Re-writing/imagining AHS Hotel.

[Bebe 16,562]

*This will obviously contain spoilers for people who are not up to date, because there will be a lot of discussion about the plotline and character development.

While AHS Hotel has had it's interesting moments, there has been some fair criticism over its plotline. We all kinda knew John Lowe was the 10 commandments killer from the moment we saw him as the detective on the murders, not only is it a common trope nowadays but the hints were very heavy handed. We saw him losing his mind at the Hotel, we knew he had lost his kid and had problems with alcohol, we saw him get invited to the dinner for mass murderers.

We have also, in my opinion, seen a lack of character development from characters such as The Countess. Gaga plays the role brilliantly, but we haven't seen much change from her throughout the season. She is still the same fashionable, sexy, collected, calculating, murderous vampire we met in episode one. The Countess has been this mysterious character that doesn't show many emotions and has a very composed demeanor. She slits the throats of victims with the same emotion she shows walking down the hallways of the Hotel Cortez. While Gaga has played this role fantastically, some have criticised her for being "wooden" mostly because The Countess is generally very collected, calm and composed. She doesn't have much emotional range as a character. The only real time we have The Countess in a different light was the rightfully acclaimed 'Flicker' episode. We saw her as a doe eyed, insecure young actress who was rather unassuming but had large dreams. The problem is that this was only one episode, it didn't go far enough in developing her character and showing how she changed from this young woman to the fierce Countess.

For these reasons I have re-imagined the plot a little to fix what I think went wrong with the season while emphasising on what they have done right. It would be interesting to see your thoughts and suggestions. 

Firstly, I would make this season far more centered around both the past and the present and it's major focus should be on how these 'monsters' (Gaga, 10CK) were created. This means more flashbacks to before Gaga received the disease and the early years of her immortality, showing more of her and Mr. March and Ramona and focusing more on the development of a relationship between her and Valentino. This would create more of a multi-faceted Countess with proper character development and emotional range while giving more impact to her cold, composed murderous delivery we see in the present day. We would be watching her story unfold as we wonder how this shy, innocent, intelligent young actress has become this confident, calculating and cold murderous vampire. It would also make some of the parallels between The Countesses past and present far more poetic if they were revealed somewhat simultaneously (Tristan as a replacement to Valentino, Will Drake mirroring the role of Mr. March, the deterioration of love between The Countess and Donovan/Ramona). 

In terms of the 10CK, if they are going to be so obvious about who the 10CK is, they may as well just reveal it from the very beginning. Start John Lowe's storyline with him murdering his first victims, surprise us later in the episode or next episode by revealing he is the head detective in the case. It can still be true that he is unaware that it's him and they can still show his mental breakdown, but they can and build drama/suspense over the possibility of him being caught by his co-workers. Again, we know John is the killer, the question is how did he turn into this monster and will he find out that he is the killer so he can stop himself? It's also possible for us to have more of an emotional connection with John. We see that he is the killer, but we also see him after the murder as a good person who is tormented and confused.

Like how we bounce from the past/present with The Countess to see the connection between her past/present self, in this storyline we jump from the past featuring Mr. March to the present with John as we slowly see how the two are connected.

Also cut this whole storyline with his wife Alex. Personally the whole story about her being this doctor who treats this young boy with measles, her finding Holden and becoming a vampire before turning the measles kid and creating a hoard of vampiric children seems underdeveloped. It was an interesting idea, but the storyline is overshadowed by John and The Countess. Now Alex just seems like some submissive lackey to The Countess and she hardly speaks, it's just unnecessary. She isn't a strong character and the story is a mess, The Countess has the Hotel to dispose of bodies and John is head detective of his own murders. A bunch of kids kill everyone in their school, are interviewed on the news, their parents are dead and it doesn't seem like they are attending school anymore and they have been on a murderous rampage and haven't been caught? No.

Instead they should have devoted more time to really developing the story of The Countess and Donovan/Ramona. Show the relationship between her and Valentino/Ramona so that when The Countess ditches Donovan for Tristain it doesn't seem so random, we have seen Valentino and we understand why The Countess has suddenly taken a fancy for Tristain. It would also make it more impactful if the episode Valentino 'disappears' in the past, Tristan has his affair with Liz Taylor and is murdered in the present. The Countesses motive for killing him (heartbreak and revenge) is far more clear.

