As we've known previously, the episode starts out on election night. And as Sarah Paulson's Ally says, this is bullish*t. I really don't want to see any political stuff in this show. But we shall see.
Ally and her wife Ivy are watching the election results, and are incredibly upset by who ends up winning. Kai is also watching the results and he's going absolutely insane, putting blended up cheese puffs on his face for some reason, presumably to look like the president-elect. Kai's sister Winter is upset, and her friend is scared that she's gonna hurt herself again. The opening scene isn't really exciting, but it has to set up the whole season and it introduces us to some of these characters in an unorthodox way.
After the commercials, we see the return of Twisty. A couple is making out in the exact place that Twisty did some of his, um, finest work. And now Twisty the Clown shows up and freaking mutilates the dude. Absolutely destroys him. But the girl isn't getting away that easily. She runs away, and he chases her, all the way back to his abandoned bus from Freak Show. He catches up to her, and let's just saw that she's out of the way. We then learn that all of this is just a comic that Ally's son Oz is reading. When Ally catches him with it, she starts to freak out. Ivy tries to comfort her, but Ally is really scared of clowns and she's a mess. The comic is locked away, now that Ally has finally calmed down. We now head see Kai, who is speaking and saying that we need to embrace fear. He sounds nuts, and the members of the city council know it (as does everyone watching this). The council votes in favor of a motion, and Kai is not pleased. Now back to Ally, who is speaking to her therapist. Ally's phobias have returned, having been triggered by the election. Dr. Vincent prescribes a medication to Ally, and then she heads to the store. She meets Chaz Bono's grocery store clerk, and she is obviously upset by his support for Trump. She powers through it, but she starts seeing clowns. Obviously this isn't comforting for her. She has a clown phobia. But she's also a person, and most rational people would be terrified by clowns stalking her. She sees another one, and she starts to collapse. This is really not her day. Then, loud music starts playing over the intercom and more clowns appear. She's terrified now, and she tries to fight these things. She runs out of the store, and when she gets in the car, she calls Ivy. Ally starts freaking out after Ivy hangs up, but when she sees something in her car, she starts to drive and crashes into a post. This entire segment of the show was really entertaining, and I'm really excited to see how this unfolds.
At her house, Ally is obviously shaken up, but then Ivy drops a bombshell on her that we all saw coming: none of what she saw and heard actually happened. She imagined it all. You really have to feel for her, because this is obviously really traumatic. Later on at their restaurant, Ally and Ivy are having a fight about Ally never coming in to help. Ally's really upset by the election, but Ivy isn't having it. She wants her wife back, because Ally's acting really odd ever since the election. The two seemingly make up, and decide that it's time to hire a new nanny for their son. Then, we learn that Ally didn't even vote for Hillary, she voted for Jill Stein. This is not something that Ivy's very happy about. As they are arguing about it, Kai shows up an throws a drink at the two of them. They're really angry, and some words are said. Later on, at Ally and Ivy's house, Winter applies for the nanny gig. She tells them about her experiences, including her work on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The ladies offer her the job, but I have a feeling they'll be regretting that decision. This is another interesting segment, though I'm starting to wonder where the Cult part comes into play.
In a parking lot, some men are meeting when we see Crazy Kai, who is filling a condom with urine so he can throw it at them. After he throws it at them, the men start beating him up. Because he's an a**hole. We can also see that someone is filming him, so we know that this will definitely come into play later on. At Ally and Ivy's house, Winter is watching Oz, when we see that he's drawing Twisty. Winter is super freaking creepy in this scene, and I'm really scared of what she's capable of. Much more-so than Kai. At the restaurant, Ally starts seeing blood in her food after checking the President's Twitter, so obviously some freaky craps gonna go down again, and Ivy will likely get to experience it firsthand. At the house, Winter is showing Oz some dead bodies on the internet. Y'know, normal babysitter stuff. Back at the restaurant, Ally sees a clown, and Ivy indeed gets to see this epic freakout firsthand. Ally starts running around the restaurant searching for the clown, but she just can't find it. Because it's not real. Ivy starts to suspect that maybe Ally isn't taking her medicine, which would have been a good thought to have the last time this all happened. Ally suspects that she's going insane, because she is. At the house, Oz is done with WInter's dark-web nonsense, but Winter feeds him some bullcrap lines and he decides to keep looking at stuff that his moms certainly wouldn't be okay with. Outside, an ice cream truck, equipped with some terrifying clowns, pulls up. Oz sees this, and he's scared by it. Of course he is.
Ally and Ivy are driving home, and they're discussing Ally not taking her pills. Before anything of much substance is said, they arrive on their street to find cop cars lining the road. It's a crime scene, but Ally and Ivy don't care and she runs straight into it. They call Oz's name, and he comes running (eventually). The Changs have been murdered, and Oz tells them that it was the creepy-as-hell ice cream truck murderer clowns. In a flashback, we see Oz telling Winter about the ice cream truck, and they run outside. They see the clowns in the Changs' home, and they run to the house. They're just in time to witness a good-old-fashioned murder. Winter tells the ladies that Oz made all of that up, and the police help to assure that, as they tell them that it was a murder-suicide, not a Manson Family-esque cult murder. Of course, that doesn't make Ally feel any better, and int the middle of the night, she meets up with a clown, in bed, face-to-face. I'm not gonna lie, this part made me jump and scream, because I have a severe clown phobia. Oh, the irony.
This really was a fantastic premiere of AHS. The only thing I didn't like too much was the opening. It was easily the weakest portion of the episode, but I understand why it needed to be included. While I was worried that politics would ruin the season, I actually ended up not hating it. Billie Lourd's a really welcome addition to this cast, and her character's already my second-favorite (only behind Ally, because Sarah Paulson). I'm very excited for what's to come, and I have a feeling that this is going to be a great season. I'm so impressed, especially after the awful Roanoke and Hotel premieres. I thought that they'd never be able to turn things around. I haven't felt this excited about this show since Freak Show, and that was mainly because of Jessica Lange.
Score: 9/10
Grade: A-
