FX's American Horror Story has always been a franchise run at least in part on nostalgia. This season's plot is intentionally thin. We begin in 1970 as camp counselors instead by the business end of a knife, part of the sort of massacre that tends to diminish enrollment. Cut to 1984 and Los Angeles is in the midst of a trio of summer fevers: excitement about the looming Olympics, terror about the reign of the Night Stalker and healthfulness with the rise of aerobics. It's the last of those that brings together our heroes: Method-trained actor Xavier (Cody Fern), disgraced athlete Chet (Gus Kenworthy, born to play guys named "Chet"), workout obsessive Montana (Billie Lourd), instantly superfluous Ray (DeRon Horton) and earnest new-girl-in-town Brooke (Emma Roberts). Xavier is escaping the urban heat by taking a job as counselor at the newly reopened Camp Redwood and convinces his aerobics buddies to join him. Brooke is the last straggler, but she reconsiders when she fends off an attack of her own. It's a lot of exaggerated fake blood, and jittery tracking shots. The idea that the season might use the pretty young counselors as a Trojan horse for some sort of Mr-Jingles-versus-The-Night-Stalker mash up might be the only thing keeping everyone interested for future episodes.

– Compilation