This would mean some events within the series shifting around a little bit and some other stuff cut but I think it would lead to a more coherent and interesting series. No need for the Tristan/Mr March stuff, the entire 'Devil's Night' episode can be culled. The result should be a more interesting and emotionally versatile Countess and a more unique and emotionally engaging story for John.

Thoughts?

[Future Lover 2,588]

Honestly? They could have totally cut the John/Alex/Holden storyline and developed the Countess storyline. I'm sure the vampire children could have worked its way back in without Alex. The season could then be Elizabeth and company trying to stop the children while Donovan + Romona plot their revenge.

I think the main problem is that there are too many plots going on at once and most people tend to lose interest when it's not present every episode. It'll be hard for them to effectively wrap up storylines in 13 episodes, especially when it's only every other episode.

[Didymus 32,780]

Agreed about more focus for the Countess. To me she's just a character impossible to sympathize with. Flicker was the only episode where we saw a hint of her "undamaged" self but no effort was made to connect it convincingly to the present, making her character completely devoid of any momentum.

Disagreed about the 10CK. I say scratch that storyline entirely (as some critics have suggested too). It's obvious that John was "the voice of reason" in the show but to me that was entirely unnecessary and it also made the morality of the show questionable (the scenes where he was successfully convinced that murdering his way out of his misery was not just justifiable, but also praiseworthy honestly shocked me - a lot of the times this season can just be interpreted as an ad for murder). I think a focus on the Countess' actress past can provide the "voice of reason" character a lot better, especially because she symbolized, above all, hope in the future, in modern progress and in love. The contrast between those things and the hotel would've been a lot more inspiring and lively. John's entire storyline should just be deleted, it adds nothing. Would also be easier to cut the Alex narrative as well.

I also think a 100% alternative should've been found for Ramona. She is without a doubt the most unconvincing character whose only purpose is to make us feel that the Countess has some sort of rival. The whole "she killed my boyfriend who I cheated on her with" vengeance narrative is not only completely irrational, it's also exhausting, especially when it was widened with the equally nonsensical "now the Countess is also responsible for me not being able to save my father" sequence. The painful truth is: there is no reason for her feelings of revenge and Donovan should've been focused on as the character who symbolized the aftermath of the Countess' games. He has more reason than anyone and yet he is the most underwritten character of them all.

I think these things would help enormously, but to be fair, I still think the season should be rebuilt from the ground up So many things are just absolutely ridiculous, like that whole "killing makes a person feel good" tale we've seen repeated for a thousand times now. It would've been interesting, maybe, if the concept of murder was connected more to its symbolical equivalent (whatever that may be - sometimes I doubt it represents anything at all but just plain defiance to society: yawn), but I think the hotel should've had more to offer than just a rehash of a notorious historical serial killer concept.

The Ten Commandments are interesting though. They could've been used as a systematic rejection of manmade law (which of course would be ironic), offering the show many chances to reflect more philosophically on related themes, but now it just feels like a gimmick that's already been overused in other series/films. Add to that that it's completely paradoxical since the consummation of the Ten Commandments theme turned out to be the opposite of a defense of rejection of manmade law: John killed people who broke the Ten Commandments and labelled them as monsters that defile society - the exact opposite of the theme of the show.

So yeah, many problems, but I do think there was a lot of promise there and I totally believe you (as in: you, Bebe) could rewrite the whole thing to be 1000x better. Which is hilarious in a sense, but hey, at least the show's inspiring on some level, even if it inspires people to rewrite it to make it better

[Nino 12]

Kind of off-topic but I get the feeling that the 10CK storyline as a whole was written in at the last minute. John and everyone that surrounds him feels flat and poorly fleshed-out, also untill the past few episodes it felt completely disconnected from the hotel cortez and the Countess's storyline, what few connections there were felt entirely inconseqential to the main storylines

[Bebe 16,562]

1 minute ago, Future Lover said:

 

 

Just now, Didymus said:

 

I agree with you both too, it's like there are two major plotlines rather than one major plotline and a couple of small plot lines thrown in. The 10CK storyline is frankly just bad and they are clearly having problems with fleshing out both The Countess and John Lowe as characters while also moving the plot along.

