Main cast: Cody Fern (Thomas Browne), Julia Schlaepfer (Celeste), Seth Gabel (Pastor Walter), Addison Timlin (Delilah), and Ian Sharkey (Edward Browne)
Director: Alonso Alvarez
Imagine if Edward Jenner had been a woman named Delilah, and Delilah is shagging the milkmaid, Celeste, that is apparently immune to the smallpox that is currently killing so many people in the neighborhood. Now imagine if Delilah—ooh, the symbolism is as subtle as an ax between the eyes—had been disbelieved and abused because she is a woman. Worse, the men that refuse to believe her as all disgusting chauvinists and Christians.
Well, that’s Milkmaids in a nutshell, a mess of an episode that tries way too hard to cram in as many progressive slogans as possible without checking to make sure whether the end product is halfway decent.
One big problem is how the plot has the people in town immediately buying, without much prompting, Pastor Walter’s claim that that eating human hearts is the way to go to protect themselves from smallpox. I suppose this show is claiming that religious people will believe anything and everything. especially when their faith is actually motivated by fear and hatred, but at least do that with some measure of plausibility please.
Next problem is how this episode is set in the 18th century, and perhaps it had the costumes and set pieces right. However, the language, yikes. For a so-called scientist of her time, Delilah makes observations and hypotheses that are only possible if she had been from the future. The characters in this episode all talk like they are modern day people wearing costumes and deciding on a lark to impersonate people of the old days without making any proper research beforehand.
This episode is pretty heavy in the talk part, so this issue becomes a pretty significant one.
This cavalier treatment suggests that this episode is far more concerned about spreading the message that men are bastards and Christians are scums (wait, are we back in the 1990s?). While I don’t necessarily disagree with these statements had they been delivered with a far less stupid sweeping manner, the execution is a mess. As a result, this episode is preachy without the peachy, making it an eye-rolling thing to watch.
Also, the acting. Yikes! Looking at the cast list, it’s never more obvious that American Horror Stories is just Ryan Murphy’s way to keep his friends, lovers, and whatever employed. I don’t think these people are cast for their acting abilities, let’s just say.
Finally, it’s hard to sympathize with the lesbian twosome—talk about ticking off two items off the diversity checklist with one go—because they are the embodiment of lawful stupid where their actions are concerned. At some point, one has to realize that it’s not worth trying to help those that despise you for just existing, but hey, look at these two imbeciles go. They deserve what they get, if you ask me.
Milkmaids is a hot mess that tries to do too many things with all the broad strokes of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Instead of being thought-provoking or gut-wrenching, it is over the top and packed with unintentional cringe.
Normally, I’d ask that this episode may need to double its length to do the story justice, but considering the script and the cast, a complete dynamite to the proceeding may be a better option.
