“American Horror Story: 13” is a clumsy hodgepodge of TikTok clips, which are themselves tragic. There’s no plot, no characters, no meaning, and even the negative messages and propaganda have been completely stripped away. Apparently, 13 really is the unlucky number, because a failure on such a colossal scale is almost unimaginable.

The season starts off decently. We get some good satire on modern couples, a successful joke about triskaidekaphobia and triskaidekaphilia, and a hint that we’re heading in an interesting direction. But… that turns out to be the only good scene in the entire season.

The plot is… tenuous. Witches are fighting Satan to prevent him from destroying the world. But we’ve already seen this plot in season eight. And it was done much better back then. The Devil has a bet with God that if he survives 100 years in the body of a mortal, he’ll gain complete power over our world. A meaningless string of words, just enough to pretend there’s some danger. Out of all the endless possibilities for a threat, the writers chose the most clichéd and the most absurd one at the same time.

But even if the story looks terrible on paper, that’s nothing compared to how it’s executed. The episodes drag on monotonously, with each one having even less going on than the last. We bathe an old man, throw random lines into the void, look dramatic—the end.

To keep repeating the plot, we once again have the Devil’s son. But is anyone willing to believe that Ben is the Devil’s son? He’s boring even by the standards of an ordinary person, let alone anything more. His counterpart from Season 8 was phenomenal in terms of acting. Michael Langdon can simply stand there in silence, and you already believe he’s the Antichrist. Ben is the complete opposite of that, and the idea that the two are one and the same is absurd.

For his part, the Devil himself is tragic. The actor plays him extremely poorly, his dialogue is beyond criticism, and the character has absolutely no presence. The Devil is supposed to completely dominate every scene in which he appears. But in practice, the exact opposite happens. Constance has a significantly stronger presence and completely overshadows the Devil in every scene with him, which undermines any attempt to make us believe that he is terrifying.

“American Horror Story: 13” brings back many of the series’ original legendary characters. But it has absolutely no idea what to do with them. The greatest witches—like Fiona, Marie, and Myrtle—return, but their only purpose is to stand in the middle of the room and look smart. Characters like Madison and Queenie have completely lost the dark edge and charm they had in previous seasons and are now mere shadows of their former selves. We also get plenty of references and rehashed iconic moments from Season 3, but this time the scenes feel cheap and fall short of the original.

“American Horror Story” has never been known for a coherent plot, but the dialogue and iconic characters have managed to make up for the holes in the story. This time, however, the dialogue is so weak that it ruins everything. The characters don’t speak or act like themselves, which makes them seem like poorly acted caricatures.

The ending manages to surpass the levels of absurdity reached up to that point and descends into an outright insult to the audience.

Even though they have a whole army of powerful witches at their disposal, Cordelia and Cueeny go off on their own to fight the Devil. And their plan is simply to walk right up to his bed…

The Devil wins the bet and takes over the world, but decides to give the victory to humanity because people bore him. What is this? A contender for the award for “Most Absurd TV Series Finale”?

Cordelia, Fiona, and Mallory are all alive together in the same timeline, which means that three High Witches are coexisting and getting along just fine, even though this completely contradicts how their magic works.

But an even more egregious insult than the plot twist involving the Devil is the storyline with Constance and Fiona as sisters. The fact that their timelines don’t align and it’s impossible is the lesser problem. The bigger problem is that they simply aren’t sisters. This is a contrived connection designed to entertain viewers with the idea, “Wouldn’t it be fun if all of Jessica Lange’s iconic roles were connected?” And the answer is no. It’s not fun. It’s insulting to the characters and it’s insulting to us.

“American Horror Story: 13” is a total failure in every sense of the word, and we can only hope that this will put an end to the trend of making movies this way.