Is it OK that Kim Kardashian filmed American Horror Story during the strike?

After years of apathy and franchise burnout, I admit this season of American horror story finally piqued my interest again. Maybe it’s the return of the stalwart Emma Roberts or the presence of a new showrunner, actress and playwright, Halley Feiffer, taking the reins from series creator Ryan Murphy for the first time since 2019 AHS Story. Or maybe it’s this season’s premise that draws inspiration from the novel Delicate condition from Danielle Valentine and appears to contain at least some faint echoes of AHSis the impeccable, baby demon-focused first season. (To reinforce the parallels to the first season, Zachary Quinto apparently shows up!)

But the main reason this season feels so intriguing is Kim Kardashian– a newcomer to the world of American horror story, whose role as aging actress Siobhan Walsh feels like a tsunami of memes waiting to happen. Unfortunately, she and the show also crossed the picket lines to make this happen.

This puts those of us who love our gory TV shows but also respect the writers who create them in a bit of a quandary: How do we feel about this season, which will probably be a lot of fun and also saw a walkout ignored? cross the finish line? Call me Evan Peters AHS: Circlebecause I really liked this one torn to pieces.

When the writers’ strike began this spring, the Writers Guild of America and its allies in the entertainment union called a strike impressive diversity of television productions. Still, some proved more difficult to crack. At the beginning of the strike, rumors about it spread AHS had switched off, deadline poured cold water on this theory: Although the Teamsters union As the trade publication reported, the two companies had actually stood firm with the WGA and turned their trucks around, but a crew member claimed that production had not yet stopped. The crew member reportedly noticed that the actors had entered the studio through a back entrance to avoid physically crossing the picket lines.

AHS: DelicateThe decision to disregard the WGA’s strike only became clearer in June, when Kardashian tweeted from set and asked her followers, “What are you all up to????” Comedian, actor and WGA member Joel Kim Booster gave the most succinct answer: “Picket, Kim.”

It wasn’t until July that things got even more intense than that New York Times reported that the WGA had turned its attention to Murphy productions, including American Horror StoryFilming reportedly continued months after the strike began. The same month, according to The Hollywood ReporterMurphy also threatened to sue showrunner and former East Coast Strike captain Warren Leight over a now-retired tweet. While Leight claimed that crew members on the show told him “they would be blacked out in Murphy land” if they refused to cross the picket line, a representative for Murphy said diversity by the time that the claim was “absolute nonsense”. Categorically wrong.”

Leight deleted the tweet and issued a retreatHe explained that his comments were “baseless,” adding that he had since been informed that they were “completely false and inaccurate.” As WGA East Council member Josh Gondelman told this New York Times at the picket line AHShowever, “We’re not here to protest Ryan Murphy, that guy.” (Murphy was a Main donor for the WGA’s $1.7 million donation to the Entertainment Community Fund in May, and this month he launched one $500 million strike fund for affected workers in his shows.)

Instead, Gondelman said on AHS Picket: “We are here to protest the production taking place without writers and while the writers are on strike.”

Because AHS If a completed script had already gone on strike, continued production of the show would not have violated the strike rules, provided that no one did WGA writers’ usual production-related tasks such as tweaking story beats or shortening scripts due to time constraints would have. Still, the decision to cross the picket line left a sour taste in the mouths of some WGA members — especially given that Murphy is a WGA member himself. Operations Captain T Cooper said Just that “it just feels like keeping these things going would be counterproductive to our overall mission.”

As far as the WGA and its leadership are concerned, the quickest way to end the strike is to force the studios back to the negotiating table by drying up their content pipeline. Before there was a violent backlash The Drew Barrymore Show and the planned return of other talk programs on air, Barrymore Co-head author Cristina Kinon told The Daily Beast that their plans are “frustrating because they would extend the strike and we just want it to end.”

Talk about it specifically The Drew Barrymore ShowKinon said, “I know this show has a crew of hundreds of people that need to be paid, and I understand the perspective of wanting to protect your cast, your crew and your staff.” At the same time, she added, they were on strike and her fellow writers with tens of thousands of other WGA members. “And as we continue to expand, we stand with the entire workforce and all unions around the world, because that’s how it works. Unions only work if you stand together with unions across the spectrum of work.”

In other words: AHS Maybe he didn’t break WGA rules by staying in production despite the writers’ strike, but that’s not quite the point.

Ultimately, it appears the double strike summer has caused turmoil in the industry AHS Production. In August, about a month after the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA called its own strike (resulting in the permanent shutdown of most productions), FX announced its split AHS: Delicate into two parts, with part one releasing on September 20th. The final number of episodes and premiere date for Part Two are not yet known. By the time, Hollywood Reporter attributed the decision to “productions being halted due to the work stoppage caused by the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.”

As longtime fans know all too well, it can be difficult to predict which direction a given season will go AHS will go. Sometimes we get a wonderfully chaotic masterpiece like Murder House or Apocalypse, and sometimes things are just a mess. (We just don’t talk about it in this house Freak show.) That said, Sensitive at least showed great potential.

This season is the first in franchise history to draw inspiration from a book, and the introduction of a new, female showrunner for the series’ IVF-inspired chills could also prove refreshing. Roberts, a fan favorite ever since Circlereturns for the first time in four years, and alongside Kardashian, this season also features franchise favorites Billie Lourd, Denis O’Hare and Leslie Grossman, as well as newcomers Matt Czuchry and Cara Delevingne.

And yet, without the writers, these beloved actors would have nothing to say on screen. Since it’s something of a constant buzzkill, maybe it’s just my habit to talk about it – even as teaser video after teaser video builds my anticipation. AHS has already dealt with serial killers, aliens, murderous clowns and sadistic witches, and yet this chapter may go down as one of the darkest in its history.

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