The true horror story for Ryan Murphy has been the steady drop in ratings of his hit show American Horror Story. As depreciation kicked in, so did the desperation to save the show from drowning in failure. With teenage girls constantly fighting and bitching in Coven, to a boring and messy Freakshow, to the overstuffed and out of place “shock” scenes in Hotel and one hell of a WTF season with Roanoke, American Horror Story finally returns to form in Cult. By no means am I saying Cult is perfect, but Murphy and crew are definitely one step closer to recapturing what made the show’s debut season so special.

Murphy and crew are definitely one step closer to recapturing what made the show’s debut season so special

The latest season is short and to the point. In the past, the seasons would tend drag on and showrunners thought it was a good idea to have episodes that are as long as a feature-length movie. Not only did that fail to keep audience attention, but it stretched the story out to the point where episodes became tedious and redundant. This impacted the overall quality of the show, but most importantly, it impacted the ending. With episodes dragging, all the pressure was left on the final few episodes to tie the story together which usually resulted in killing characters off left and right simply because there wasn’t enough time to give them a proper sendoff, *cough* Freakshow *cough*. In Cult, all the episodes are kept at a run time of no longer than an hour, and when a season contains only 11 episodes, that’s a big deal. While characters are still eliminated at a steady pace, their deaths play a significant part in the story. It also helps that Murphy didn’t overstuff character roles.

Cult does thread lightly on horror, but rest assured that there are some gnarly gore and kill scenes that will satisfy the inner sicko in all of you

As far as the story goes, everything ties together perfectly. Sure, the political and the women’s rights aspect of the season is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea; however, it weaves into the story effortlessly. One could argue that it’s necessary stitching that keeps the story together. In all fairness, the main focus is more on current political turmoil rather than past cults and serial killers. Speaking of past cults, the time jumps resemble very closely to that of Black Dahlia from Murder House and Anne Frank from Asylum, where they can be held as a standalone story, but play a part in the main story line.

Something Murphy has struggled with in the past is to differentiate horror from shock. Previous seasons, especially Hotel, had numerous scenes that paid no value to the story but were placed there for shock value purposes only. While there are still a handful of groan-inducing moments that could be cut out from Cult that wouldn’t be missed, the focal point stays on horror and the nonessential scenes are kept to a minimum. Cult does thread lightly on horror, but rest assured that there are some gnarly gore and kill scenes that will satisfy the inner sicko in all of you. The acting is at its all-time best, and even if you hate the show, there is no denying that it has great production value.

The acting is at its all-time best, and even if you hate the show, there is no denying that it has great production value

On a recent personal poll, I found that the audience opinion on this season is divided nearly in half. While some despised it, other’s like myself found this season to be on par with the first two due to the style and storytelling. Ryan Murphy is definitely on the right path, now here’s to hoping he stays in his lane.