American Horror Story: Freak Show – “Show Stoppers”

First aired January 14th, 2015.

Elsa (played by Jessica Lange) holds a farewell feast for herself while toasting the new owner, Chester (played by Neil Patrick Harris). She then tells Chester she needs a few moments alone with her “monsters” and asks him to step out.

Stanley (played by Denis O’Hare) is presented with a gift for helping Elsa get to Hollywood which turns out to be the severed head of the museum curator (played by Celia Weston). He tries to claim innocence and then reveals that Elsa murdered Ethel (played by Kathy Bates), but it falls on deaf ears. Everyone chases him out into the rain with knives and they trap him under a caravan. He’s later shown kept in a cage, severely deformed. Jimmy (played by Evan Peters) is recuperating from the loss of his hands and refuses to accept Maggie’s (played by Emma Roberts) apologies for her role in Stanley’s scheme. Elsa arranges for her old friend from Germany, Massimo (played by Danny Huston), who made her fake legs, to build wooden hands for Jimmy. Although Jimmy is given the choice of being crafted normal hands, he has Massimo create hands with syndactyly like his original ones.

Jimmy choosing replicas of his original hands was basically him coming to terms with being a freak and that’s great, although he did that a while ago. That man from the Massimo flashbacks was named Hans Gruper, who was a character from season two, Asylum. I get that all the seasons of AHS are connected, but I don’t get why they are because every season is so different anyway. Why can’t they be separate entities? I loved the opening where Stanley was set up, although it was never clear if the museum curator knew he killed these people so her death may have been unjustified. I was disappointed at first when it seemed that, when Stanley was right about to meet his grisly end, the scene cut off. His ultimate fate of being kept alive as prisoner of the freak show, presumably to be continually tortured, was poetic.

Bette and Dot (played by Sarah Paulson) are enjoying their new relationship with Chester, but Dandy (played by Finn Wittrock) shows them proof of his past crimes. His doll, Marjorie (played by Jamie Brewer), berates Chester about the relationship and the murders of his wife and her girlfriend. They agree the twins have to be eliminated and he asks Bette and Dot to practice being sawed in half but they refuse, so Maggie volunteers. Haunted by visions of his wife and Marjorie, Chester actually saws Maggie in half, leaving everyone horrified, although Desiree (played by Angela Bassett) claims she deserved to die. When Marjorie decides to “leave” Chester he stabs her repeatedly and “kills” her. He later turns himself in to the police for murder, carrying Marjorie’s “corpse” with him.

I was hoping Marjorie really was alive, but Chester’s downward spiral into total insanity was fun to watch. She may have not been real, but her influence over Chester was and Brewer made the Marjorie hallucinations funny and creepy. It’s funny how it took the “murder” of his beloved Marjorie for him to see the error of his ways. Lucky for him that’ll get him locked in an insane asylum instead of death row. That was a nasty way for Maggie to go, but she was lucky to get a quick, albeit brutal, death. Desiree’s reaction hinted that, even though Maggie came clean, they weren’t going to be very forgiving toward her for putting them in danger to begin with.

After thinking it over, everyone realizes Ethel would never commit suicide and that Elsa did kill her. They resolve to murder Elsa in revenge, but the twins warn her and claim they are even. Elsa leaves town, but not before selling the freak show to none other than Dandy, who revels in his new position. I think the twins were more than even with Elsa, who definitely deserved to be killed by the “monsters” she loved so much. As the twins said, Ethel was the true mother figure because Elsa only cared about herself. Apparently, Dandy has traded in his days of killing and blood bathing for show business. I do like this new storyline because I’m sure Dandy will bring more craziness into the freak show for the season finale, at least I hope he does.

Quotes & Thoughts

“I’m going to make it right with you and with them.” “If I was you, I’d get the hell out of dodge before I get those new hands.”

I’m betting that, after a few days with Dandy, everyone in the show will be so annoyed, they’ll be lining up for a chance at killing him.

“She had it coming.” “What do we do now?” “Steal her jewelry and bury the bitch.”

It’s ironic that Maggie was almost sawed in half at the beginning of the season and here that’s exactly how she dies.

If you enjoyed Manny’s show, you can find the rest of his work right HERE on Sci-Fi Bloggers. You can also follow him on Twitter @KN_Manny.

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