You’re on your fifth season, “American Horror Story.” Congrats on that. “Hannibal” couldn’t even do that and it was actually good. So, you know, for you to do it? Amazing, I mean it.

I’m not going to say the fifth season is a bust outright — that’s a lie. The musical direction is phenomenal, so good that you seem to be making music videos rather than a plotted show. The acting is acting. It’s like going to Golden Corral and complaining about kids touching the salad dressing to comment on it at this point. We know what this is. I can’t stand Sarah Paulson as Sarah Paulson for the fifth year in a row, but again — dressing.

“AHS: Hotel” would be perfectly fine if I hadn’t watched prior seasons.

Midway into the third episode, when Donovan (Matt Bomer) argues with Iris (Kathy Bates) about her piss-poor parenting, I realized I’ve seen this. It was season one with Tate (Evan Peters) and Constance (Jessica Lange). 

“It was a good shtick, they enjoyed it then, why wouldn’t they like it again,” Ryan Murphy said.

Only, I was wrong. It was season four with Dandy (Finn Wittrock) and Gloria Mott (Frances Conroy), too. Then you did it again with Donovan and Iris. It’s like a bird momma stealing regurgitated food from its young and feeding them that again so she doesn’t have to go out.

And I could take a repeating trope — writers are always a sucker for something — but I remembered the introduction for Gabriel (Max Greenfield). Remember that? He got four lines and then was raped by a drill-dick ghost for the rest of the episode?

Or season four when the freaks got together to rape a drugged Penny (Grace Gummer), then convinced her she liked it, then she fell in love with one?

Or season three when most of the main cast of teenage witches spent their free time raping the kind boy who tried to save them from rape in the first episode?

Or season two when a devil possessed Sister Mary Eunice (Lily Rabe) raped Timothy Howard (Joseph Fiennes) and it was somehow unanimously seen as his “I’m a bad guy now” point? Where it would have been more powerful an indictment if he had been, you know, seduced, rather than actually factually raped?

Or season one when Tate raped Vivian (Connie Britton) and no one really dwelled on it like they should have?

All I’m saying is your patterns repeat painfully.

Patterns are bad to fall in as an anthology series; the idea behind anthologies being fresh, loosely (if even) connected plots, not whatever you call this wheezing mess. I liked season one as through and through garbage, I liked season two as something odd but extremely entertaining, I liked season three as just a show with a plot I could follow.

Three seasons before cannibalizing yourself is weak. You have to do better. Not hiring Jessica Lange’s “I’m acting” accent isn’t a solution if you’re just going to split up her role amongst the remaining cast. It’s like she never left.

So, no, don’t show me Iris and the Countess (Lady Gaga) discussing how they need to save the “Xyz ghost receptacle” hotel, because it insults me as someone who’s followed your show from the beginning. Maybe I deserve to be insulted. I am still watching. We watched you save the freak show and the murder house and the witch school, we get how this works. I don’t want to watch the plot of “Breakin’ 2” with ghosts, as nuts as they may seem.

Don’t show me your ham-fisted family melodrama, because you aren’t “Friday Night Lights.” You wouldn’t even know what to do with a Kyle Chandler. I do not care about people’s mom issues anymore, you’ve dried the well, and you are throwing your bucket in mud. It is stuck. Your bucket is stuck. You’re tearing the rope. The village will go thirsty. You’ll kill dozens.

Don’t give me another disturbed boy who wants to learn how to murder from some serial killer, especially if you aren’t even going to change the acolyte (Wittrock). That was literally last season.

And if this all sounds too daunting, and you just don’t have anything to write with all these strike-throughs, just stop. End the show. Go home and talk to your kids, see what they like.

Make another show fun for two seasons, mash it into the dirt for someone to step on like a steamy dog dump, and just send their day right to hell.

Thanks for the David Naughton, though. Fine, Griffin Dunne, too. I like that guy.

Follow Sasha Hawkins on Twitter.