Hotel: ‘Checking In’
Echoing back to Rubber Man in Season 1,the addiction demon in Season 5’s premiere proved to be one of AHS’s most despised creations. The Addiction Demon appears in the episode for the seemingly sole purpose of violently assaulting a hotel guest who was taking drugs with Sally.
Ryan Murphy admitted it was the most violent scene he’d ever shot, but defended the scene by saying he did it to show what people with addiction go through psychologically. While Murphy’s motives for the scene may have been sincere, the Addiction Demon scene is largely believed to exist solely for shock value. Fans are certainly still talking about it.
Apocalypse: ‘Return to Murder House’
While fans were excited for the return of Jessica Lange in “Return to Murder House,” some were upset by its portrayal of Anton LaVey, founder of the church of satan . AHS portrays LaVey as having faked his own death to meet Michael Langdon and proclaim him as the Antichrist. LaVey also initiates a human sacrifice where a woman’s beating heart is cut out of her for Michael to feast on.
The Church of Satan issued a swift rebuttal after the episode aired, explaining that the real Anton LaVey didn’t believe in a Christ or an Antichrist, and that human sacrifice had no place in their beliefs. When Kathy Bates tweeted about reading the Bible after the episode aired, the Church of Satan replied to her directly, pointing out the intense violence in the Bible and that the Satanic Bible focuses on self-empowerment.
The Church and its followers generally felt like they were exploited and used for the sake of entertainment without any real consideration from AHS writers.
Coven: ‘The Replacements’
Coven‘s third episode has been called out for its portrayal of sexual assault and bestiality. First, we see Queenie hook up with the Minotaur who has been sent to kill Delphine. While the act is consensual, fans found it too graphic, even by AHS standards.
Later in the episode, Kyle is returned to his mother only for viewers to discover that she’s been molesting him his entire life. Kyle becomes overcome with rage and kills his mom with an old sports trophy. While Kyle’s revenge could be read as a victim taking control, viewers mostly felt that the episode’s gratuitous use of bestiality and sexual assault were unwarranted in an already controversial season.
Asylum: ‘I Am Anne Frank’
The two-part episode of Asylum titled “I Am Anne Frank” sparked outrage for its portrayal of Anne Frank and the Holocaust. In part one, viewers are presented with a woman who claims she’s Anne Frank and that she survived the Holocaust. While Sister Jude is initially skeptical of the woman, her story becomes more plausible when she identifies Dr. Arden as a former SS surgeon who performed inhumane experiments on prisoners in the concentration camp. Just as we begin to accept the idea of Anne Frank still being alive, we find out she’s actually a woman named Charlotte Cohen Brown who is suffering from psychosis.
Critics and fans alike felt that the handling of Frank’s story was in poor taste and the gruesome Holocaust flashbacks were unnecessary. AHS has always incorporated historic characters and events, but perhaps the story of Anne Frank should have been left alone.
Cult: ‘Valerie Solanas Died For Your Sins’
No stranger to controversy, Lena Dunham caught flack when she appeared on AHS‘s seventh season. Dunham played Valerie Solanas, a real woman who attempted to murder Andy Warhol in 1968. In the scene, Dunham as Solanas has a line regarding sexual assault, essentially saying that women don’t attack other women.
Immediate backlash followed on social media, as viewers recalled the acceusations of sexual assault made against Dunham in 2014. Following the release of her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham was accused of molesting her sister when they were both children. The episode may have never been considered controversial if a different actress had portrayed Solanas.
Murder House: ‘Halloween Part 2’
The first season of AHS proved that the show would push every limit imaginable. “Halloween Part 2” is without a doubt the most controversial episode of the season, and one of the most hotly debated of the series.
Over the course of the episode, we learn that Tate was a school shooter taken out by police in the early ’90s. While the revelation of Tate being a ghost is alarming, viewers were much more troubled by the graphic scene at the school, which eerily resembled the events at Columbine High School in 1999. Viewers thought the scene was too real, too relatable, and too exploitative of similar tragedies.
1984: ‘Final Girl’
While Season 9 of AHS received a largely positive reception, fans couldn’t get over one thing: the Richard Ramirez plot hole. Richard Ramirez, better known as the Night Stalker, was an infamous serial killer who just happens to appear in Season 5, Hotel. According to Hotel’s timeline, Ramirez died in prison in 2013 (as he did in real life), and his ghost goes on to become a frequent guest at the Hotel Cortez.
Fast-forward to the Season 9 finale, and Richard Ramirez is stabbed to death in 1989 by the residents of Camp Redwood, trapping his soul there for eternity. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been such a glaring plot hole if it weren’t for the fact that all nine seasons of the show are supposedly interconnected.
Cult: ‘Mid-Western Assassin’
Airing just days after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that claimed 58 lives, “Mid-Western Assassin” was edited to remove a scene depicting a similar event before it went to TV. Ryan Murphy said he felt he had the right to air the episode but also wanted to respect victims, so a carefully edited version was shown on TV, while the full version became available on streaming services.
The episode actually features two shootings, with only the second airing on TV. Even though the message of the episode was to condemn gun violence in the US, some believed it was too graphic under any circumstances – particularly just days after a national tragedy.
Roanoke: ‘Chapter 10’
Often cited as the worst season of AHS by fans, roanoke’s finale fell flat for many. The controversy mostly surrounds the fact that Lee, an unlikeable character who does nothing to redeem herself, ends up literally getting away with murder.
In a season filled with gore, Lee’s acquittal and all her media attention ended up being the most appalling part of the season. While Lee does in some way pay for her crimes, she’s a willing participant because she wants to save her daughter. Although the final scene was meant to redeem Lee, it wasn’t enough to make up for everything else she had done.
It is worth a watch, though, just to see Sarah Paulson briefly reprise her role of Lana Winters, even if the scenario does seem far-fetched.
Coven: ‘Head’
In the ninth episode of Coven, the residents of Miss Robichaux’s Academy receive a special package: Delphine LaLaurie’s head in a box. We soon find out that the outrageously racist Delphine has been decapitated by Marie Laveau, and her head then goes on to get a long lesson on race in the United States from Queenie.
While it appeared as though the show was attempting to give Delphine a positive character arc, the sentiment rang false for many . In fact, some felt that the character of Delphine overshadowed the character arcs of Marie Laveau and Queenie, and that AHS was perhaps not the best-equipped show to address such topics. In the end, Delphine is still a horrible person who gets what she deserves, but her punishment may have been a little too late.
Asylum: ‘Tricks and Treats’
The second episode of Asylum graphically depicts the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community in the 1960s, much to fans’ dismay. In the first few minutes of the episode, wendy killed by Bloody Face, and what happens to her body in a later episode is truly revolting.
Immediately following Wendy’s death, Lana is given electroshock therapy at Briarcliff to treat her “deviant sexuality.” Although AHS was attempting to show the mistreatment and misunderstanding of queer people in the ’60s, some fans believed that these depictions were unnecessarily graphic and had more to do with terrifying viewers than making a social statement.
Freak Show: ‘Monsters Among Us’
Before the first episode of freak show even premiered in the fall of 2014, it was considered controversial. There were some who claimed that the term “freak” was an outdated slur and that the series was trying to exploit certain people.
The showrunners explained that “freak show” was still a commonly used term in the 1950s, when the season is set, and therefore was a legitimate title. The showrunners also stated that the season was supposed to show that everyone is a “freak” in one way or another. Whatever the intention, the season’s very premise remains a sensitive issue.
