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"Last night, when I was making a bowl of popcorn just before watching American Horror Story: Coven, I went through the following: When the TV-MA warning pops up on-screen, I immediately did this: When L for coarse language appeared, I was like: When V for violence showed up next, I was: When S for sexual situations finally appeared, I was like: Cut to five minutes later when Madame Delphine LaLaurie (played by the incomparable Kathy Bates), who was mad at her daughter for sexing on a house slave, put him in the basement with her gaggle of tortured slaves and placed a bull&amp;#x27;s head atop of him so he could resemble a Minotaur: And so it was, on that day, October 9, 2013, that zero cares were given from AHS creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk about the fact that Orville Redenbacher kernels were going to fall out my mouth because, yes, they went there. Like to &amp;quot;the foyer at the entrance of the Underground Railroad&amp;quot; there. With slavery. I have to tell you that I have not been this shocked/intrigued by a show in quite some time. Of course, those of you at home are probably like, &amp;quot;Duh! This is what AHS does.&amp;quot; Confession time: I&amp;#x27;ve never seen one second of American Horror Story before. It always looked too scary, so I shied away and stuck with lighter fare like Breaking Bad. Little did I know that Murphy and Falchuk&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;you better believe we&amp;#x27;re going there&amp;quot; vibe would continue throughout what may be the most enjoyable season premiere I&amp;#x27;ve seen thus far this year. Fiona, played by AHS regular, Jessica Lange, is the HWIC a.k.a. head witch in charge and is on a mission to raise the dying generation of witches to embrace their powers. As I mentioned above, Coven begins in 1834 with evil high-society woman LaLaurie&amp;amp;#8212;who could very well be the kin of Leonardo DiCaprio&amp;#x27;s slave owner Calvin Candie from Django Unchained&amp;amp;#8212;whose two main motivations in life are torturing slaves and maintaining her youth by rubbing the blood from the pancreas of her slaves on her face like it&amp;#x27;s Clean &amp;amp; Clear exfoliating wash. Woman is spooky and you can see Bates relishing every second on-screen as she chews the scenery and frightens the heck out of me. We cut to the present day once the Minotaur sequence is over and find ourselves with LaLaurie&amp;#x27;s youth-obsessed counterpart in Fiona, the highest type of witch, better known as a Supreme. She attempts to blackmail a doctor, who&amp;#x27;s working on a serum to reverse aging in humans, but it unfortunately won&amp;#x27;t be ready for another two years. He relents and gives her the very un-FDA-approved medicine, but when it doesn&amp;#x27;t work within five days, she sucks the youth out of him like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, which ends up killing him. This show is completely ignorant and crazy...and I love it. Bring on the lunacy! And, oh, it does. We meet Zoe (Taissa Farmiga), a teenager who discovers that she&amp;#x27;s a witch when losing her virginity to a guy and he dies via an extremely bloody brain aneurysm. Damn! I didn&amp;#x27;t know a witch&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;special&amp;quot; power could be making a dude die with sex. #RealTalk, if I were her, I&amp;#x27;d treat that situation like the Living Social mailing list I was on for nine months and unsubscribe.com. She did not because if she did, there wouldn&amp;#x27;t be a show. Instead, her mom ships her off to witch school in New Orleans. There, we&amp;#x27;re introduced to the other witches in the school&amp;amp;#8212;Nan (Jamie Brewster), a clairvoyant, Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts), a diva-in-training actress who killed her last movie director for giving her direction during a scene, and Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe), a human voodoo doll. Together, with Zoe, they represent the dying breed of witches. You see, when people know they have the witch gene in their family tree, they often choose not to procreate. If witches are made, they are under the constant fear of being murdered once their true selves are known. Thus, this explains why the school is run so secretively by Cordelia (Sarah Paulson). A fellow witch, Cordelia, is all about mastering one&amp;#x27;s powers, so as to exist with humans. Unfortunately, it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter how timid witches are because they are still getting burned at the stake, which is why her mother, Fiona, comes back to town and takes the girls on a field trip. She wants them to become strong witches and defend themselves against whatever forces attack them. Cordelia is not feeling this and we learn that these two do not get along at all. Marie Laveau, played by Angela Bassett, has a past with Madame LaLaurie. We also learn a few more things that I don&amp;#x27;t want to spoil here, including a very gruesome scene at a frat party, revenge sex, and the return of someone whom no one sees coming&amp;amp;#8212;didn&amp;#x27;t I mention this show is batsh*t crazy?&amp;amp;#8212;but the plot doesn&amp;#x27;t interest me as much as the acting. One of the things that makes Coven work so well are the moments of true camp. Everyone overacts in such a delicious way, knowing when to have ramp up the histrionics (Fiona doing cocaine montage) and when to play a moment real (Madison&amp;#x27;s shower scene). In an era of TV when so many shows are self-serious and reeking of importance (I&amp;#x27;m talking about the pretentious and dumb-headed The Newsroom), Coven wants to scare us, of course, but it also wants to be fun and funny, which is something I think it succeeds at. As far as the frights, I didn&amp;#x27;t jump as much as I expected I would, but I did cover my eyes a few times as graphic violence always makes me a tad frightened. Perhaps too frightened because I don&amp;#x27;t think I can stomach another night where I have to call a loved one after another AHSC episode is over just to make sure everything is right in the world. Still, this will not affect my grading of the show, which gets a solid B+/A- thanks to its camp, top-notch acting by the female heavyweights and the scare factor. If you like to be terrorized by the dark and gruesome, DVR this bad boy and then Gchat me the highlights. What did you think of American Horror Story? Do you agree or disagree with me?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2013/10/obsessed-tv-report-card-americ-1>