I apologize for the lateness of this piece! AHS's two-part Halloween episode was structured around green smoke spewing evil spirit Edward Mordrake's search for another soul to add to his collection of dead ghouls. This search was something like a B story entirely made up of SAG Ensemble clip reel auditions with several actors getting their own "darkest hour" backstory to tell. I loved the Illustrated Seal's (Mat Fraser) clip reel about his "handsome face" and am pleased to have read that Ryan Murphy, recognizing his talent, wants to give him a non-freak role somehow in a future season, despite his deformed hands and arms.
After completely the sad story roundup, Mordrake decides to take Elsa (Jessica Lange) with him into the afterlife following her grisly tale of her Weimer Era Germany sex club stardom ends in the grisly chain-sawing of her legs. (Yuck -- and that isn't even the grossest image in her story). But, Mordrake stops when he hears distant music.
Jessica Lange prepares to "walk her schnauzer" in Germany
Oh yes, that rusty tune is from the episode's A story in which Lobster Boy (Evan Peters) and Maggie (Emma Roberts) discover the macabre home of Twisty the Clown and his kindapped children and are captured themselves.
A chaotic and beautifully twisted series of events leaves the kids rescued, the Freak Show unexpected surely temporary heroes of the townfolk for saving them, and Dandy assuming Twisty's killer clown role which is the best resurrection this series has ever dreamt of because it's not literal but it amounts to the same thing. It's über disturbing.
QUOTABLES: Mordrake to Elsa:
It's not your talent that renders me speechless. It's your delusional ignorance.
This will come in so handy as we enter hubris-heavy Awards Season.
BEST LINE READING:
They called them snuff films"
Love the way Jessica Lange doesn't try to dramatize this line (a rarity for her) but instead just says it and once it's left her mouth the words have a forceful kickback all over her face, as it crumbles with emotion. Her subsequent lines thereby earning their hysterically breathy wetness.
EPISODE MVP: Jessica Lange. She's been working this show for too long and overworking it and overworked by it but sometimes there's little doubt that Ryan Murphy and team couldn't pull this off without her particularly theatrical star persona, visibly decaying.
But a special shout out to Finn Wittrock. Despite barely being in this episode I almost handed it to him. Nothing in this episode is half as scary as his two wordless self-actualizing moments. First, when he puts on Twisty's mouth mask and breathes in its violent fragrance and second, that slow spread of elation on his face when he makes his first human kill which turns out to be...
WAS THAT NECESSARY / BODY COUNT: ...Maid (Patti Labelle) who made such a fuss about not being scared of Dandy. Why did that living legend take this part if that's all there was for her? 3 bodies in total for this episode, the other two are a dancing man killed by Legless Suzy (in flashbask) -- legs and the lack of them being a major recurring motif this episode and Twisty claimed by Mordrake.
NO FAIR: Sarah Paulson, both of her, is barely in this episode. Grrrr
EPISODE GRADE: B- You can still feel the padding from the previous episode though it might have been a smashing episode at one hour than it was at 2 1/2. Both Elsa & Twisty's backstories, which take up the bulk of the episode feel excessively labored over for effect when sometimes all you need is an actor's face with inappropriate euphoria (Wittrock) or the abyss of regret (Lange) blooming, visibly, all across it.