The 5 Best And 5 Worst American Horror Story Episodes

Anthology series have become extremely popular in recent years — harkening back to the age of the Twilight Zone (which will be returning as well, thanks to Oscar-winning horror aficionado Jordan Peele, who will serve as the host and narrator), a growing number of showrunners are turning to the format for a fresh storytelling technique. From HBO's True Detective to the British series Black Mirror to FX's adaptation of Fargo, directors and writers have found themselves inspired by the anthology, and whether the shows keep the same cast for each installment or change it up entirely, audiences keep tuning in for each new concept.

When Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story premiered in 2011, it helped usher in a new age of anthologies, although Murphy stuck to a very specific format: he used the same core cast playing different characters for each new season, which was focused on a different horror scenario. From murder houses insane asylums to carnivals to the apocalypse, American Horror Story has covered plenty of terrifying ground, but there are bound to have been some huge hits and some big misses along the way. Here are the 10 best and worst episodes of American Horror Story.

In the aftermath of the 2016 election, Murphy went with his timeliest concept yet — though it wasn't immediately obvious that Cult would focus on the recent election, Murphy announced the inspiration before it aired, setting audiences up for what was sure to be a polarizing season. With regulars Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters taking the helm as a "liberal snowflake" and a power-hungry right-winger, respectively, the season had a strong concept, but, as American Horror Story tends to do, it tried a little too hard to juggle too much, including more unnerving neighbors (played by Billy Eichner and Leslie Grossman), a roving band of killer clowns (that might be a figment of Paulson's imagination), and more.

The seventh episode of the seventh season, "Valerie Solanas Died For Your Sins, Scumbag," utilizes a relatively clumsy flashback to feminist figure Valerie Solanas (Lena Dunham), who shot Andy Warhol in 1968 at the Factory as an act of rebellion. Though this did actually happen — and Solanas was a real person — the script takes some fairly wild liberties with her story, using her creation of SCUM (The Society for Cutting Up Men) to prove that she was, somehow, the person responsible for all of the Zodiac Killer correspondence, eventually tying up the episode by using Bebe Babbott (Frances Conroy) to tie the two timelines together. Together, all these muddled messages made for an unsatisfying episode.

Though Coven was a positively received season, it ended with an enormous whimper. With the season building to one question — who will be the next Supreme, the once-in-a-generation witch who can harness all of a set of powers referred to as the "Seven Wonders" — the coven of witches are all prepared to battle it out for the title, despite Fiona's repeated attempts to take out her competition (including trying to murder Madison). As each witch makes her way through the tests, she's stumped by one element or another: Misty can't transcend her own personal hell and return to the realm of the living; Zoe has issues with transportation and is impaled on a fence; Queenie struggles with resurrection; and Madison, though mostly successful, ends up murdered. Cordelia ends up coming through as the Supreme, which, after pitting the girls against each other all season, feels utterly underwhelming.

Even an appearance by Stevie Nicks, who opens the episode with a short impromptu music video, can't save this lukewarm finale, which culminates in  Fiona's personal hell — being trapped in an old farmhouse for eternity with one of the season's recurring ghosts. Watching Jessica Lange frantically scream about the house's foundations does elicit some chuckles ("knotty pine" has a whole new meaning for Coven fans), but as a whole, this ending doesn't do any service to the rollercoaster of a season that preceded it.

Even though it had an extraordinarily strong start, Freak Show, much like its predecessor Coven, ended with a fizzle. After a seriously weird whirlwind of a season, Dandy is on a mission to kill every cast member of the freak show — he now owns the entire carnival, since Elsa has left town and sold it to him for a mere $10,000. With the business of the freak show aside, most of the finale focuses on Elsa herself, who moves to Hollywood and marries an executive (David Burtka), but allows herself to be escorted to the afterlife by the ghost of Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley), who kills any freak that performs on Halloween. In her final performance, she sings "Heroes," harkening back to her previous Bowie performance and watched by the surviving freaks (including Bette, Dot, and Jimmy), before being gently escorted back to the freak show, where her deceased brethren are waiting with open arms.

Though it seems like a fairly warm and happy ending to such a violent season, it not only leaves plenty of narrative threads in the dust, but is simply a lackluster closing to an arc that once held so much promise. Unlike Asylum, which provides closure by giving Lana Winters one last act of revenge, Freak Show pretends it's giving viewers a satisfying ending, when ultimately, it looks more like the showrunners weren't sure where to go with such a challenging and off-the-wall season.

It was a bold move on the part of Apocalypse to literally present audiences with the Antichrist in the form of Michael Langdon, Vivien's demonic son from Murder House who was subsequently raised by Constance — one would think the Antichrist would be, well, frightening. The show steered directly into this skid in its eighth episode, which aired on Halloween (an airdate usually reserved for a fairly sensational installment). Allowing most of the episode to serve as a standalone flashback, Michael loses his closest parental figure, Mead (Kathy Bates, though she's later resurrected as an android), only to wander through the woods to "find himself," which results in him stumbling into a Satanic church, where the congregation cares for and begins to worship him.

Fans flocked to Twitter to declare that this was the single worst episode of American Horror Story to ever air, which seemed a bit dramatic, but again, the Halloween timing is important to consider — the show squandered a perfect opportunity. With plenty of questions left to answer and a typically superb supporting cast left in the dark for an entire episode, fans were left wanting from what should have been a sensational episode.

If Asylum is frequently ranked as the best season, Hotel, which usually falls to the bottom of the pack (along with Freak Show), is its direct inverse. The season, which once again serves as a perfect example of American Horror Story squandering its promise, is based loosely on several hotel-related horror stories, including H.H. Holmes' murderous hotel that existed during the World's Fair in Chicago (the subject of Devil in the White City) and the 2013 disappearance of Elisa Lam at L.A.'s Cecil Hotel (which no longer exists). With Jessica Lange's exit at the end of the previous season, the show had yet another hurdle to overcome — who would serve as the leading lady? — and though Lady Gaga offered up an admirably campy turn as vampire the Countess, it couldn't save an uneven season that tried a little too hard and muddled its own story time and time again.

The premiere, however, remains the worst episode of the season, if only for its best known scene: a violent rape sequence during which Gabriel (New Girl's Max Greenfield) is sodomized by a monster known as the "Addiction Demon," which has a conical drill bit for an appendage. Critics and fans alike viewed this as exploitative and unnecessary, and it became clear that while American Horror Story was usually a guilty pleasure, this season might be veering away from the word "pleasure" entirely, setting up a grim vision of things to come.