Written by Crystal Liu, who has written a number of episodes of American Horror Story dating back to 2014, “Necro” certainly benefits from her expertise. The latest episode of the horror series carries the sentiment of American Horror Stories and the original series through both Liu’s script and Logan Kibens’ direction. Kibens’ experience with a series like Snowfall serves her well with a few of the complicated and gritty scenes that “Necro” contains.
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“Necro,” whose title is an abbreviation of necrophilia, or a sensual attraction toward the dead, provides a glimpse into what viewers can expect. The opening sequence of American Horror Stories follows an ominous blood trail that ends with a young girl breastfeeding from her dead mother’s corpse. This opening already establishes a unique connection between the dead and the episode’s living characters. Naturally, the opening sequence of “Necro” isn’t the strangest or most unsettling scene the episode has to offer.
Following the breastfeeding scene, American Horror Stories transports viewers to present-day California. It is here that “Necro” begins to introduce its main conflicts. Sam (Iseman) works as a mortuary cosmetologist and as she tries to connect with her boyfriend Jesse (Spencer Neville) after returning home, she is put off due to the lingering smell of formaldehyde. A scene between Sam and her friends confirms the tension between Jesse and Sam, who the latter feels don’t fully understand them and the significance of her work. To further complicate things, Sam meets her new coworker, Charlie (Cowperthwaite), who appears to share her fascination for the dead.
The underlying trouble for the characters of “Necro” is honesty. Sam’s reluctance for discussing her childhood trauma severely impacts her relationships with her friends and boyfriend, and the way she interacts with the world. It’s an issue she acknowledges having become numb to prior to meeting Charlie. Unfortunately for her, the connection she forms with Charlie forces her to confront these issues and be honest with herself to a startling degree. Even when confronted with choices she has made, Sam struggles to accept them. As a result, her relationship with her friends, her boyfriend, and the way the world interacts with her shifts dramatically.
“Necro” has many strengths. The episode’s pacing is fairly even, allowing “Necro” to convey its narrative in a meaningful and focused way. The details within the episode have been strategically chosen, from the dialogue to the costumes, and its set. Early on, “Necro” uses the bonding scenes between Sam and Charlie to explore customs various cultures have in regard to death and dealing with the dead. One detail that stands out, is Charlie’s recollection of a couple that was buried together as a form of eternal love. This conversation is not only significant to the end of “Necro,” but is oddly moving in its ability to bond Sam and Charlie together.
The praises of the cast of “Necro” deserve to be sung. As the complex leading lady, Iseman creates a character that warrants sympathy in an extremely unorthodox way. Iseman is complimented by Cowperthwaite beautifully, who molds Charlie into a creepy, but treasurable character that may not gain the same sympathy as Sam, but is a character people want to see succeed. As a lawyer, Neville’s Jesse is humorously unobservant of Sam’s disinterest, but his good-hearted nature casts a needed glimmer onto “Necro.” The cast that makes up Sam’s friends (Sara Silva, Jessica Van, and Chelsea M. Davis) each provide “Necro” with an added dose of leisure that helps balance the oddity of the episode.
“Necro” toes the line between charming and obscene through brief doses of comedy and sordid romantic tales. The pacing of “Necro” is complimented by the episode’s unwillingness to take too much on. “Necro” fundamentally revolves around two significant events: Sam’s childhood and her decision to grow intimate with Charlie’s presumed corpse. “Necro” marries these events to create a further sense of turmoil for Sam, and this is what drives the narrative; Sam’s desire to be “normal” is her sole drive. When that becomes more difficult to obtain, she is led back to the one thing she desperately tries to avoid.
Injected with bits of novelty and its treatment of necrophilia, “Necro” is a memorable and rather influential episode of American Horror Stories. It, like most episodes from the spin-off series’ second season, has had no connection to the larger franchise and its characters. Comprised of a cast that’s new to the world of American Horror Story and its spin-off series, what “Necro” is able to pull off on its own is truly spectacular, in light of how many others have fallen short.
American Horror Stories is now streaming on Hulu.
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