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The vampires of American Horror Story: Double Feature are terrifying. But, they may be the least of Provincetown’s worries.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for American Horror Story: Double Feature Episode 3, “Thirst,” which aired Wednesday on FX.
American Horror Story never lacks for monsters, and the worst of them usually wear human faces. “Red Tide,” the first half of the new season, is no exception. While the beneficiaries and victims of the show’s mysterious black pills are terrifying enough, the scariest may be the one standing unobtrusively at her violin stand. Alma Gardner, the musical prodigy who takes one of her screenwriter father’s magic pills when the adults aren’t looking, is quietly being set up as perhaps the most evil figure in the whole season.
“Red Tide” is officially only half a season long, connecting to the second half “Death Valley” in ways that have yet to be seen. For now, that means the show’s usual machinations are getting up to speed very quickly. Season 10, Episode 3, “Thirst” has the power blocs all but formed, with various types of humans and monsters jockeying for control of the pill supply. The swiftness of these developments further masks the danger that Alma represents to everyone.
The pills are so valuable because they elevate creative thought to extreme levels. Those who possess sufficient talent become geniuses in their field. Those who don’t are twisted into Nosferatu-like creatures who slink around the shadows of the show’s version of Provincetown, MA. Alma’s father Harry, a workmanlike but otherwise unexceptional screenwriter, is induced to take the pills by the town’s two wealthy writers Austin and Belle Noir, themselves eager consumers of the pill. The catch is that using it requires copious amounts of fresh human blood to replenish the required nutrients, forcing those who take it to kill if they want to continue making their art.
As the show slyly points out, none of the pill’s various users take it for the sake of that art. They take it for an easy path to fame and fortune, which it can readily provide, and by the time they realize the trap they’re in, it’s too late. The show’s adult characters thus position themselves around how much they need the pill, how much they control it, or whether they’re willing to sacrifice their dreams of greatness to walk away from it. It leads Harry to murder and more, while Austin and Belle Noir are eagerly committed to what amounts to a vampire’s lifestyle.
All of them, however, are adults and make their own choices about taking the pill. Alma’s reasons are murkier, and she may have lost her choices before they even began. From the first scene of the new season, she displayed disturbing proclivities. Season 10, Episode 1, “Cape Fear,” opens with her counting roadkill on the highway and she periodically shared other quietly chilling thoughts throughout the next two episodes. They might be just a phase she’s going through or the sign of something more troubling. Either way, the better angels of her nature died the minute she took the pill. Frustrated at her inability to master a complex violin piece, she steals one from her father, nailing the piece and losing whatever hope she had of staying human.
Since then, her sociopathy has intensified to the point where she has expressed open disinterest in whether her own mother lives or dies and a cheerful willingness to feed her growing thirst. Harry staves her off at first by bringing back a thermos full of blood from his kills, but soon enough, she’s taking matters into her own hands. Most notably, she kills the town’s chief of police – who is onto Harry’s homicides – and leaves her sprawled out in the living room while she and Harry’s agent play cards.
Where that leads is still very much up in the air. American Horror Story tends to embrace morality plays, and the characters onscreen usually get what’s coming to them. As a child, Alma’s status on that wheel is in a supreme state of flux. Furthermore the show often reverses audience sympathies to turn seeming antagonists into protagonists and vice versa. The long-term effects of the pill have yet to be revealed, and Alma may yet emerge from the abyss that engulfs her. But as of the end of “Thirst,” she’s a very scary wild card: devoid of a moral compass, willing to kill on a whim and badly underestimated by everyone around her. Her little form holds the most potential for evil, and it might catch more than a few of the show’s so-called movers and shakers by surprise.
American Horror Story: Double Feature continues documenting Harry and Alma’s father/daughter vampiric bonding. New Season 10 episodes air each Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on FX.
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