American Horror Story: Afterbirth

“Afterbirth” airs tonight on FX at 9/10pm, providing the finale to an amazing first season of American Horror Story. The description according to Cox Communication’s Channel Guide reads as follows:

Constance schemes to raise Tate’s baby as her own. Season Finale.

While a lot of sites having been claiming that the episode will run 90 minutes long, my cable guide only has it slotted for 70. Perhaps they can cram 90 minutes worth of TV into that time if they don’t show commercials, but I doubt they’d show a season finale commercial free. After all, the season finale of AHS is going to be an “event” in many a household, and any savvy network exec would try to milk such an event for all its worth, especially FX, whose series’ tend to be hit and miss with audience popularity.

American Horror Story: Birth

“Birth” will show tonight on the FX Network at 9/10pm. The description according to Cox Communication’s Channel Guide reads as follows:

Vivien gives birth; Tate and Violet try to rid the house of some of its ghosts.

Vivien Gives Birth: In the Pilot episode Vivien (Connie Britton) slept with a man who appeared in her bedroom in a rubber bondage suit, assumed it was her philandering husband Ben (Dylan McDermott), and had sex with him. Although the series hasn’t been too clear about the passage of time, certain bits of dialog (regarding Violet skipping school) would have me believe that each episode encapsulates the events of a week. So the fact is, only 10-11 weeks have passed since Vivien conceived, and now according to the promos she’s already going to be giving birth. The episode preview shows an unknown doctor telling Viv that “one of these babies is ready to be born right now.”

American Horror Story: Rules

Been quite a while since my last post, but not without reason(s): illness, travel, injury, writer’s block and, turns out, obsession. Although I’ve played Arkham City twice now, completed MGS4 and the entire God of War series, and should have probably blogged about that, I’ve been far more fascinated by a new phenomenon: FX Network’s American Horror Story.

AHS is the story of troubled Harmon family, Ben (Dylan McDermott), Vivien (Connie Britton), and their daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga), as they flee from their troubles in Boston (including a miscarriage and resultant infidelity) to Los Angeles, where they move into a residence known locally as “Murder House” due to the high number of people who’ve met their untimely deaths there. Over the last nine episodes, the Harmons have gradually learned that Murder House is inhabited by the spirits of all who have died there, trapped on the property. And not all of them are happy about it: some plot to break up and/or murder the Harmons, while others have far more nefarious designs (including trying to bring the Antichrist into being and ushering in the Biblical Apocalypse).

The Games I’ll Play This Fall

In addition to finishing playing God of War III and InFamous, I’m finally excited about a couple of games that are coming out and plan to buy them. I consider this something of a big deal, since I rarely buy console games anymore. And certainly not at full price. I don’t rent them either; most console games are just hollow sequels where I feel if you’ve played the original, you’re fine (with the exception of God of War, because a truly fantastic story hooks me every time).  But the following three titles are ones that have piqued my interest enough to have to own them for myself.

Tradaculator: New Game Trade-in Service

Tradaculator.com is a fantastic new website where gamers can see the trade-in values of top selling video games, and compare major retailers. The front page is sorted by newest release, so that you can immediately see what your new copy of Gears of War 3 or Rage is worth if you’re not happy with them. Tradaculator also features a search engine so you can look for older titles, and AJAX scrolling populates the site with more entries as you move down the page. Though the best trade-in value is shown beneath each, clicking the price button beneath an entry shows a tab of price entries from Amazon, Best Buy and Glyde for comparison. The “Trade It In” button allows you to set up an online game trade with the retailer featuring the best trade-in value.