The 10CK storyline could potentially have been better if just moved to another season as the major plotline while leaving The Countess storyline as the fixture of this season. They were just too ambitious and don't have enough time to make a coherent story without suddenly throwing in new characters and throwing out old ones out of the blue.

I think that's the main issue really, you can see how rushed it is throughout. Donovan getting the boot came out of nowhere, Ramona came out of nowhere, The Tristain/Liv affair came out of nowhere, The demon baby came out of nowhere, 'Good guy' John being so easily convinced to murder people was rushed. Donovan suddenly loved his mother and hated her again the very next episode, Donovan and Ramona disappeared for a good while. There is just too much to cram in. 

I thought of cutting out the 10CK storyline in this thread, but then it seemed like less of a slight re-imagining and fix and more of just a complete "Gagadaily" type rewrite where Gaga's character is the focus of absolutely everything

 

[Aura Veil 2,395]

I'd re-imagine the hotel to be this purgatory esque area for people pending going to hell or heaven. Or have the hotel BE hell. Maybe those checking in are hunted by serial killers, and some are tortured in the rooms themselves. In essence, the hotel itself will be its own character.

The countess would act as a siren, guiding victims to their deaths. James would be the executioner. Sally and Ramona could be angels sent down to redeem some of the sinners. The rest of the supporting actors could be the souls that the angels are attempting to purify. 

I'd keep the 10CK as a looming threat to both parties, but the remaining arcs would be scrapped. I wouldn't want to clog the main story with plot holes. The main bulk of the story would come from the background of the sinners.

[Red 87,653]

I would just remove the 10CK sub-plot at all. It is unnecessary. There should be a recurrent sub-plot about a guest in the hotel who goes through weird things through the whole season, it was so given. It seems to me that this season didn't need to be set in a hotel tbh.

I am loving this season tho. I just hate the 10CK thing.

[Didymus 32,780]

1 minute ago, Bebe said:

I think that's the main issue really, you can see how rushed it is throughout. Donovan getting the boot came out of nowhere, Ramona came out of nowhere, The Tristain/Liv affair came out of nowhere, The demon baby came out of nowhere, 'Good guy' John being so easily convinced to murder people was rushed. Donovan suddenly loved his mother and hated her again the very next episode, Donovan and Ramona disappeared for a good while. There is just too much to cram in.

Omg yes, all these things Great examples.

I personally don't even know if they tried to do too much. It seems that way, but then again there are so many scenes that add absolutely nothing to the story development that you can also entertain the idea that they didn't have enough ideas at all. The out of nowhere developments, to me, give the impression of the writers just having to cook something up without any grand design, almost like the episodes were written chronologically without knowing where anything would end up. So many characters lack a function.. I don't know, I really just don't even know how Ryan and the writers handled this.

[Didymus 32,780]

9 minutes ago, Aura Veil said:

In essence, the hotel itself will be its own character.

I love this.

I mean, now the hotel feels not only unreal (I mean as a simple set piece) but also dead when it could've been surrounded with so much mystery, like it had a will of its own. There seem to be hints to that (the weird concept of not being able to leave the hotel etc.) but it's not really convincing, especially when everyone's just being randomly killed off, also without much suspense, by people who are self-proclaimed serial killers, nothing more, nothing less

[Miky 9,400]

On 11. 12. 2015 at 11:15 AM, Didymus said:

I love this.

I mean, now the hotel feels not only unreal (I mean as a simple set piece) but also dead when it could've been surrounded with so much mystery, like it had a will of its own. There seem to be hints to that (the weird concept of not being able to leave the hotel etc.) but it's not really convincing, especially when everyone's just being randomly killed off, also without much suspense, by people who are self-proclaimed serial killers, nothing more, nothing less

I was hoping for some Stephen King's Shining-esque development, would've been so cool but oh well. The initial idea seemed great but I feel like they killed the place's potential.

[Pacify Him 9,073]

Tbh. If I were to be in charge of including horror elements for this season, I would add an underground Satanism cult (like Kill List 2011 or w.e), cannibalistic chefs-next-door? A psychotic Zoe Benson version 2 but a male who lures victims to their death after having sex, white ghost lady that roams the hallways warning anybody of upcoming death like a banshee (Gaga could fit in this and become the alive version of it).

I still have mixed feelings for this season that I can't describe it yet. I wish they would shed more light on the people trapped in beds. I still don't know what they're there for.