The new season of ‘American Horror Story’ is subtitled ‘Freak Show’ and takes place in 1950.  Jessica Lange once again takes the lead role as a German expat, Elsa Mars, who owns one of the last carnival freak shows in the US, based in Jupiter, Florida during the beginning of the Cold War.

We’ve previously seen series regular Sarah Paulson will be playing a two headed lady/conjoined twins, Bette and Dot Tattler.  We also learned that Jyoti Amge, literally the world’s smallest woman, would be part of the cast as… well, the world’s smallest woman.  What about the rest of the cast?

AHS newcomer Michael Chiklis, who played the super strong Thing in the previous ‘Fantastic Four’ movies, will be playing the circus Strongman, Wendell Del Toredo.  And, judging by this poster, it appears that he’s passed his strength onto his onscreen son Evan Peters, who will be named Jimmy Darling, channeling James Dean, it looks like.  Meanwhile, Del Toredo will be divorced from Kathy Bates’ character Effil Darling, who will be the show’s Bearded Lady.  Chiklis’ Strongman will have moved on to Angela Bassett’s character, Desiree Dupree.  Bassett will presumably be bumped up from guest star to series regular this season, but her character doesn’t appear to be a “freak.”  Neither does Emma Roberts who will play a character named Maggie.

In addition, Gabourey Sidibe is slated to return and possibly, as with Bassett may be bumped up to regular status.  ‘The Hunger Games” Wes Bently, Finn Wittrock and John Carroll Lynch are joining the cast, with Lynch playing Twitchy the Clown, the serial killer/major bad guy this season.  In limited roles, will be R&B legend Patti LaBelle, who will portray Sidibe’s character’s mother and Matt Bomer in an undisclosed role.

Bomer previously appeared on ‘Glee’ also by AHS’s creator Ryan Murphy, who is directing the first episode of ‘Freak Show’.  Murphy spoke about this new chapter of AHS by saying:

“At every freak show, you have the tropes but there’s some [that are] unique and weird.  It’s about something: It’s about outcasts and how society at that time … true stories about circus performers who were cast aside. The story in many ways dovetails with ‘Asylum’ (the second incarnation of AHS), because they leave one era and you can see many of them in real life were put into asylums. There’s a great symmetry we’ve come up with that’s rewarding.”

Rumor has it that Naomi Grossman may reprise her ‘Asylum’ role as Pepper the “Pinhead” on ‘Freak Show’ which would create a nice bridge between the two chapters.  This has not been confirmed, though.

Murphy went on to describe the new season’s tone by saying:

“It’s darker than ‘Coven’; it feels very unique… as opposed to last year, which was crazy camera work and comedy. This year feels different. “

Are you looking forward to a new season of ‘American Horror Story’ set in the 1950s?  What do you think, now that you’ve seen the cast in character?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter