The Part Of American Horror Stories' Feral That Makes No Sense
Nature is often pitched as a mystery to modern human society. We're told that spending our days in houses, cars, or office buildings is bad. We eat in restaurants and that's also bad. Some of us monsters don't even forage for food in markets anymore, we just get boxes in the mail with pre-packaged ingredients and careful instructions for homemade bibimbap. And homemade bibimbap is the baddest bad of them all. The cure for the stain of modern life, is, of course, camping. If nature ceases to be a mystery, if we commune with it, then we will understand ourselves and be happy. We'll look up at the stars, contemplate our small place in the cosmos, and be at peace.
The reality is, of course, that nature is not peaceful. You're probably more likely to catch Lyme Disease from a tick bite than you are to get mugged in a dark alley. "Feral," the latest episode of "American Horror Stories" is all about the dangers hiding in the quiet of nature. The story penned by TV legend Manny Coto borrows from all those "the dangers of nature" narratives like "The Descent," "Wrong Turn," and "The Hills Have Eyes." And like all of those, the fear behind "Feral" is not entirely unfounded.
However, like with so many stories which amplify fear of nature to a supernatural level, the facts don't all quite add up.
Jacob sits on a throne of skulls for some reason
The pitch for "Feral" is simple: Jay (Aaron Tveit) and Addy Gantz (Tiffany Dupont) take their son Jacob (Colin Tandberg) camping, and Jacob disappears into the woods. Ten years later, the now-divorced couple encounters Bob Birch (Blake Shields), a man who claims he knows what really happened to their son and takes Jay and Addy back into the woods and everyone gets more than they bargained for. Much like with "The Descent," "Wrong Turn," and "The Hills Have Eyes," the "more than they bargained for" is cannibalistic peoples living off the land who will devour any foolish normies who enter their territory.
The specific catch for "Feral" is that the United States government knows about the whole thing. We find out through Park Ranger Stan Vogel (Cody Fern), who apparently works with the American government to occasionally cull the cannibal woods people. Vogel explains that the government keeps the whole thing hush hush because of capitalism. And leaving aside how little sense this conspiracy theory makes, it's the ending of "Feral" that is hilariously unbelievable.
In the final moments Jay and Addy find their son, because he is now the leader of the cannibals. Why is this young boy the boss? Who knows! But the most unbelievable part of all of this is not King Jacob, but the fact that, for some reason, his people somehow managed to drag out a huge throne of skulls exactly into the part of the woods where Jay and Addy are reunited with their son. Why did they carry a throne of skulls? Why a throne of skulls at all? How did they know where the family would reunite? Who knows?! All that really matters is that the three are reunited — so Jacob can instruct his follows to eat his parents.