10-22-2021, 03:29 AM
I watched the final episode of AHS Death Valley last night. In case you're wondering, there are no more mpreg scenes, except for some extras that walk for a few seconds in the background.
I'm going to write a little about what I think about the series, you can omit me if you like, it's just that I wanted to articulate some ideas I have about the show. I recommend that everyone try to watch the show and draw their own conclusions, this is just my opinion on the series as a whole.
The ending uses a classic sci-fi trope: humanity is something that doesn't deserve to exist due to the destruction it has caused and its self-centered nature. And before the power of an extraterrestrial superior race, humans perish.
Interestingly, in the end it comes down to the women's struggle. Although everything begins by male orders, the end is driven by the women and their decisions. So apparently women are shown to have some decisiveness, but they also become part of the damsel in distress trope (the two pregnant girls are only excuses to advance the plot, even one of them simply dies without contributing something else to the story). The women are pretexts to advance the argument raised by men (the center is still Eisenhower and the pregnant gay boys, they have more development). The series shows an apparent progressivism with its main female leads, but their actions are still conditioned by what happens to men. Nevertheless, the performances from all the actresses are great (especially Sarah Paulson). On the other hand, it seems that much of what is shown in the series remains in small notes of topics that do not go anywhere. Topics such as the sweet relationship between a gay couple and motherhood, dead cows, Steve Jobs, Amelia Earhart, the false moon landing and other elements like those do not appear again, they are mentioned and discarded from a script that doesn't seems to know what to do with them. The central narrative is about finding a perfect species that mixes humans and aliens, the rest becomes disposable and is discarded. This is the first time I've seen AHS, I have no idea what the other seasons are like, this season has good ideas, however it seems that the writers don't really know how to put them together in a consistent script. It is worth adding that this part of the season only has 4 episodes, which are full of things that are not completely developed. Maybe that's the problem: too many stuff. Although some of these ideas are taken from other fictions, they could have been better articulated with the various themes that I listed at the beginning.
However, looking at the mpreg part of the series, it is very different from what I have seen before: the intimate connection between a gay couple and their desire to become parents through pregnancy is something really unique. And we see various parts of that process: morning sickness, ultrasounds, belly growth, very realistic births. Also, the great performances (Nico Greetham and especially Isaac Cole Powell) and the prosthetic bellies made everything feel so authentic. As a fan of mpreg, I liked all of that (plus we've had a lot of behind-the-scenes photos and videos that have been ... well ... hot hehe). I think it a really good mpreg content (probably one of the best we have ever had). But, like I said, the rest of the series is not as good as the mpreg part.
P.S. I noticed that AHS did not release a season in 2020 because of the pandemic. However, the seasons of the show are usually annual, so maybe they had two ideas for this season piled up (one from last year and one for this year), which they necessarily wanted to use. This is clearly a mere assumption. If someone has more information about it, it would be great if they could post it here. What I am going with this last comment is that the fact of condensing so much in a single season has made that many of the elements do not add to the main stories and become only themes that are discarded. The number of episodes of Death Valley could have been duplicated, with which there would be more space for the development of the subjects that were not approached properly. This is just me guessing, but maybe the idea of Death Valley originally had to cover an entire season, but due to the absence of a season in 2020, the ideas of last year and this year had to be compacted into just one season, all in order not to waste. Remember that TV seasons are planned months in advance, perhaps the actors and production members of Death Valley had schedules already established for the future - there may even be contracts in between that require filming with said actors - so the AHS's producers couldn't waste them and decided to merge both seasons into one. With this, the quality of the Death Valley script fell due to not having enough space to develop all the themes. Again, I say this without having a fully understanding of the AHS production processes, so it is a mere hypothesis that can be discarded. But in case it has some truth, it would be interesting to know what were the original plans for Death Valley and thus find out what it could have been. I reiterate, if anyone had any additional information on how this season's production was carried out, please comment because it would help to get a global idea of the season.
I'm going to write a little about what I think about the series, you can omit me if you like, it's just that I wanted to articulate some ideas I have about the show. I recommend that everyone try to watch the show and draw their own conclusions, this is just my opinion on the series as a whole.
The ending uses a classic sci-fi trope: humanity is something that doesn't deserve to exist due to the destruction it has caused and its self-centered nature. And before the power of an extraterrestrial superior race, humans perish.
Interestingly, in the end it comes down to the women's struggle. Although everything begins by male orders, the end is driven by the women and their decisions. So apparently women are shown to have some decisiveness, but they also become part of the damsel in distress trope (the two pregnant girls are only excuses to advance the plot, even one of them simply dies without contributing something else to the story). The women are pretexts to advance the argument raised by men (the center is still Eisenhower and the pregnant gay boys, they have more development). The series shows an apparent progressivism with its main female leads, but their actions are still conditioned by what happens to men. Nevertheless, the performances from all the actresses are great (especially Sarah Paulson). On the other hand, it seems that much of what is shown in the series remains in small notes of topics that do not go anywhere. Topics such as the sweet relationship between a gay couple and motherhood, dead cows, Steve Jobs, Amelia Earhart, the false moon landing and other elements like those do not appear again, they are mentioned and discarded from a script that doesn't seems to know what to do with them. The central narrative is about finding a perfect species that mixes humans and aliens, the rest becomes disposable and is discarded. This is the first time I've seen AHS, I have no idea what the other seasons are like, this season has good ideas, however it seems that the writers don't really know how to put them together in a consistent script. It is worth adding that this part of the season only has 4 episodes, which are full of things that are not completely developed. Maybe that's the problem: too many stuff. Although some of these ideas are taken from other fictions, they could have been better articulated with the various themes that I listed at the beginning.
However, looking at the mpreg part of the series, it is very different from what I have seen before: the intimate connection between a gay couple and their desire to become parents through pregnancy is something really unique. And we see various parts of that process: morning sickness, ultrasounds, belly growth, very realistic births. Also, the great performances (Nico Greetham and especially Isaac Cole Powell) and the prosthetic bellies made everything feel so authentic. As a fan of mpreg, I liked all of that (plus we've had a lot of behind-the-scenes photos and videos that have been ... well ... hot hehe). I think it a really good mpreg content (probably one of the best we have ever had). But, like I said, the rest of the series is not as good as the mpreg part.
P.S. I noticed that AHS did not release a season in 2020 because of the pandemic. However, the seasons of the show are usually annual, so maybe they had two ideas for this season piled up (one from last year and one for this year), which they necessarily wanted to use. This is clearly a mere assumption. If someone has more information about it, it would be great if they could post it here. What I am going with this last comment is that the fact of condensing so much in a single season has made that many of the elements do not add to the main stories and become only themes that are discarded. The number of episodes of Death Valley could have been duplicated, with which there would be more space for the development of the subjects that were not approached properly. This is just me guessing, but maybe the idea of Death Valley originally had to cover an entire season, but due to the absence of a season in 2020, the ideas of last year and this year had to be compacted into just one season, all in order not to waste. Remember that TV seasons are planned months in advance, perhaps the actors and production members of Death Valley had schedules already established for the future - there may even be contracts in between that require filming with said actors - so the AHS's producers couldn't waste them and decided to merge both seasons into one. With this, the quality of the Death Valley script fell due to not having enough space to develop all the themes. Again, I say this without having a fully understanding of the AHS production processes, so it is a mere hypothesis that can be discarded. But in case it has some truth, it would be interesting to know what were the original plans for Death Valley and thus find out what it could have been. I reiterate, if anyone had any additional information on how this season's production was carried out, please comment because it would help to get a global idea of the season.