The reality star makes for a believably bitchy publicist in the 12th season premiere of Ryan Murphy’s campy horror show
In its earlier years, there was something undeniably seductive about the brash build-up and eventised premiere of an American Horror Story season. Ryan Murphy’s gory, goofy anthology would afford much-deserved screen-time to women who had been starved of it elsewhere, from Jessica Lange to Angela Bassett to Kathy Bates, slick, artfully deranged campaigns would play a long game with fans in a way that had previously been restricted to the big screen and even casual viewers would wonder just how far each new iteration would push TV boundaries.
But its sheen dulled over time as Murphy’s troupe of actors started to lose its major names, writers started to run out of interesting themes and that once pungent shock value started to grow tired, his relentless prodding more easily swatted away. Interest has once again been piqued however by the 12th season, bringing Kim Kardashian into the fold, a similar level of poppy “but can she?” curiosity that came with Lady Gaga’s involvement in season five. While Kardashian’s acting career is unlikely to follow a similar Hollywood trajectory, (unless Bradley Cooper is a secret AHS superfan) she’s surprisingly fun in an albeit slight role. The problematic reality mogul plays the catty publicist to Emma Roberts’s Oscar-hungry actor, the two easily operating in a world adjacent to their own, in a Rosemary’s Baby-aping setup.
