ANDREA RIVAS

“American Horror Story” makes its return to FX television with the premiere of its 12th season “AHS: Delicate.”

Hit FX television show “American Horror Story” (AHS) returned on Sept. 20 with its 12th season, titled “AHS: Delicate” Based on Danielle Valentine’s book “Delicate Condition,” the story follows a young actress in New York City who is haunted and terrorized by dark forces, living and dead, which she believes are interfering with her dream of getting pregnant.

The widely known anthology series by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk tells fictionalized horror stories and explores the interaction between the dead and the living. Each season has a unique storyline and characters, followed by a peculiar new theme and set. Every new chapter involves what most people fear: ghosts, murderers, witches, freak shows, insane asylums and haunted houses.

Emma Roberts returned for the fifth time since the show premiered in 2011, with her first appearance on the anthology series being in “Coven,” the third season which debuted in 2013. Reality television star Kim Kardashian made her acting debut in “AHS: Delicate” and played Siobhan Corbyn, a publicist for Roberts’ character Anna Victoria, who bears an eerie resemblance to Kardashian’s real-life persona.

This season begs the question: Is Anna the victim, or is she engaged in something evil?

AHS is known for its strange and eerie stories with skin-crawling plotlines. The new season continues the tradition of mixing reality-twisting themes with a mysterious chain of events, successfully generating curiosity and providing its audience with an eagerness to continue the narrative and discover the big secret as the storyline thickens.

This new chapter is one of the most bizarre ones yet. Representing the “delicate” conditions a woman coming face-to-face with infertility goes through to get pregnant, showcasing the medical procedures for fertility and the period the embryo is growing inside the womb. 

The process of becoming pregnant and undergoing medical procedures and surgeries is a delicate topic — as the title states — but adding horror and very unsettling scenes, showing in detail procedures of in vitro fertilization to assist with conception, scenes of miscarriages and gory scenes of rituals make the process of pregnancy and the central theme of the new season feel ominous and perplexing.

The characters in this show are complex in personality. At first glance, Anna appears to be a bright, young, hardworking actress trying to succeed in show business as she desperately hopes to start a family. The deeper the viewer gets into the storyline, however, the more questions are raised. This season begs the question: Is Anna the victim, or is she engaged in something evil? Is she clinically insane, or is someone making her think she is? 

In “AHS: Delicate,” the days are short, the nights are too long, and the ambiance constantly feels hazy.

Even after the first five episodes, there is no concrete evidence that Anna will be labeled as the antagonist or the prey. We see a new side of Anna every minute the show runs. Her character is strange and displays bizarre behaviors; one moment she is a sweet, caring person, and the next, she has evolved into something dark and unsettling. 

Anna resembles the cracked mirror hanging on her wall: the mirror is broken into tiny pieces, showing her distorted reflection, yet the mirror has not fallen, and it is still standing tall. The audience is left wondering if the mirror, Anna, will ever fully shatter.  

Each episode of this season slowly unravels little details and frightening moments. In “AHS: Delicate,” the days are short, the nights are too long, and the ambiance constantly feels hazy. The cinematography creates a sense that the main character is always being watched, the hills have eyes, and nowhere is safe. Knowing too little or too much serves as great danger. 

The episodes end on cliffhangers, so all you can do is wait until the following week for it to air on television.

Season 12, part one, concluded with a cliffhanger that made me pause and replay the scene to fully comprehend what happened.

The  2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, which concluded on Nov. 9, caused the season to be split into two parts since filming was paused until demands could be met 

The release date of part two is still unknown. While the show is expected to return next year, it is still being determined what month the second half of “AHS: Delicate”  will arrive, leaving fans waiting to see Anna fight on her own to understand what’s happening as hallucinations and nightmares are becoming more prominent in her life. 

The wait continues until the arrival of the story’s conclusion and the season finale of “AHS: Delicate.”