Main cast: Bella Thorne (Marci), Nico Greetham (Paul Winowski), Anthony De La Torre (Chaz), Billie Bodega (Piper), and Austin Woods (Wyatt)
Director: Yangzom Brauen
Drive, not to be confused with Drive In from last season, continues the streak of the American Horror Stories episodes to date in this season being far more interesting than the entire last season.
Sure, it has Bella Thorne, and Nico Greetham is in another episode of a Ryan Murphy show, but the biggest problem here is that the story is really dumb. See, there’s a reason why I use “interesting” and not “better” in the first paragraph!
Marci and Chaz have agreed to an open marriage, and for the following eight months, Marci is having a good time with her friend Piper—going to clubs, picking up hot men and women for a quick shag in her car, that kind of thing.
Chaz, however, is worried because his wife is going about this the old-fashioned way, instead of using an app or something, and there’s a serial killer out on the loose.
Marci thinks that he’s just being ridiculous and maybe jealous, until when the episode opens and she’s hounded by a jeep that keeps driving after her, honking like mad and even ramming into the back of her car. She manages to shake the crazy fellow off, but oh my, has she just been targeted by the neighborhood homicidal lunatic?
Ms Thorne is actually adequate here in a role that doesn’t call for constant one-liners. She is supposed to be this morose creature that is trying to have the best time of her life, clearly to compensate for some damage in her life, and for most part, she’s okay.
It also helps that she is surrounded by cast members that put on performances that range from “Okay, can I have my check now, please?” to “I’m really trying, okay, so please don’t judge me so harshly!” kind of whatever.
Mr Greetham surprises me by how well he plays the creepy guy, though. Maybe that’s something he ought to explore more.
The premise of this episode is intriguing, but the execution is pretty bad. For one, this is one episode that is one big misdirection in action, but to accomplish this, the script decides to just pull the twist out of its rear end for the grand finale, without checking to make sure whether the episode leading up to that point makes sense.
As a result of this, there are a few big plot holes that are hard to overlook. For example, why does the fellow Ms Thorne is hounding keep clippings of missing people in their place? Why does the killer have an unsuspecting person tagging along when they are so concerned about the police catching on? What’s the point of even an open marriage for Chaz and Marci in light of the whole episode?
I waffle between two or three oogies when it comes to this episode. Still, I’m happy this show is actually better this season, at least for now, and I’d take Mr Greetham in cute white briefs over Mr Murphy’s other twinks du jour any other day. Hey, I’m easy, so three oogies it is.
