Main cast: Jessica Barden (Bestie), Emma Halleen (Shelby Brubaker), Seth Gabel (Guy Brubaker), Jeff Hiller (Mr Nevins), Amrou Al-Kadhi (Anna Rexhia), and Allius Barnes (River)
Director: Max Winkler
Bestie is another take from Hollywood on the dangers of being online and getting stalked by dangerous weirdos.
In this one, Shelby Brubaker had recently lost her mother to cancer, and to top it all off, mean kids in her new school are bullying her, so the shy and awkward young lady spends most of her time watching the drag queen Anna Rexhia on her mobile phone. Hmm, I believe this show is on to the fandom of Rupaul’s Drag Race and Dragula.
Anyway, Shelby isn’t a doormat, though, and she tries to fight back. Only, this lands her in trouble with the teacher Mr Nevins, whose idea of inspirational talks seems to be telling Shelby about stillborn births. Her father Guy is annoying as he says the dumbest things to cheer her up.
It’s pretty clear that Shelby is all alone in a bitterly unhappy and lonely place in her head, so she is more than happy to befriend a person, BFF4EVA, who reveals that she is a girl born disfigured due to her mother taking all kinds of drugs when this mother was pregnant with her. They are both fans of Anna Rexhia, so yay, besties forever indeed!
Just like how these stories usually go, this new bestie is soon encouraging Shelby to escalate her defiance and vindictiveness, with glorious results to all but those that at the receiving end of Shelby’s wrath.
The best thing about this episode is Emma Halleen’s sympathetic portrayal of a lonely girl that is not exactly as nice as one would expect a victim like her to be. Ms Halleen injects enough vulnerability to make up for the awful lines her character has to say.
However, the rest of the episode is pretty bad. As par for the course, the teenagers all utter lines written by old men that have no idea how actual teens converse anymore, and the episode meanders around until it reaches some climactic twist that makes little sense.
Making things worse is Jessica Barden’s portrayal of BFF4EVA as an over the top snarling, sniveling hag. I have a hard time believing that any teenager would take her seriously long enough to relate to her. Laugh at her, more like.
So yes, the American Horror Stories show is back, at least over the Halloween season, and this episode is a complete regression over any progress made in the last season. Is this made from a rejected script from the first season?
