The following review contains spoilers for “American Horror Story Apocalypse,” “Coven” and “Murder House.”

A few months ago, I wrote an article reviewing all of the “American Horror Story” seasons before “Apocalypse” as a whole. After “Apocalypse” premiered, I thought I would write a review of the season after the finale, but when it ended, I thought it was a better idea to sit on it and see how I feel about the season at a later time. Now I feel I have a true grasp on the season and I can give a good review of it.

Despite its few shortcomings, I believe that AHS “Apocalypse” was one of the best seasons we have to date. The driving force behind this narrative is the newcomer to the AHS cast Cody Fern. Fern plays the character Michael Langdon, the anti-Christ who brings about a slightly different version of the Judeo-Christian apocalypse in the Book of Revelations.

Fern delivered an unbelievable performance as this character. In a series of flashbacks, we see his whole life and how he develops into where he is now in the current storyline. As we saw in “Murder House” (season one), Langdon is the offspring between the ghost Tate Langdon (Evan Peters) and a human (at the time) Vivien Harmon (Connie Britton). However, in “Apocalypse,” we learn that Satan had a hand in this birth and acts as a father for Langdon, similar to the Judeo-Christian god and the Virgin Mary’s relationship.

Then we go on to see all of Langdon’s guardians in his life and how he was raised and eventually abandoned by everyone he cared about. It is through this development that Fern excels as the character. He would steal the spotlight in most of the scenes featuring him, and he truly deserves recognition for this performance.

“Apocalypse” acted as a continuation of “Murder House” and “Coven” (seasons one and three), and we get to see our favorite actors reprise their fan favorite roles in the past. We get to see Peters as Tate Langdon like mentioned above, and we get to see Sarah Paulson as Cordelia Fox, the supreme witch from “Coven,” once again.

The overarching narrative to the current storyline is the battle between Langdon and the witches from “Coven.” They are trying to kill Langdon and stop the apocalypse from occurring, but by the time of the current storyline, the apocalypse has already occurred and most of humankind are dead, which leads me to my bad critiques of the season.

Now onto the controversial finale of “Apocalypse.” Langdon had long been established as significantly more powerful than Foxx (the current supreme witch) and Mallory (Billie Lourd, the next supreme witch), so in a sense the writers dug a hole for themselves in the story. There is no way to truly kill Langdon and to stop the apocalypse from happening because it is has already happened. So, what was the solution to this plot? Time travel.

Time travel is not too out of the norm for the lore of “American Horror Story,” but in this instance, I thought it was an unfulfilling plot device to bring a happy ending in the finale. So, Mallory becomes powerful enough to send herself back in time to kill Langdon when he was younger and has not harnessed his supernatural powers yet. But, while she was trying to do this, we see Langdon one shot all the witches in order to get to her, but he fails. Flashback to years before the apocalypse happens, Mallory runs over Langdon with a car and kills him. This changes history, and Langdon never causes the apocalypse. Langdon, the spawn of Satan who orchestrated the massacre of almost the entire planet, dies by getting run over by a car. This was unsatisfying, to say the least.

After the conclusion of this story, we get a cliffhanger to tease for the story in the future. We see the characters Emily (Ash Santos) and Timothy (Kyle Allen). They both die relatively early in the season, and they were hyped up to be important for some unknown reason, but most of the fans forgot about them pretty quickly. It is them in the new timeline where Langdon is dead, and they meet, fall in love and eventually have a child together. Long story short, this baby is the new anti-Christ, Langdon’s replacement to bring about the end of days. So, what was the point of the whole season? After all the witches did to thwart the apocalypse, it did not matter in the end; it is fate.

Ignoring that little rant about the finale, this was truly one of my all-time favorite seasons of AHS as a fan and a reviewer. The direction, acting and writing (until the end) was spectacular. While Fern’s performance was my favorite, Paulson and Lourd gave an amazing performance as well. What I said about the ending might make me sound like I did not like the season; in fact, my opinion is the exact opposite. I thought this season was great. The finale was just disappointing. I would recommend this season for anyone who has watched “Murder House” and “Coven,” because if you have not seen those seasons, it would be hard to follow some of the plot, so give it a watch to see the AHS perspective on the apocalypse.

Jordan Boyer can be reached at 581-2812 or jtboyer@eiu.edu.