The below article will openly discuss spoilers from all four seasons of American Horror Story.

When the first season of American Horror Story was airing, there was quite a bit of confusion over the series. First of all, the show introduced a shocking amount of ideas right from the start: ghosts, stitched-together Frankenstein babies, ghostly red-headed twins, a prophetic girl with down syndrome, a maid whose appearance shifts depending on who’s looking at her, a marriage-in-crisis, a school shooter, and a gimp-suited rapist entity, all in the very first episode. Even stranger, the show did not seem to have any qualms with making rather permanent narrative decisions. Major secrets (like the identity of the gimp suit entity) were revealed midway through the season, and several main characters died, or were revealed to have been ghosts the whole time. It was certainly fun to watch on a weekly basis, but it was hard to fathom how the writers would be able to sustain it as a series past the first season.

However, with the finale, it all began to make sense: there was never any intention of carrying this particular story for more than a season. American Horror Story was the first of what has become something of a trend lately: a series of mini-series. This meant that every year could tell a complete story, from beginning to end, and they could start anew next time. So after the entire Harmon family was dead at the end of season 1, Ryan Murphy was able to start fresh with a new set of characters less than a year later.

But even as a mini-series, American Horror Story had to figure out ways to deal with issues that feature films do not. For one, horror movies often rely on the fact that most characters are expendable. A scene can’t feel effectively “dangerous” if there’s not at least some chance that a character will die. In a TV series or mini-series, the various characters all have to have some sort of arc or storyline that continues throughout. This means that deaths tend to come after a character has exhausted their storyline potential (usually at the end of a season), or a death is prematurely ending a potential story, which is unsatisfying.

The masterstroke of American Horror Story’s first season is in its rules for “ghosts.” When characters died in the vicinity of the “Murder House,” they were trapped in the house for eternity as ghosts. However, ghosts could still interact with characters (both living and dead) inside the house, and they had a physical presence. When characters died, then, it was less of an ending and more of a transformation. Take, for instance, Violet Harmon, the daughter in the Harmon family. The character actually died several episodes before the show revealed to the audience that she was really dead, and her death then reframed her bonding with Tate, who had been a ghost the whole time. American Horror Story got to complete a character arc, while having the “shock” of a death and re-enforcing its “anything can happen” story arc. It had its cake and ate it, too.

With Season 2, Asylum, the show no longer had a death mechanic that allowed for characters to “transform.” Looking at the season as a whole, characters do not really start dying (at least permanently) until the final four episodes, which act as a series of concluding chapters for the characters. However, because of the parade of atrocities being committed on the poor Asylum cast, it never felt like danger was far away. Asylum also continued the American Horror Story tradition of throwing absolutely anything it could at the wall to see if it would stick. The season featured extraterrestrials, a Nazi doctor, multiple serial killers, a demon-possessed nun, an angel of death, a murderous Santa Claus, and more. It was certainly never boring.

Of all the seasons, Asylum was the most successful at earning closure. Because of the extended series of endings, each character was given a catharsis, and seemingly random plot elements ended up seeming meaningful in retrospect. And since very few characters actually died before the end, their deaths (or survival) were able to really mean something.

For the third season, Coven, the writers once again switched up the rules for death, but this time in a far less successful way. Because the main characters were witches, it was decided that they were capable of bringing back the dead. Sometimes a revived character lost significant functionality, like Kyle, who was only capable of Frankenstein-esque grunts and clumsy movements upon his initial resurrection. Other revivals were near-perfect, though, and the show never seemed to latch onto a consistent rule for what the witches could and could not do.

You can tell that the writers are reaching, too. Instead of having random elements introduced to test the characters, relationships, and plotlines that were previously established, the crux of the story itself seemed to shift randomly. It seemed like the writers were making whatever changes they wanted on a whim, knowing that they could just use “magic” as an excuse to retcon their decisions. The central plot was not particularly clear, and the character who was set up in the beginning to be the primary protagonist is woefully underdeveloped and has no impact on the story whatsoever (an example of the laziness of this season: her witch power is never used again after the first episode). It is simply a mess.

It’s not an entertaining mess, either. Since nothing that happened was likely to be permanent, it became impossible to care about what dangers might befall the characters. By the end, I just wanted them to reveal the Supreme (the most powerful witch, who is noteworthy for having…a couple more powers than the other witches, I guess) and get over with it.

If Coven failed to convey the “dangerous” element of horror movie death, then Freak Show, American Horror Story’s fourth season, fails at the other end of the coin: the continuation of serialized arcs. Unlike seasons 1 and 3, death in Freak Show is very much permanent. However, while season 2 managed to sidestep around killing characters by showcasing danger in other ways, season 2 doubles down on death and surprise.

One of the key selling points of the early portion of the season was Twisty, the killer clown. Portrayed by John Carroll Lynch and featuring horrific make-up, Twisty was far and away the most unique creation the show had to offer. However, only four episodes in (less than a third of the way through the season), Twisty was killed by a spirit named Edward Mordrake and dragged to hell. This was almost definitely conceived as a twist that nobody would see coming, but it robbed the show of one of its only compelling reasons to check in.

The season continued with this trend. Characters were kidnapped, maimed, and murdered throughout, often with no concern as to how their deaths would affect the story. Once again, the writers could not disguise the fact that they were throwing whatever they could at the wall to see what stuck, with no concern whatsoever about derailing plotlines. The worst of this came with Maggie. While initially sent to the Freak Show undercover as a fortune teller, working to off the freaks one-by-one and sell their body parts to a museum, Maggie comes to care about the freaks and hate her boss. She’s not the best character on the show, but she has a clear arc, and a real motivation to be better.

So, just one episode before the finale, she is randomly murdered by Neil Patrick Harris’ character (who only appears for two episodes) for no real reason. Harris ultimately has no significance to the overarching narrative, so to have him kill off a key character for “shock” value is just ludicrous writing.

Four seasons in, we now have a show that has handled death intelligently and professionally for two years, and then completely botched it for the next two. It would be easy to be pessimistic about next season, but I’m going to hold off hope. Ryan Murphy and his team of writers have lucked into something special before. Why not again?