How American Horror Story Fans Really Felt About The Rubber Woman
"American Horror Story" fans are nothing if not strongly opinionated about what works and what doesn't when it comes to the show's various outlandish character choices and episodes. Its spin-off program, "American Horror Stories," has been no different in that regard, spawning reams of discussion and varied opinions from fans far and wide. For every person who's loved the show's sense of humor and inventive kills, there's someone who's been disappointed by its plot structure, character choices, and writing. Horror fans remain an impossible-to-please subset of genre fans, and they're never a monolith when it comes to what they adore and what they dislike.
So it is with the Rubber Woman, a just-as-deadly but female-identified version of the leather-clad murderer who graced the mothership show's "Murder House" season. The episode from whence she spawned encouraged debate as to its quality when it first began streaming, a debate that continues to rage on in the fandom. What do fans really think of "Rubber (wo)Man?"
I'm rubber and you're glue...
Let's just say that fans of the show have mixed opinions about the way "Rubber (wo)Man" played out.
"Good lord, I hated it so much," opined /u/FirefighterLoose6893 in a post they made on the American Horror Stories subreddit. Making note of the rushed, "confused" plotting, they concluded "I'm never complaining about [AHS] Roanoke again."
"[A]t least with this format, two episodes being terrible doesn't mean the rest of the season will suck," noted /u/naivebigs, but they also remarked that they felt that the ghost cast for "Murder House" was underutilized, specifically the "Hamond" [sic] family.
/u/Antosino "kept feeling like [they were] watching some terrible kids horror b-movie," and disliked the show's approach to both the afterlife and the death of its characters. "[E]verything is fine and you just chill with your cellphone and pancake breakfasts forever."
A dissenting voice came from /u/IdioticHookers, who declared that the problem came from the complainer's lack of critical-thinking skills, noting that the show is ten seasons and a spin-off deep into its lore, and the storytelling methods it employs have not changed since its inception.
All in all, the fanbase's reaction points toward a controversial beginning for a show that's fearless when it comes to offending its audience. As /u/Crymeabrooks notes, you can love something and still critique it.