returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror Story

[Temis the Vorta]

And the first returning cast member confirmed is...

Spoiler: oh the suspense!

Jessica Lange!

Okay, that was about as surprising as Chad being a bitch. But here's a bit more news...

AHS fans should also squash any hope that ]Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott or Taissa Farmiga would return, because Murphy also stated: "I'm in negotiations with four of the people who were on last year's show, and none of them were the Harmons." So Evan Peters could return. But more importantly…Zachary Quinto?!

Damn, I wanted Farmiga back, but Evan Peters and Zachary Quinto would be sweeeet!

Murphy continued dropping AHS scoop by revealing that season two will take place "somewhere on the East Coast and it's going to be a horror institution." Mental hospital? Perhaps.

By "institution," I think that means something very familiar and iconic in horror - the Amityville House or Salem, something like that. They've already done the haunted house routine, so I'd prefer something new. I'm still hopeful for Roanoke, though that's not what I would call an "institution."

PS, the actresses playing old and young Moira are probably out, because they've gotten roles on pilots for next season.

 

[Starkers]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

^That's a shame, I kinda hoped old/young Moira might return as mother and daughter or something.

I would have been truly amazed if Lange hadn't returned. I hope her character is quite different though.

 

[scnj]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

I don't care who she plays, as long as she gets the chance to chew even more scenery.

 

[Starkers]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

I'm sure she will

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

I hope Evan Peters isn't going to do movies instead of TV now...AHS might not be able to get him back...

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

Zachary Quinto will be a series regular in season 2

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

That's two outta three. Now get Evan Peters back. Sarah Paulson would be good, too.

I love the notion that Quinto is playing the "nemesis to Lange’s character." She's playing a very un-Constance-like character this time, so I suspect she's the protagonist which would allow Quinto to return to his villainous Sylar roots.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

Do you know if the returning cast members will be reprising their roles (e.g., Jessica Lange as Constance)? For that matter, would the plot be somewhat linked to the House of Murder in L.A.?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

No, the LA story is over and those characters are gone forever. Next season will be about and "East Coast horror institution," which is vague wording that means either it's in an institution (hospital or lunatic asylum) or the place is a well-known horror icon (Amityville House, Salem?)

I'm still hoping for a historical horror story based around the mysterious Roanoke Colony. It probably won't be the Amityville House, since that would be too similar to LA. An evil looney bin could be a blast. Jessica Lange is the chief doctor, and Quinto is a scheming patient that organizes a rebellion perhaps?

This article gives us a hint why they're going for an anthology format with a new story each season, but many of the same actors: Quinto wouldn't have committed to an ongoing series because of his movie career.

Evan Peters also has broken out into a likely movie career (because of AHS), so he'd be hard to corral too. If the anthology format is necessary to get good actors back into the fold, so be it. The actors, not the characters and certainly not the writing, are the real strength of this show.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

http://www.deadline.com/2012/03/sar...-return-to-american-horror-story-next-season/

Three more American Horror cast members from Season 1, regular Evan Peters and recurring Sarah Paulson and Lily Rabe, will return for the anthology series’ second season as regulars. They will join Jessica Lange and Zachary Quinto, all playing new characters in a new setting at a East Coast institution. AHS co-creator Ryan Murphy just made the announcement during the show’s PaleyFest panel. “We don’t want to talk about it too much, we’re still writing, anybody could pop up at any time,” he said. He didn’t want to elaborate on the returning actors’ new characters, saying only that “everyone is playing the opposite of what they played before.”

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

Wow. They're really good at following my psychic orders about casting!

 

[timothy]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

that is so messed up that they a droping the story arc of s1 even though they murdered the entire family and gave birth to the anti-christ. S2 will have to top it if I am going to watch.

 

[Sindatur]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

that is so messed up that they a droping the story arc of s1 even though they murdered the entire family and gave birth to the anti-christ. S2 will have to top it if I am going to watch.

Heh, I haven't watched it, but, I've followed the thread, and I've gotta ask, where could you really go from there, without jumping a whole school of sharks. Some stories get so outrageous, they are best left open/cliff hanging, as any payoff is unlikely to measure up.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

Yeah it's lazy they way they just dropped that plotline but it seems like they're doing the anthology format so they can get actors like Quinto and Peters to come back each season even if they won't commit to a full series. Eh, I'll go with it. Better than not getting those guys.

Hints dropped about S2...?

A looney bin?

