Lily Rabe and Dylan McDermott acclaimed in AHS: 1984

[Bradley 54,933]

AHS: 1984 extends its acclaim for a seventh episode in a row, with a score of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. All critics have acclaimed the performances of Lily Rabe and Dylan McDermott. If you've seen this week's episode, you know that Lily Rabe was disturbingly good. Dylan McDermott's wicked performance at the end was also freaking superb. Besides the new cast, John Caroll Lynch and Emma Roberts also received praise. 1984 becomes the most consistently praised AHS season so far, with all episodes receiving either largely positive reviews or general acclaim.

Ron Hogan of Den of Geek gave the episode a 4/5, saying, "That's a [...] brilliant bit of scripting from John J. Gray, who gives both Lily Rabe and John Carroll Lynch a lot of meaty material to work with. Rabe in particular leans into her material hard, and as an AHS veteran, she knows how to play up the campier aspects of her wailing widow character by chewing every bit of scenery she can find and spitting it back aggressively into the face of Lynch, who uses his considerable size to good effect by visibly shrinking in the face of his mother's wrath." He also praised McDermott's character and performance, commenting that he is "great at going from aggressive and confident to a scared, sobbing wreck, and this role plays perfectly into his strengths as an actor." He concluded his review by "People die, people come back, ghosts haunt a campground while thinking up revenge plots, and a one-hit wonder 80's band is slaughtered, and even the most predictable aspects of AHS are still pretty wild when compared to everything else on television."[3]

Kat Rosenfield of Entertainment Weekly gave the episode a B- rating. She praised the return of series veterans Rabe and McDermott, as she started her review by "Familiar faces from AHS seasons past make this episode extra-haunted." She also enjoyed the opening scene/flashback, commenting that the "episode starts strong". While she criticized Brooke's and Donna's nonsense decision of taking Bruce with them, she appreciated the scene where Brooke defends herself against the hitchhiker. Rosenfield also noted how this episode used the same narrative since the beginning of the season, as "everyone converges on the camp, again, and people start dying, again." However, she enjoyed the final scenes between Richter and his mother. Overall, she appreciated the episode but criticized its similarities with Friday the 13th, commenting that it was "more like a blatant rip-off".[4]

Variety's Andrea Reiher gave a positive review, and said "Last week’s episode of American Horror Story took all the 1984 characters and jumped them forward in time by five years. It seemed to be setting up a reunion back at Camp Redwood, which was about to be reopened. But when the seventh episode, entitled "The Lady in White", began, it did so catapulting viewers back in time even further. Because in order to understand where pivotal players are going this season, one must understand from where they came."[5]

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/american_horror_story/s09/e07

[Luke78619 22,394]

Lily was brilliant, I hope she plays a major role next season, hopefully a villain 

[Bradley 54,933]

1 minute ago, monster78619 said:

Lily was brilliant, I hope she plays a major role next season, hopefully a villain 

She was almost as good as Sarah Paulson imo. I was asking myself, why hasn't she been given a chance to lead AHS yet? I didn't mean her just supporting Sarah or Jessica, like truly her leading one entire season.

[monketsharona 44,564]

Unpopular opinion but : Lily Rabe >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sarah Paulson

I would be far more excited by Lily being back next season as regular than Sarah.

[Bradley 54,933]

1 minute ago, monketsharona said:

Unpopular opinion but : Lily Rabe >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sarah Paulson

I would be far more excited by Lily being back next season as regular than Sarah.

I love them both but Sarah has delivered very diverse performances in AHS. She's impressed in so many different ways, she deserves the credits she's given.

Btw, I really wish AHS would deliver another 12/13-episode season.

[monketsharona 44,564]

1 minute ago, Bradley said:

I love them both but Sarah has delivered very diverse performances in AHS. She's impressed in so many different ways, she deserves the credits she's given.

Btw, I really wish AHS would deliver another 12/13-episode season.

Don't get me wrong I love Sarah Paulson but I just feel she has given the best she had to give in AHS. Same goes to Evan Peters. I don't see them returning as regular roles in the future. To be truly honest, I don't even miss any of them this year. 1984 is working very good with that much returning actors. 

