Fans Think This Was The Least Likable Character In AHS: Cult

It's not an easy thing, being the least likable person in a cult. Even less appealing is the prospect of being the most despised character in any given "American Horror Story" ensemble. Until recently, it never occurred to anyone that someone might one day fit both bills.

But along came "AHS: Cult," and viewers were tasked with finding the unfortunate middle of a terrible Venn diagram: A fictional social pariah with the ability to stand out as both a particularly unlikable zealot and the least popular person in a story populated by whatever the opposite of a role model is. The subject of "who's the worst character on 'AHS: Cult'" got some traction on Reddit's /r/AmericanHorrorStory forum, and the discussion got heated.

Still, for all of democracy's flaws, you can generally count on it to settle a popularity contest. Reddit users put the issue to a vote, and while we may never have a concrete, objective answer to which "Cult" personality was the least likable, it's become clear that at least one of the denizens of the "AHS" continuity is, unquestionably, a real Pill.

By a decent margin, and with just over 250 votes counted, Redditors have come to the conclusion that one Ivy Mayfair-Richards, played by "The Newsroom's" Alison Pill, is about as popular as sun-ripened whole milk.

Pill was a newcomer to the anthology series when she debuted the character of Ivy in "AHS: Cult's" premiere episode, "Election Night," in September of 2017. It seems like nobody quite expected what would come out of her tenure on the program, and fans wound up blindsided by her willingness to do anything to get her son, Oz, out of the orbit of her increasingly paranoid wife.

Edging out the show's clowns is one thing, but the kicker here seems to be that the Reddit vote pitted Pill's Ivy against season antagonist Kai, a racist, homophobic, fanatical cult leader played by Evan Peters. Somehow, in spite of Kai's laundry list of crimes, Ivy managed to inch him out — one user pointed out that the enthusiastic murderer was, at the very least, more charismatic than the struggling mother. There's probably a lesson there.

In other popularity-related news, "AHS: Cult" remains the second lowest-rated season of "American Horror Story" on Rotten Tomatoes, so maybe arguing over who was and wasn't likable that year is a moot point, to begin with.