American Horror Story: Freak Show
Season 4 Episode 2 “Massacres and Matinees”

Wow! What an entertaining episode this proved to be, improving largely on last weeks. First and foremost Twisty was back spooking the shit out of us all. His scenes are so tense, and they are just amplified to the maximum because of his unnerving silence. He swiftly claims another victim, Mr Hanley, who is found by his toy shop assistant in a very suspenseful manner. He follows a blood trail that he soon finds leads to the head of poor old Mr Hanley and upon doing so is added to Twistys’ collection of victims by means of a knife through the throat. This creepy incident is what spreads further fear across the town, enough to invoke a citywide curfew.

What the townsfolk are unaware of is that Twisty now occupies a partner. We’re introduced to the pompous new character Dandy Mott (Finn Wittrock). He is obsessed with being a thespian at the freak show but Jimmy Darling is strongly angered by this and warns him away. It’s now that Dandy storms off in a foul mood. His mood is soon brightened when his mother Gloria Mott (Frances Conroy) reveals she has purchased him his very own clown. Dandy invites the clown to pick a toy and whilst he is looking through them, Dandy makes the mistake of looking in the clowns’ bag. It contains the severed head from the earlier murdered toy store assistant. The clown knocks him unconscious and makes a quick escape. It is extremely predictable from this point that Dandy is going to team up with the clown. Firstly because we know Dandy has a dark side due to comments made by his Mother and maid. Secondly, we know the clown always kills his chosen victims. So it is no surprise that when Dandy finds a young girl running from the crazed clown, that instead of helping her, he picks her up and practically hands her over to the clown. We’ll be seeing more of this murderous duo next week.

New additions Dell Toledo (Michael Chiklis) and Desiree Dupree (Angela Bassett) joined the freaks as husband and wife. Or husband and husband… Dell is a strongman and Desiree is a full blown hermaphrodite with three boobs. From the get-go Dell is horrible to watch, trying to control the freaks and overpower Elsa Mars and her position. Elsa can see he is going to cause more harm than good but she is unaware he lied about the reason they fled to her show. The real reason being that his wife Desiree was pleasuring a normal townsman and Dell was certainly unhappy about this, so snapped his neck instantly. (Again, I wrongly assumed the townsfolk and freaks wouldn’t mix – but apparently freaks are very tempting and provocative).

Immediately there is bitterness between him and Ethel Darling (Kathy Bates) and we soon find out why. Ethel and Dell used to be an item and Jimmy Darling is their son. Only he doesn’t know. Oh, and he also doesn’t know that his father wanted to kill him when he was a baby because of his deformities. Now maybe subconsciously Jimmy knows how evil Dell really is because he takes an instant dislike to him and the two seem to start a war. This conflict eventually causes heartbreak and devastation amongst the freaks, and viewers alike. Jimmy tries to set Dell up so the police will cart him away for good, but it is not him we regrettably see go. Upon finding out he was being set-up, he stabbed at all of our heartstrings by alternatively setting innocent Meep up. No-one was expecting this, possibly the biggest and worst surprise we’ve seen so far. Meep was violently beaten to death but the full extent of his torture is left to our imagination as the final images we see are of Meep screaming frantically. It brought a tear to my eye and created a lump in my throat.

The only thing to criticize is the fact that they are revealing a lot of the characters back stories extremely early into the show. Twisty the clown is proving to be the most chilling so far, with the freaks not especially enthralling to watch. Stayed tuned as next week we will finally be introduced to Maggie Esmerelda (Emma Roberts) who is unsurprisingly rumoured to beguile Jimmy Darling. I can also reveal Ethel will receive some “surprising” news in the next episode, which is titled: Edward Mordrake part 1. I hope this arouses your curiosities.