Just my opinion but Ryan should give the leading roles for next seasons to Lily Rabe, Denis O'Hare, Frances Conroy, Kathy Bates or Angela Bassett. None had the opportunity to be the main character in past season.  I like the fact he gave Emma Roberts the opportunity to shine this year. 

[Bradley 54,933]

3 minutes ago, monketsharona said:

Don't get me wrong I love Sarah Paulson but I just feel she has given the best she had to give in AHS. Same goes to Evan Peters. I don't see them returning as regular roles in the future. To be truly honest, I don't even miss any of them this year. 1984 is working very good with that much returning actors. 

Just my opinion but Ryan should give the leading roles for next seasons to Lily Rabe, Denis O'Hare, Frances Conroy, Kathy Bates or Angela Bassett. None had the opportunity to be the main character in past season.  I like the fact he gave Emma Roberts the opportunity to shine this year. 

Actually would Emma be qualified for a Lead Actress category for the Emmys? She's being credited as a lead but her screen time seems equivalent to the supporting cast's though.

Also could Lily Rabe and Dylan McDermott be submitted for Supporting Emmy categories, considering how they're only in it for one episode?

[monketsharona 44,564]

1 minute ago, Bradley said:

Also could Lily Rabe and Dylan McDermott be submitted for Supporting Emmy categories, considering how they're only in it for one episode?

I could definitely see this happen. I would also like Angelica Ross to grab a nomination. I absolutely love her part in 1984

[Bradley 54,933]

2 minutes ago, monketsharona said:

I could definitely see this happen. I would also like Angelica Ross to grab a nomination. I absolutely love her part in 1984

But wouldn't it be weird that guests get nominations but main actors like Billie Lourd and John Caroll Lynch don't?

[monketsharona 44,564]

Just now, Bradley said:

But wouldn't it be weird that guests get nominations but main actors like Billie Lourd and John Caroll Lynch don't?

True, I don't really know how they do their submissions. To me that season has a lot of potential for Emmy Awards. But you know I bet a lot on Kathy Bates for Roanoke and Evan Peters for Cult and none of them grabbed anything... 

[Bradley 54,933]

3 minutes ago, monketsharona said:

True, I don't really know how they do their submissions. To me that season has a lot of potential for Emmy Awards. But you know I bet a lot on Kathy Bates for Roanoke and Evan Peters for Cult and none of them grabbed anything... 

Urgh how did Roanoke not get any Emmy noms, and also Evan was snubbed.

[monketsharona 44,564]

4 minutes ago, Bradley said:

Urgh how did Roanoke not get any Emmy noms, and also Evan was snubbed.

That's a fact when a show is getting older it's getting harder to get Emmy Awards nominations / wins... That's sad because AHS has still a lot of Emmy worthy material. 

[bloody g 31,731]

34 minutes ago, monketsharona said:

That's a fact when a show is getting older it's getting harder to get Emmy Awards nominations / wins... That's sad because AHS has still a lot of Emmy worthy material. 

But past seasons weren't as acclaimed or as popular. 1984 is the biggest season in years and it's popularity has increased since it started airing instead of decreasing as it usually does. I think 1984 has better chances at noms than its predecessors.

[Bradley 54,933]

6 minutes ago, Bloody Grammys said:

But past seasons weren't as acclaimed or as popular. 1984 is the biggest season in years and it's popularity has increased since it started airing instead of decreasing as it usually does. I think 1984 has better chances at noms than its predecessors.

I don't think it's the decrease in quality that resulted in the lack of nominations, but rather the increase of new, popular shows, some of them are even made by Ryan Murphy himself.

There are only 5 to 6 slots per year for the Outstanding Limited Series category, if it's a choice between AHS and something new, they'd of course prefer to give it to the fresh production, no matter how acclaimed AHS is.

[Luke78619 22,394]

1 hour ago, Bradley said:

She was almost as good as Sarah Paulson imo. I was asking myself, why hasn't she been given a chance to lead AHS yet? I didn't mean her just supporting Sarah or Jessica, like truly her leading one entire season.

I seem to remember reading that she was supposed to be Ivy in Cult but she had a child and wasn’t able to do the season

she was kinda leading in Roanoke until Lee was the main character