 AHS is back with another double dosage of NYC and I'm here again to break down more easter eggs and references in episode 3 and 4 as well as give my thoughts and review both of the new episodes. Let's get right into the easter eggs this episode starting with some that I missed last week that you guys were kind enough to inform me about in the comments. Please keep doing that with any references I missed and I'll make sure I talk about them in the next episode. A lot of you pointed out that the plot this season very closely resembles the 1980 film Cruising, which is about a serial killer who targets gay men in New York City. I've not had a chance to watch the film yet but just by researching the plot and watching the trailer, it is clear that the AHS team are purposefully emulating this crime thriller from 1980. Another thing I missed was at the very start of episode 2 where we see actual footage from The Robin Bird Show, a real public access program that aired in New York City starting in 1977 starring Robin Bird, who also had a career as a porn actress in the 70s. She was a local celebrity of the era and also makes appearances at many Pride parades and AIDS awareness events over the years and to this day. A good handful of you guys also pointed out the similarities in Sam's use of the phone booth to lure in his victims to the actual true crime case of The Last Call Killer. That serial killer was known for targeting gay men in the early 90s in New York City in a very similar fashion. Alright now onto the easter eggs and references I caught in this week's episode starting with what Fran is discussing with Hannah at the very beginning of episode 3, Operation Paperclip. Operation Paperclip was a real secret US intelligence program where the government actually did enlist many German scientists post World War 2 with ties to the Nazi Party. However, the experiments that Fran described pertaining to mixing diseases is completely fictitious. This mixture of history and conspiracy theories feels very reminiscent of last year's Death Valley portion of Double Feature. Both episodes 3 and 4 could possibly be referencing the film Halloween 2 in which Michael Myers pursues his victims in various chase scenes at a hospital. I would not be surprised if AHS took inspiration from the film because 1, Halloween 2 was released in the year that AHS NYC is taking place in 1981 and 2, AHS has been referencing the Halloween franchise since as early as Murder House and as recent as 1984. Even if these parallels are unintentional, the nurses' uniforms in NYC are very similar to the nurses' uniforms at Haddonfield Memorial in Halloween 2. The thing that would have made it a blatant reference for me would have been if they set the hospital scenes during the blackout, that way the chase scenes would be heightened to the same level of the shadowy and dimly lit scenes that happen in Halloween 2. Alright, those are all of the references I caught this week. Like I said, let me know which ones I missed in the comments below. But now let's get on to my review for episode 3, Smoke Signals. Let me just say I wasn't as into these two episodes as I was into the first two. And episode 3 for me felt like it was the epitome of a filler episode, unfortunately. But let me get to what I liked about the episode and get that out of the way. I am glad that the candlelit cat party setting has returned for another episode and I'm glad that we finally get to meet the character of Dunaway, a hostess at the lounge that Big Daddy ends up committing arson at. I thought her character was good and we know next to nothing about her so far, but she does get a good scene in with Billy Lord's Dr. Hannah towards the end of the episode where she has a miniature monologue while wearing some intense burn prosthetics. So hats off to Sis for her performance in this episode and hats off to the hair and makeup crew this year and every year on this show. That's about all I have for the positives, but now let me tell you why I felt a little bit let down by this episode. Many moments in the episode are just a rehash of things that happened in the first two episodes, like the scene between Adam and Gino about halfway through the episode. They treat it as if it's brand new information that we're learning that White Lee is a veteran and that there are two killers and that Sam is into some shady shit. Maybe these characters are just piecing it together, but us as an audience already know all of this and it just didn't add anything to the mystery. And then nothing else happens in that scene. And there are a couple other scenes in the episode that go down that same way, like there's one between Gino and Dennis O'Hare's character Henry that is very similar, we learn nothing new, and it's just them recounting what has already happened. And it just puts a halt on all of the intrigue I had about what's going on in this season, which is a bummer. The episode gives us scenes between Gino and Patrick that are somehow even worse than the ones last week, and I can only put some of the blame on the writers this week. I'm still not gelling with these two characters' chemistry together and specifically the high points of Russell Tovey's performance tend to pull me out of the story completely. That being said, the tendency of their scenes together to end without the blue and uncomfortable sexual interactions is completely the writer's fault. It never feels natural when they just go from angry to soul-tree like the flip of a coin, and it just feels like the writers are falling back on moments like that to end a scene that they don't really know how to end satisfyingly. Right after Dunaway's monologue at the hospital, we get one of the most out-of-left-field moments where Adam alludes to being the father of Hannah's yet-to-be-born child. Correct me if I'm wrong, but before this scene, we didn't know that Hannah was pregnant, and we also didn't know that Adam even knew Hannah. This is these characters' first shared scene together and it just vaguely dumps a bunch of history and a full pregnancy storyline on us like it's nothing, and then moves on to the next scene in literally 35 seconds. I timed it, this whole interaction where this pregnancy is thrown at us literally only lasts 35 seconds in whole. It felt like it was maybe a longer scene that they took an axe to in the editing room, and that would at least explain the pace and the confusing wording of their interaction. I don't know what