AHS: Freakshow "Blood Bath"
Thursday, December 4, 2014 at 6:07PM There be spoilers ahead. On the latest episode of American Horror Story: The Dandy Show television's most beautiful, most Emmy-worthy, and most bratty psycho-killer goes to see a disembodied psychiatrist (why are they hiding his face: stunt casting?), kills his mother and makes like Countess Bathory with her remains.
Some other stuff probably happened in this episode, too, but the titular bath was uh... distracting
The truth is my brain has been on kind of a Finn Wittrock loop this week due to the return of Freakshow after the holiday, my first screening of Unbroken in which Finn has a small but memorable role, and two Unbroken events. I'm off to the second tonight (hence my lack of Peter Pan'ing) but I actually talked to Finn himself at the second of those but more on that soon.
Ummm... "Bloodbath". What else what else? Oh, yes. Elsa recruited another freak 'The Fat Lady,' Lobster Boy dumped Esmeralda, and the female freaks -- led by enunciating Bassett -- nearly killed Streep Junior's evil dad through a tar & feathering ritual until they thought about the consequences. And the twins were not even in the episode. I'm going to blame Sarah Paulson's workaholism because how else to explain how little they've used her this season despite her Best in Show status as those conjoined sisters?
MVP: Jessica Lange because though one can never accuse the Grande Dame Double Oscar winner of under acting, she did do a stellar job of delineating Elsa's real tears and oversized emotions from Elsa's crocodile tears and oversized "emotions" via Ma Petit's funeral and her Bearded Lady showdown.
Body Count: Four. We knew that the show would soon have to start shedding main characters since the death count has been low. We lost Ethel Darling (see ya Bates), Dandy's cat and Dandy's best childhood friend in flashback, and Dandy's mom Gloria Mott. She was killed so unceremoniously that we'll have to steal a moment from AHS: Coven for closure.
Any last words, Frances Conroy you genius genius crazy bitch?
That's all! So I trust that you'll provide the usual "Most Quotable" "Funniest Moment," ,"Episode Grade" and "Best Line Reading" categories in the comments. You will, won't you?
Reader Comments (6)
I thought this might have been the worst episode so far.
If Gloria is actually dead then they totally wasted Frances Conroy this season. I don't mind Kathy Bates being killed off because at least she had a few moments to really shine.
A beheaded Kathy Bates has become a recurring theme.
I agreed they wasted Frances this season with that exit. It only paved the way for the show to display Finn's bubble butt (so her death was not exactly in vain). However, she nailed the last scene where she told her son she loved him even with all the madness. She made me understand her delusional beheviours in one single line.
Is it possible they kept the identity of psychiatrist for the big reveal that the story is somehow connected to the world of Asylum?
Elsa throwing that knife was pretty badass though...and also hilarious when Ethel shot her leg.
The Golden Globes for all the snide remarks at their expense every award season does have some insight when they award some of the industry's most unsung. And Frances Conroy to this day only has the Globe as her major industry prize. I do not consider ensemble SAG awards as significant. You're winning them as a group. Less so for your individual achievement. Conroy should have won her category at the Emmys this year. But I suppose the TV academy is making it up to Kathy Bates for two decades of not ever winning an Emmy until she did. And since that was a Guest Emmy held outside the main telecast and she was not there to receive it due to lifesaving surgery. They decide it was best to make sure she wins a major category while she's still around to recognize. And it was fine. But Conroy deserves it certainly this year.
"I actually talked to Finn himself at the second of those but more on that soon"
You buried the lead.
I just finished the episode and also agree it is the season's worst one so far. The Elsa/Bearded Lady scene stretched on too long, and honestly I don't think the groundwork was laid in the previous episodes for the tension between those characters to seem believable. There is just too too much going on in this show. I also think Conroy is brilliant, but if y'all will recall, she wasn't used much in Coven either until the end. Her best role so far has been as the housekeeper Moira in Murder House.