Michael Langdon and believes him to be evil, which sees him in turn distanced from his fellow Warlocks, who trust in the Antichrist.
In Moore’s four episodes, however, Cheyenne Jackson fails to truly flesh out the character. He acts more like a plot device, with none of the sparkling delivery other short-lived characters have been given by their actors. Perhaps Jackson could have done more with the character had he not been killed in his fourth episode.
2 Nailed It: Zachary Quinto Chills As Oliver Thredson
Some actors in Asylum and other seasons portray two characters at once, but usually very distinct characters, even if they share a body. As Dr. Oliver Thredson, Zachary Quinto manages to portray a character acting as two people, maintaining continuity throughout the two, despite their sharp differences.
In his sole outing in the show, Quinto portrays Oliver Thredson as a reasonable, modern-for-the-time psychiatrist who believes in evidence-led treatment, disagrees with Sister Jude about her care of the patients, and wants the best for those at Briarcliff, and also as a ruthless serial killer who flays his victims. Despite their differences, Quinto makes it clear that both are the same person, and many fans are disappointed that he has not yet returned to the series.
1 Fell Short: Billie Lourd’s Delivery Doesn’t Suit Montana Duke
Billie Lourd joins American Horror Story‘s recurring cast in Cult, going on to appear later in Apocalypse, 1984 and Double Feature. The actress possesses a distinctive, understated delivery in her acting, which suits darker and more subdued seasons like Cult and her character in Apocalypse well, but her performance as Montana Duke is simply out of place in 1984.
With its bright colors, and campy ’80s aesthetic, 1984 is a season where many of the actors feel free to let go and give slightly hammy performances. Billie Lourd does not join them, giving Montana Duke a similar understated nature, which by comparison makes her appear bland or even monotone.
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