How American Horror Story Fans Really Felt About Season 10

Ten seasons in, "American Horror Story," the FX horror anthology series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, remains incredibly popular amongst TV viewers. In fact, the series has already been renewed for another three seasons (via The Hollywood Reporter). 

The 10th and most recent season of "American Horror Story" was structured a bit differently than its first nine. The season, titled "American Horror Story: Double Feature," tells not just one but two stories, known as "Red Tide" and "Death Valley." The first story follows a writer and his pregnant wife as they move to a beach town that, as they soon find out, is populated by formerly creative people who have been turned into vampires. "Death Valley," meanwhile, follows a group of college students on a camping trip who find themselves in the midst of a dangerous conspiracy that is already decades in the making. The season premiered with the first episode of "Red Tide" on August 25 and concluded its two-story season with the final episode of "Death Valley" on October 20.

Clearly, the series has managed to keep fans tuning in each season to see what new stories Murphy and Falchuk have come up with. Those fans have a whole lot of opinions about all things related to "American Horror Story" as well, so what did they think about Season 10?

Now that "American Horror Story: Double Feature" has aired and fans have had time to digest its content, it is the perfect time for viewers to share their thoughts on the season. With that in mind, Reddit user u/Maxfd97 began a recent fan discussion by declaring that they "loved 'Red Tide'" but felt "neutral about" the season's second half, "Death Valley."

u/pk10534 had a lot of mixed feelings about both halves of the season, noting, "'Red Tide' had potential, but it felt very rushed being only like 5 episodes. The finale had a very odd twist I was not a huge fan of." The user continued, adding, "'Death Valley' was just...whew. Black and white parts weren't bad at all, but the modern stuff was just atrocious."

Elsewhere, u/Former_Smile5027 enjoyed "Red Tide" — for the most part. "I loved 'Red Tide' and I'll just be pretending Episode 6 doesn't exist. [Episode] 5 would have been a perfect finale," the Redditor wrote.

As it turns out, a lot of fans didn't like the end of "Red Tide," as many believed its final episode took on a less effective tone than its first five installments. At least, fans on Reddit were quick to express that sentiment, with u/SplurgyA revealing their solution for this very problem, writing, "'Red Tide' should have done what 'Death Valley' tried to do — an abrupt cut."

While some fans saw the potential in the storylines presented in "American Horror Story: Double Feature," others had a hard time finding something to like about the season.

Not impressed by either of its stories, Redditor u/cvc1492 wrote, "I thought both were absolutely terrible. 'Roanoke' has been replaced as the worst 'AHS' season.. even that season was entertaining. 'Double Feature' was a complete waste, unfortunately."

With such a different format than the show's other seasons, it makes sense that "Double Feature" didn't land for some fans. "Red Tide" and "Death Valley" each ran for only 6 and 4 episodes, respectively — making them much shorter than most "American Horror Story" seasons. To make things even more polarizing, the two stories don't even connect in the end. As a result, without anything serving to narratively bridge the two stories together, the decision to split "Double Feature" in two ended up feeling a bit arbitrary to some fans.

In fact, for one viewer, the unique format totally got in the way of their enjoyment of the season. u/pjrnoc admitted, "I had no idea 'Double Feature' meant two different seasons in one. I thought they'd connect somehow. The season seemed to end so fast, I didn't know that was the finale!!"

Additionally, u/italihung revealed that they thought the season "missed the mark" with its two-story structure. "We all know 'AHS' seasons NEED the usual amount of episodes to fully develop each and every character as well as the many themes successfully," the Redditor noted. "If both 'Red Tide' and 'Death Valley' were each a separate season with 10 episodes to develop all details they'd probably be in the top 50% fan favorite seasons."