happened here, but imagine if you got up to grab a snack during the scene and just missed this entire subplot entirely. It's an easy thing to do when a scene only lasts 35 seconds and carries that much backstory, I guess. The rest of the episode is pretty uninteresting to me. I'm honestly tired of hospital set pieces in horror, I think with few exceptions. They just tend to feel stale to me. Recently with films like Halloween Kills, Millignant, Scream 4, and Scream 5, I'm just over spending time in fictional hospitals. The episode ends in a prolonged and unintentionally comical chase scene between Gino, Patrick, and Mr. Whitely, and overall the sequence and the entire episode lacked substance. Sadly, I didn't really enjoy episode 3 smoke signals nearly as much as I did the first two premiere episodes, and I felt like the episode put the brakes on an already slow start to the season. I don't like to harp on my negative opinions though, so I'll keep it a little bit lighter for my episode 4 review, but my rating for episode 3 smoke signals is 5 kathies out of 10. Now for episode 4, entitled Blackout. First off, the episode is written by Ned Martell and Charlie Carver, and the writing is noticeably better than the previous episode, so thank god for them, and the episodes director Jennifer Lynch. Ned Martell has written 3 times for AHS, with memorable episodes in Hotel and Roanoke, and I'm glad he's back in the writer's room for 4 episodes this season. Charlie Carver is the first actor to double as a writer on AHS, and he also co-wrote last week's second episode as well. After absolutely zero kathie scenes in episode 3, episode 4 gives us her first scene with spoken dialogue, and she gave me the depth and passion I wanted from her in a relatively short scene. But all in all, Patty Lepone's kathie is a very effective and enjoyable presence on this season, and I'm still looking forward to seeing more from her. And I thought we finally got to see Isaac Powell flex his Broadway-trained skills in this episode as well, particularly in his breakup scene with Sam. I also love these new developments for Theo, leaving his supervillain boyfriend for Adam, who may just be the polar opposite of Sam. Obviously this will cause some ugly conflicts between Theo, Sam, and Adam in the future, but let me pretend that this is the happy ending that I want it to be. But before the actual blackout starts to hit about two-thirds into the episode, all we get are more scenes of drama and heavy dialogue, and with the exception for the kathie and Theo scenes that I mentioned, the episode got to be a bit boring, especially on the second time I was watching it through for this review. But one thing that redeems this episode for me is the final scene where Daniel and his friend are pursuing Mr. Whitely, and they end up getting trapped in an elevator with him and a bag containing a decapitated head. I thought it was a nearly perfectly executed setup to what could have been the first true horror sequence of the season, and I won't lie, I was disappointed when the episode ended, the instant that Whitely pulled out a knife. I doubt we'll see how that scene ended in the next episode, we'll probably just get a verbal reference to these two characters' deaths, but in the off chance that they do pay off this setup in the next episode, I won't knock this episode for it, because it still wasn't an effective piece of suspense and tension. But AHS hasn't been one to shy away from guts and gore, so I am wondering why they're making the choice to hold back on that this season. Nonetheless, Blackout gave us some solid character moments and a very tense sequence in a broken down elevator, but it did suffer because honestly, the majority of these first four episodes are just scenes between two characters talking, and unless the next six episodes break this mold, I fear that the season may not live up to its potential. With that being said, I give episode 4 entitled Blackout 6 Cathies out of 10. Alright, those are my thoughts on the episode, and I know the season is pretty divisive amongst you guys, but based on my polls I've been putting up on my community tab, you guys are generally enjoying it. I'm still on the fence, the season hasn't lost me just yet, and I do have hope that the next week's episodes will ramp up the pace, as we all know that something always goes down in episode 6 on American Horror Story. Now let's get into some speculation, I don't really have any theories to share with you this week, but I do want to open up the conversation back up to what the hell is going on with Big Daddy. Episode 4 left me even more perplexed by his presence this season. Despite a lot of you guys commenting that he may be a ghost after episodes 1 and 2, I never believed that, but after the scene in this episode where Patrick shoots him at point blank and he vanishes, I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to believe. Ghosts in AHS have never been known to roam freely in the way that Big Daddy does, and the way that he seems to be working for Sam is not very ghostly either. But then again Moira spent much of her afterlife in service to mortals and immortals alike in Murderhouse, and maybe he's just another sort of supernatural entity that we will learn about later. I still lean towards him not being a ghost, and his scene was probably a cheap misdirect on the part of the writers, but now I'm not so much intrigued by the mystery of Big Daddy as I am annoyed by it at this point. But let me know all of your Big Daddy theories in the comments as well, I'm sure one of you has gotten to the bottom of it by now. The last thing that I want to discuss before I leave you is the teased return of the Angel of Death character from Asylum. We've now gotten two teasers that feature shots of what appear to be Frances Conroy reprising her role of the Grim Reaper-esque Angel who appears to many characters on their deathbed all the way back in Season 2. How will the character fit into NYC? Let me know all of your theories in the comments below because I don't know, and I will certainly be breaking down her appearance once it does actually happen. Alright, that's where I will leave you this week. I hope you guys are having as much fun as I am with this season. I will love American Horror Story at its best, and I will love it at its worst. So no matter what happens next week, I'll be back with another review. Stay tuned, thanks for watching, and I will see you next time.