Last night’s American Horror Story: Freak Show, “Edward Mordrake (Part 1),” saw a few new characters and storylines being introduced, while leaving a few others temporarily on the back burner and the body count abysmally zilch. Primarily, Emma Roberts and Denis O’Hare’s characters finally showed up — “Maggie Esmeralda” and “Stanley,” respectively — as a couple of grifters with dollar signs in their eyes who should be throwing in some extra complications for the freak show. Speaking of which, why does Elsa keep letting strangers join her freak show? So far this has not worked out well for her. Esmeralda was able to breezily connive her way into the camp by doing probably the smallest amount of background checking on Elsa and Elsa’s ego lapped up every last drop. I expected better from a Jessica Lange character.
The other set up being introduced is a possible future love triangle hinted between Jimmy, Dot, and Esmeralda — who so far does not seem quite as money hungry as her partner. Love triangle between a two-headed woman, lobster boy and fake psychic? I’ll take it.
In other news it was revealed in last night’s episode that Ethel’s past alcoholism is catching up with her, as her doctor diagnoses her with cirrhosis of the liver. This puts her in full-on “f*ck it” mode until a visitor later forces her to confront her past, and — I’m guessing in doing so — some unfinished business before her spirit leaves this realm.
We’ll discuss this more in this week’s WTF moments:
Wait, That’s Not A Baby Sasquatch
When Esmeralda and Stanley show up at the “American Morbidity Museum,” I was like — wait — is that the Mütter Museum? I’m guessing that was not the actual Mütter Museum, but they did a damn good job at recreating the home of Philadelphia’s infamous collection of medical oddities. They should have called it something more obvious in a nod to Always Sunny, like the Murnter Museum. Just throwing it out there.
At any rate, I can see why the actual Mütter Museum would not have wanted to been associated with a fictional television storyline involving two grifters almost succeeding in pawning off a “goat fetus with a cat jaw sewn on” as a baby Sasquatch — nor one of its curators shadily making an offer that if said grifters did happen to come across any actual medical oddities, that they wouldn’t be opposed to acquiring said medical oddity on the DL.
Dandy Does Not Care For His Howdy Doody Costume, Thank You
Even with Ethel’s sob story, I feel like Patti LaBelle’s excellent Dora has got to be the most sympathetic character so far. The Mott family maid barely reserved the seething contempt we all felt as a sadistic man child threw a temper tantrum over the Halloween costume she had “spent months” slaving over (under Gloria’s direction, of course), while being humiliated into wearing a “Woody the Woodpecker” costume.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
Sadly, if you were paying attention to the inundating casting news leading up to this season, we already know that her character “begins to discover the murderous secrets of Twisty the clown killer,” and that Gabourey Sidibe plays her daughter, “a socialite who returns to Jupiter when her mother goes missing.” So, gripping as that scene was with Dandy and the impeccably polished silver knife, I had a pretty good feeling Dora was going to at least see out one more episode.
Dot Is So Over This Body Sharing Thing
DOT IS THE DEVIL. Now that full on diva mode has set into her, Dot is already fantasizing about evicting her lesser half from their body. So what, she can become a huge star and marry Jimmy, who she is obviously in love with? Okay. And what then? She’s just some lady with a giant neck stump. That sounds much more appealing than having two heads. “My neck stump brings all the boys to the yard, and they’re like, WHAT IN THE UNHOLY F*CK IS THAT???”
Del Has A History Of Erectile Dysfunction
Steroids, man. Did they even have steroids back in the 1950s? Well regardless, somehow Jimmy was conceived even though Del’s history of not being able to produce an erection obviously goes back way further than him not being able to get it up for his wife with three breasts. We don’t know yet if Del’s impotence is going to be integral to the plot at all or just something Ryan Murphy threw in for funsies. Your guess is as good as mine.
Twisty’s Latest Acquisition
Good job on that curfew, Jupiter, because all they did was drive their serial killer over to the next town, where children were out trick or treating in droves and giant horrifying garbage clowns were safe to walk around amongst them in the light of day. Oh well, not their problem I guess. Twisty sadly didn’t get much screen time this week, but his latest capture, a boy who likes dressing as a clown to scare his sister — certainly gives some kind of insight into his possible motivations in choosing victims.
The bigger question here is what’s Twisty’s reaction going to be at coming home to his school bus to find Dandy trying to damage his toys? I think it’s been established that for whatever reason Twisty is kidnapping kids, his motivation isn’t to harm or kill them — which incredibly makes him come off as the lesser of two evils. Which also means that he’s probably going to eat it first, if I had to wager a guess. But I’m always wrong so don’t listen to me.
What In The Fresh Hell Is Denis O’Hare Packing?
Instead of WTF moments I should just call this column “The Most Ryan Murphy Moments of Last Night’s American Horror Story.” This was definitely the most Ryan Murphy moment of last night’s American Horror Story. The viking dude about to have sexual relations with Denis O’Hare even looked like Ryan Murphy, for f*ck’s sake. SO, the burning question! What did Viking Ryan Murphy find when he took off Stanley’s pants? Huge dong? Double dong? We’ve already got a hermaphrodite, so we know it’s not that. Can’t have more than one hermaphrodite crowding up the joint. As UPROXX’s official genital beat Girl Friday, my head is swirling with the possibilities.
Edward Mordrake; Armchair Psychologist
So this Mordrake dude finally shows up, thanks to Elsa’s insistence to rehearse on Halloween, which also provides our obligatory musical number of the week to Lana Del Rey’s “Gods and Monsters.” (*Sigh*) Elsa stupidly confuses the ghost of a British freak show performer with a tiny evil head on the back of his head for the “mysterious stranger” Esmeralda alluded to — but she’s not who he came here for.
Instead, he visits Ethel, and gets her to admit her past with Del, who took her out of vaudeville, effectively tanked her career and then knocked her up — featuring the birth of their son AS A LIVE FREAK SHOW ACT. Good god, at least now we know why Ethel became an alcoholic. But Ethel isn’t who Mordrake was here for either, and it looks like the next episode is mostly going to involve hunting him down before he can take anyone else. I hope next week’s musical montage is done Monkees style, with the gang chasing Mordrake down a hallway with a bunch of doors.