American Horror Story NYC: Cruising

I should start out by saying I am not a rabid AHS fan, I have liked some seasons, some I have made me so uncomfortable I couldn’t get all the way through, some were just okay, and then some I loved!  It is too early to tell where I stand after seeing the first two episodes of season 11, AHS: NYC.  The plot, so far seems pretty straight forward, serial killer is targeting gay men in 1981 in New York City, specifically gay men in the leather community.  Police detective Patrick Read (Russell Tovey) is a closeted homosexual living with his out boyfriend, Gino Barelli (Joe Mantello) and trying his best to investigate the murders without the rest of the force figuring out that he is gay.  Gino is a reporter for a gay newspaper in the Village and is frustrated with Patrick for hiding who he really is and with the entire NYC police force for not investigating the murders because they involve homosexual men. Adam Carpenter’s (Charlie Carver) roommate goes missing and the police will do nothing, so he joins forces with Gino to try to do something, anything!  They are both angry and frustrated at how homophobic the police are. Meanwhile, the local deer population has contracted some mysterious disease and Dr. Hannah Wells (Billie Lourd) is trying to figure out what to do about it before the mutated disease jumps to humans.  And photographer Theo Graves (Isaac Cole Powell) jumps from man to man while his boyfriend, Sam (Zachary Quinto), explores his darker desires.  All the characters can feel that something evil is coming…coming for them!

I have to say, so far this has geared up to be one of my favorite seasons, not only does it speak to me on a personal level, but so far it is exactly the type of show I really enjoy.  A murder mystery with a slight supernatural tinge.  In the first two episodes, we don’t get much of the “otherworldly”.  There aren’t any ghosts, monsters, or aliens…yet. But one character talks about his grandmother being a witch and that she passed her gifts down to him, and Adam also sees a cautionary vision while riding the subway. All the characters are insanely interesting and well portrayed.  I have been a fan of Charlie Carver since his Teen Wolf days, but never thought he had much range as an actor, but with his latest jaunt on the stage and film versions of The Boys in the Band, now playing one of the leads in AHS: NYC, I see I was selling him a bit short.  I love Russell Tovey’s closeted tough guy cop with a very secretive mysterious side to him. I’d love a police procedural with his and Joe Mantello’s characters solving a weekly murder together and Russell’s Patrick needing to navigate the harsh homophobic world of the 1980s NYC police force.

I am hesitant to become really invested for a couple reasons.  First, since I know that Ryan Murphy starts out slow and then twists and turns the story into something more outlandish, I am worried what we will end up with is something a bit too far out there for me.  And second, there seems to be a trend for the depiction of animal violence and death, which I cannot abide. In the first episode, a herd of deer needs to be put down due to the epidemic, and in the second episode, a character with a lot of cats is introduced, and I am going to be worried about the cats throughout the whole season.