It is a dark day indeed, gentle viewers. My mourning period is upon me, as tragedy has struck ‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’ in the Halloween conclusion of ‘Edward Mordrake Pt. 2.’ Turn back now if you didn’t watch last night’s episode, for there be spoilers ahead.
The theme of this segment seemed to be that of ‘Origins,’ greatly akin to the kinds we find in superhero films. Why is it that some people’s tragedies turn them into Batman while others, The Joker? Well this week, ‘AHS’ portrays how these freaks became freaks as we begin our hazy, cloud of sexy lime green smoke tale.
Lord Voldemort aka Edward Mordrake is going tent to tent, listening to the tales of woe from our lovable band of freaks, trying to find the saddest-sack of the bunch and bring them back with him to his Freak Show of the underworld. Or is it a Freak’s paradise? Not really sure where Mordrake takes these guys anyway, and who do they perform for exactly? Other freaks? The students of Hogwarts? The Lost Boys? The Killer Klowns from Outerspace? Puzzling, but I digress.
The best “origins” story at first seems to go to our narcissistic leader, Elsa Mars. Back in the day, when she was a hot piece of S&M ass, Elsa ran an all-you-can-eat-buffet of sexual fetishes when she was still in Germany. Seriously, you could partake in any kind of fantasy your little black heart desired and no one would be the wiser. Elsa showcased her “talents” in her bordello of sin (hello nails on a toilet seat, but whatever you’re into I guess) and in turn got herself a little fan club of the ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ variety. A star in her own right, things escalated quickly and she soon found herself the main focus of a snuff film, in which they cut off both of her legs with a chainsaw. Brutal, but I couldn’t look away; such an amazing scene/sequence as a whole, prompting me to give a shout out to the editor on this episode, truly superb job all together.
She never forgave the love-struck puppy that found her bleeding out and legless for saving her life (she would have rather died then to be without her ‘killer legs’ you see), and its at this moment Mordrake’s better half decides Elsa is their chosen person.
But hold the mother fu*king phone, that dramatic-over-the-top-what-part-of-England-is-that-stupid-accent-from-you-dumb-bastard Mordrake, starts to hear music and you just know things are taking a turn towards the heartbreak hotel.
As we follow the green fog of dread, we stumble upon Twisty the Clown and his new side-kick, Dandy Mott. This is my FAVORITE scene, when we see Twisty crushing it on his baby piano (eerily out of tune, of course) and Dandy the Homicidal Maniac,about to preform the ‘cut my assistant in half with a saw’ bit. They have ‘recruited’ two new viewers in Jimmy ‘Penishands’ and oh-god-why-are-you-still-alive-psychic, Maggie Esmeralda. They came to be here by way of following Twisty back to his lair after his girl escapes but he knocks her to the ground and lugs her back a la Fred Flinstone style. Dandy then knocks Jimmy and Maggie out cold and drags their stupid asses over to the real entertainment of the night.
Jimmy comes to and frees everyone including Maggie, and they all run to get the cops for help. Maggie distracts a frantic Dandy as he tries to chase them all down. Little boy blue however trips over a log in his haste and loses them, thus proclaiming the ‘worst Halloween ever’ now that his playthings ran amok. Back at Twisty’s shaggin’ waggin’, Mordrake shows up, tells him to remove his mask, and lay his ‘origins’ story on him.
AMAZING graphics or makeup or whatever had to happen to get Twisty’s face to look the way it does once his removable home-made smile is taken away; the tongue alone is something that will haunt my dreams forever. So here we are – the not so shocking story of how a simple, loving, fun having man just wanted to entertain children and bring happiness to all throughout the land, was tainted by jealous dwarfs (Small people? not sure what the PC term is but you get my drift) spread nasty rumors about him and run him out of town. Desperate to show everyone what a good person he is, he tries to make one man’s trash into another mans treasure (literally) but he receives a far from friendly reception from the townsfolk of Jupiter.
Bent on ending it all, Twisty tries to kill himself by sticking a shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. It doesn’t kill him, but DOES remove the bottom part of his face/jaw, making it even easier to cry over how hard this guy’s life has really been. Needless to say, Twisty’s sense of reality gets even more skewed, when he decides that killing and kidnapping people is a good way to win his audience back, because those he killed ‘were mean’ and those he took he “gave them candy.” Killing the wicked toy store owner that wouldn’t buy his trash-treasures (you’ll remember their breathtaking deaths from Ep. 2 of this season) also was part of his plan to re-invent himself as the amazing clown he used to be.
This brings us back to present day (so to speak) and Mordrake’s ‘Spidey’ senses start to tingle when his second face begins to weep, signifying that Twisty is the true lost soul that needs to be taken back with them. Que stabbing and over all shock that this beloved, turns out to be a non-villain and is taken from us. But hey, at least he got his jaw back and the ‘family’ he always tried to find; a true outsider among the most outside people you’ll ever meet.
This is such a hard one to wrap my brain around because for me, Twisty was in many ways the best part of this season so far. His interaction with Dandy was the stuff of legends and I could feel the most epic of bromances a brewin’ between these two, but my dreams were crushed last night. True this may be considered selfish seeing how Twisty had a very depressing and unwarrantedly hard life, and true it doesn’t really make sense anymore for him to be the season’s “big bad” but still, I loved him. And true love lasts a lifetime.
To wrap this episode up with a nice little bloody bow, Dandy, now wearing Twisty’s trademark “smile,” finally kills his housekeeper (I don’t care if she is Patti LaBelle, lady had it coming) thus bringing forth our new villain. And as in every origin story, when one villain rises, so must his hero counterpart, taken here by the reluctant Jimmy. The town of Jupiter finally gives the freaks the courtesy of being treated like human beings and thanks them for finally making their town safe, once again. For now, anyway…
In the smaller news of this episode – Bette looks on at Jimmy with adoration once he’s crowned savior and king Freak, but little does she know, Maggie is standing just behind her, doing the exact same thing (excellent depiction of this shot, really pulled at my heartstrings; made me feel like the head cheerleader was eyeing the same piece of high school man-meat as the school dork. So sad.). Also Maggie’s well endowed scheming counterpart is in now town, and making Elsa drool once again over potential stardom.
Disappointment aside from losing my beloved Twisty and that fact there there wasn’t a musical number this time around, the episode was beautifully executed on all sides, thus maintaining its trailblazing nature and over all bad-assdom. I can’t wait to see what is in store next week, but until then, let us know in the comments section below what you thought of the ‘AHS’ Halloween finale!
