American Horror Story loves to shake things up, from a current spinoff, to a season getting split into two parts for two distinct stories. NYC isn’t different, choosing to deliver its story in an unusually slower pace and in two episodes released per week. Where Season 11 really tries something new is through Joe Mantello’s character of Gino Barelli. Set in 1981 on the edge of the AIDS crisis, Gino has no idea of what is to come. Instead, his attention is on solving a series of murders targeting gay men. He will even risk his life to stop this threat to his community. Gino is the best addition to NYC because of how unlike he is to other gay men in prior seasons of AHS. They were rotten in many ways, oftentimes leading to their downfall. Queer women fare better and Gino raises up to their rank of authority and depth.

Hot Head, Hot Needles

Gino Barelli can’t stand that his boyfriend Patrick (Russell Tovey) is a closeted NYPD detective. He’s pissed gay men are dying and no one cares. The character has a short fuse, which could seem one-note. Because of NYC’s time period, he has a reason to be enraged. There’s already terrible odds put against the gay community, this with the AIDS crisis happening in the shadows. The NYPD couldn't care less about murdered gay man, they hardly investigate, and at various points they openly mock the dead. Which means an active serial killer remains on the loose. It’s through Gino’s rush to uncover the killer that he discovers the killer's M.O. involves a garish Mai Tai beverage. The drink is drugged, which is how the so-called Mai Tai Killer (Jeff Hiller) kidnaps victims. Gino, by the end of Episode 1, learns this the hard way. Hot needles get forced under his nails. Along with hazy vision, the experience is tortuous. It’s a too-close encounter with death. But the Mai Tai Killer releases him. By doing this, AHS spares Gino an abrupt death, something other gay male characters couldn’t avoid.

ahs nyc joe mantello as gino barelli

Look at Chad (Zachary Quinto), unable to leave a bad relationship and the iconic location of Murder House. Killed and stuck on the property as a ghost, Chad can’t even enjoy his interior decorating skills. His emphasis on Granny Smith apples for Halloween decor is ignored. That’s a small nuisance compared to being trapped in death with his cheating boyfriend. Chad knows nothing of peace. He knows plenty of misery. In My Roanoke Nightmare there is the wealthy and spoiled Edward Phillippe Mott (Evan Peters), who turns a slave into his lover. In Mott’s backstory, dead colonists who haunt the land destroy the aristocrat’s prized paintings. Mott accuses and punishes his servants harshly for the vandalism. Not long after, he is given the AHS treatment of a vicious murder with the use of a stake and fire. In Apocalypse, Peters plays another doomed gay character, the hair-stylist Mr. Gallant. He’s stuck inside Outpost 3, not because he’s a spirit, but in order to survive a nuclear blast fallout. He’s tricked into committing a murder, and it isn’t long afterwards that poisoned food snuffs him out. Gino, as a character, isn’t devoid of being messy. But by keeping him alive, the show gets to expand on him as a character.

He’s misogynistic, sending condescending remarks to a trio of lesbian activists who come into his place of work. Led by Fran (Sandra Bernhard), they want their acronym to the LGBTQ community given a spotlight in The Native, the gay newspaper where Gino works. They aren’t asking for much, but one might guess otherwise from Gino’s reaction. He dismisses them; as a gay man, he only writes about gay men. Fran sees it for the poor excuse it is. “Your paper is here to serve the gay community,” she says, “but you’re ignoring half of it.” Surviving the Mai Tai Killer changes Gino's mind on Fran’s demand. He allows the women a corner desk and the opportunity to write. But the progress is limited. He decides against their story to headline The Native, choosing (no surprise) his own piece on the Mai Tai murders. Gino isn’t a perfect role model, but his mistakes make him more complex.

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Image via FX

Whereas Gino fails queer women, American Horror Story doesn’t. Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) and Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare) are great examples of this. In Asylum, a need for fame by whatever cost, gets Lana imprisoned in Briarcliff Manor. By the finale, she achieves the fame she desired and gets the asylum shut down. The victory is tainted by how Lana sees herself as someone who should be the center of attention. But getting from Point A to Point B, Lana goes through hell too many damn times. Placed into Briarcliff for being a lesbian, she ends up a prisoner to Dr. Thredson (Quinto) when he reveals himself to be the killer Bloody Face. Surviving all of this and more, Lana’s selfishness is understandable. She even matures out of it before Asylum closes out. Lana is to Paulson, like how Liz Taylor is to Denis O’Hare. In Hotel, a trans actress could have truly made her unique but O’Hare gives his all. Liz Taylor works at the Hotel Cortez, wearing her heart on her caftan sleeve. She’s a trans woman who chooses a new life, abandoning an old one with her family.

The reason she does is simple. Liz gets to properly transition despite the location being where murderous ghosts roam. She starts out as a bartender but her relationship with the hotel grows. She becomes its guardian, viewing the hotel’s spirits as misguided, in pain, rather than monsters. Unlike Lana, death comes for Liz, and she accepts it. She gets to reconcile with her son, find happiness with a lover, and go out in style with Marianne Faithful’s “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan,” as her own requiem. Re-enter Gino, who like these women, fights for a better life.

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Problems arise from Lana’s desire for success and Liz’s desire for authenticity. The same can be said with Gino. The words he types up are electrifying. After his torture, he describes the encounter, “like an injection of flame, an incineration of every nerve in your body, shooting inward from your fingertips.” Regardless, his desire to protect gay men is not without faults. He removes Fran’s piece in The Native in order to reiterate the threat against gay men. He can’t understand the paper can have space which is more LGBTQ inclusive rather than exclusive. This is Gino’s tunnel vision.

Pride Takes Work, But Death Comes Easily

Kathy Bates as the Butcher

Beyond the character itself, it’s refreshing to see older and out actor Joe Mantello get the chance to tap into the show’s darkness and melodrama. Veteran actresses get similar material on American Horror Story frequently. Angela Bassett, Frances Conroy, Kathy Bates, and Jessica Lange are fantastic examples. Season 11 throws its younger cast into trouble, and Mantello isn’t left behind. When Gino recognizes the Mai Tai Killer at a hospital, it turns into a chase scene. Gino narrows in, seeing an end to the carnage. At another point, his rage inspires Adam (Charlie Carver), a young gay man who’s lost his friend. If they don’t act, who will?

Unlike Chad and Mr. Mott, the relationship between Gino and Patrick isn’t perfect but not exactly toxic. The couple fight, their biggest issue being Patrick’s keeping his sexuality a secret from work. Eventually, Patrick realizes the toll of being closeted in the NYPD. But AHS can’t forget the melodrama. Lana Winters states to police who are amazed at her ordeal, “I’m tough, but I’m no cookie.” In pitching herself to head a fashion company, Liz Taylor remarks, “I was a salesman in another life. In this one, I’m the mother of style. Cut me and I bleed Dior.” It only makes sense Gino gets a turn. When Patrick and him find the lair to the Mai Tai Killer, Patrick wants him to stay back. Gino rejects it; he's tagging along by telling him, “You want to be fucking Rock Hudson? You’re not going in without Susan Saint James.”

Heading into the final episodes, Gino has finally conquered one monster, but he won’t be a match for the next. The AIDS crisis is happening all around the characters, with no one understanding the mysterious illness taking over. Dark lesions are on Gino’s body, on Patrick, and others. It’s an inevitable danger on a massive scale. However, Gino Barelli won’t go down without a fight, no matter what his fate will be by the season’s end. That’s a verified fact he would put into his paper. Early on, a character discusses his news articles, asking, “Do you think this is going to compel your readers to action?” Gino knows not everyone is seeing or hearing his call for alarm; a frustrating battle for awareness. Although, it doesn’t mean he won't stop waging it.