BlackBook

Instead of ending the year with a slew of Best Of lists, BlackBook asked our contributors to share the most important moments in art, music, film, television, and fashion that took place in 2012. Here, Drew Grant discusses why she loves the year's most popular cable TV drama, Homeland.

The gang's all here (again)! Now that the second season of American Horror Story is pushing toward its grand finale, we're seeing a lot of nods towards last season. Like now, we know Bloody Face has a son--not a daughter, like I previously assumed, my bad! And guess who it is? That's right, last year's wooden protagonist, Derbil McDillet!

I'm not sure if you guys are big fans of Homeland, but if you are, well, you'll totally understand what I'm saying here about American Horror Story: Even if you are writing about the most implausible, suspend-your-disbelief from a 90-foot crane kind of crazy, you still need to be internally consistent within the dream world you make up. So for instance, no way would Carrie have ever been let back in at the CIA, even if she was right about Brody. That's just not how it works. She has a mental problem, and it clearly makes her batshit insane, and she hid that information---a matter of national security--and don't even get me started on this Dana storyline...whatever.

Nice, American Horror Story. I didn't think you could do it after four long, tedious episodes, but now that we have Lana down in the basement of Bloody Norman Bates Face, we are finally getting somewhere.

So Anne Frank isn’t really Anne Frank, Zachary Quinto is an immortal monster who is like Batman’s Scarecrow except his mask is made out of your girlfriend’s face (and ugh, teeth), Academy Award nominee James Cromwell is a Nazi (no d’uh), and let’s see, anything else? Oh yes, a lot else.

Have we turned a corner in this somewhat terrible but mostly boring season of American Horror Story? Perhaps we have! I mean, right off the bat guys, you know who just showed up at Briarcliff? It's Anne Frank! Yeah, that Anne Frank! I know, we all thought she was dead too! (I mean, maybe she is. There are zombies and aliens and THE DEVIL and immortal serial killers so maybe the ghost of Anne Frank is hanging out like the Black Delilah was last season.) 

Well, last night's episode hit a little close to home, didn't it? Look, I'm not saying that Ryan Murphy's team of psycho-horror fanboys over there writing American Horror Story were necessarily psychic when they devoted this week's episode to a Nor'Easter (which also happened to be the title) the same week Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast and scared us all shitless. That was probably just a coincidence. After all, if you throw enough creepy pasta at a wall, eventually something is going to stick, and last night we saw spaghetti flying everywhere. Somewhere else in the country, someone was probably like, "How did this show know that I am very scared of having my legs amputated by Nazi war criminals?" while someone else (probably on the West Coast) was like, "How did this show know how very scared I am that Adam Levine is almost impossible to kill, even with one arm?"

I'm not sure how I feel about American Horror Story: Asylum, you guys. Because either we are in a world where Satan can inhabit a boy—and when he dies, transfers itself over to Sister Mary Eunice—OR we are in a world where the horrors are confined to barbaric hospital conditions and Academy Award nominee James Cromwell trying to rape a prostitute after dressing her up like the aforementioned nun. It can't be both! Because as terrible as rape and electroshock therapy and BLOODY FACE all are, we are now on some next-level paranormal shit, and that will always take precedence over mortal problems. I'm sorry, Chloe Sevigny. You picked the wrong reality to try out your feminist theories about gender relations and sex, and how come men have as much sex as they want but when women do it, they're called sluts? Take it to Mad Men, lady, because Briarcliff has some real problems.

I loved the first season of American Horror Story. Let's just begin with that. I thought Jessica Lange deserved the Emmy and Golden Globe. Evan Peters was robbed by not getting any nominations for "Best Crying." (I'm working off the presumption that if this was an actual category, it would just go to Claire Danes for Homeland.) I even have a sketch of Tate Langdon crying above my bed. That is how into American Horror Story I am.

Dedicated Fangbangers (I know that's what you call yourselves, no need to stand on ceremony here) may have noticed that last week's recap was conspicuously missing from our exhaustive and totally comprehensive coverage of the most Important and Politically Relevant Program Of All Time, True Blood. That was my bad. I actually watched the episode, but I'm not sure I can remember anything that happened in it, as I had just bought myself a vintage model kit for a Tie Interceptor and was trying to concentrate on both things at once. And since I'm just not that good at deciphering stuff that involves a lot of small pieces that don't really fit together and amount to a crappy product at the end anyway, I got frustrated and ended up muting my TV.