"It is something I said," she told THR of the "Birth" teaser. Paulson played medium Billie Dean, who in the episode in question explained to Violet (Taissa Farmiga) that the house had a paramagnetic grip -- like a battery, with negative energy that feeds on trauma and draws things to it. Pressed if the scene in question involves the energy that's often found in prisons or asylums, Paulson added: "I can't say the answer to that but I think you're warm."

Or is it going to be the Roanoke colony?

"I feel that a supernatural element will always be a part of the show but I don't think we're interested in that the same way. We're trying to do something much more historically accurate."

(The Roanoke exorcism "croatoan" was part of the conversation Billie had with Violet.)

Ghosts may be out:

"From where we are now, I'd say that [we're going for] a very equally terrified but very different vibe," he said. "I loved the ghosts … but the fun part of the show, the gift of the show, is reinventing it every year. So I don't think we'll go back to a trope that we did."

A historically based story about the Roanoke colony, caught in a fearsome paramagnetic grip that makes the colonists go crazy?

EDIT: Oh wait, I got it: a looney bin built on the site of the vanished Roanoke Colony. Instead of ghosts, we get flashbacks to what happened, played by the same cast.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

Heh, I haven't watched it, but, I've followed the thread, and I've gotta ask, where could you really go from there, without jumping a whole school of sharks. Some stories get so outrageous, they are best left open/cliff hanging, as any payoff is unlikely to measure up.

I agree, they ran the story off a cliff by the end. But with better planning, they could have had a story that went somewhere. For instance, Tate being revealed as the rapist pushed his plotline with Violet off a cliff. There was nowhere to go with that - and to delay the revelation would become tiresome - so why have Tate be the rapist?

They didn't have to wreck the story for the sake of sensationalism (the shock moment of Tate whipping off that mask was the only reason for that plot twist, very self-indulgent of them.) They wrecked the story because they never planned to take the story anywhere.

Now we know better and don't have any expectation that the S2 story will be headed anywhere but off a cliff, again. This show is basically a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. That will make it less fun to watch because nothing we see is necessarily going to make any kind of sense or have a satisfying payoff, which is why it's triply important that they have an incredible cast to keep our minds off things in the meantime. And they do seem to be getting all the right cast members back.

So timothy is right to be skeptical. Whether anyone wants to follow this show into S2 depends on just how high a tolerance level they have for bad writing. My tolerance level is pretty high taking into consideration the compensating factors, so I'm in.

 

[Starkers]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

But Tate was always a murdering psycho, I'm not sure revealing him as the gimp made him any worse, it just reminded us that he was a murdering phycho.

Great to see Quinto back. I think so far my only concern is that they're front loading the show with people who'll eat the screen and chew every ounce of sceneray, that's fine in short bursts but an entire series of Chad and Constance (alikes) sniping at each other could get boring v quickly.

 

[Ryan8bit]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

I don't understand why you'd bring back cast members just to put them in new roles. It seems like it might be confusing.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

But Tate was always a murdering psycho, I'm not sure revealing him as the gimp made him any worse, it just reminded us that he was a murdering phycho.

It wrecked his plotline with Violet. She was apparently okay with him being a murdering psycho, but raping her mother was a bit too much. There was no need to wreck the plotline, except that the writers had no reason to be invested in it, or in any plotline. That just gives them leeway to wreck all the plotlines, rather than conclude them. Even a short story should be concluded, rather than wrecked. It's lazy.

I don't understand why you'd bring back cast members just to put them in new roles.

Because people tend to watch TV for the characters rather than for the plotline. So if you can't/won't keep the characters around, the next best thing is to keep the actors. Otherwise, you risk losing the audience.

Since this format is rarely attempted on TV, it remains to be seen whether they can hang onto the audience with "just" the actors rather than the characters they were playing, and to what degree the confusion factor upends things. Most viewers will be unaware of all this happening, and will tune in next fall to discover something that they don't expect. If they find this to be an unpleasant surprise, the ratings could crash.

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

I don't understand why you'd bring back cast members just to put them in new roles. It seems like it might be confusing.

Clearly, you never watched Dark Shadows . . .

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: returning cast members and location hints for S2 American Horror S

I don't understand why you'd bring back cast members just to put them in new roles. It seems like it might be confusing.

Clearly, you never watched Dark Shadows . . .

The Vampire Diaries does that to some degree, too (probably copying Dark Shadows). And Nero Wolfe did it every episode. But to totally change characters from one season to the next is radically different from what people are used to. It's a risky move.