In 2019, someone returns to Camp Redwood for answers.
American Horror Story – 1984 FINALE: “Final Girl”
From Finn Wittrock
American Crime Story – Season 2, Episode 6: “Descent”
A year before his killing spree, Andrew Cunanan's life starts spiralling out of control.
American Crime Story – Season 2, Episode 5: “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
The story of Jeff Trail reveals more about that of Gianni Versace's murder, as well as the motivations of Andrew Cunanan.
American Crime Story – Season 2, Episode 4: “House by the Lake”
Architect David Madson's fate becomes linked to killer Andrew Cunanan months prior to the murder of Versace.
American Horror Story – Freak Show, Episode 13: “Curtain Call”
FX’s American Horror Story
Season 4, Episode 13: “Curtain Call”
Directed by Bradley Buecker
Written by John J. Gray
* For a review of the previous episode, “Show Stoppers” – click here
The finale of American Horror Story‘s Freak Show, “Curtain Call”, is here. And it’s surely about to get nasty before the curtain closes for the last time.
Dandy Mott (Finn Wittrock) is about to make his debut at the show, crooning show tunes. Paul (Mat Fraser), the newest freak Penny (Grace Gummer), Amazon Eve (Erika Ervin) and Ima Wiggles (Chrissy Metz) are none too happy. Though, Paul thinks they ought to squeeze all they can out of the rich idiot whilst they still can. Dandy doesn’t know anything about the business yet and treats the freaks like garbage, blaming them for no tickets sold as of yet. “Audiences want a new type of freak; something different,” he claims. The whole confrontation ends with Eve punching Dandy out, and the crew taking him over, Paul leading the attack calling him “rubbish” and worst of all “boring.” Not just that: they quit. Dandy is left to run the place on his own, with a skeleton crew left, having proved he is far more a freak than any of them ever could be.
Ominous beginnings for the finale. I’m sad to see this season end because it’s at the top of my list; I love them all, but honestly I think, for me, Freak Show and Asylum are tied for numero uno. Edit: My Roanoke Nightmare is also tied now after Season 6, loved it personally.
Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) is out trying to take meetings. Except the people at WBN don’t seem too eager to receive her at first. She waits and waits, smoking cigarette after cigarette, sitting in the lobby. It’s clear she isn’t exactly a priority. Watching yet another person stroll by, and the receptionist shut down her desk, Elsa is thrown by the nonsense of Hollywood, the heartlessness of those involved. She ends up slapping the receptionist across the face, then an executive appears, breaking things apart.
Meanwhile, Dandy gets ready for showtime at his newly acquired Cabinet of Curiosities. He struts across the campground in a fresh white suit, red vest underneath and red handkerchief with polka dots around his neck. Turns out showtime isn’t any act. He starts first by blowing Paul’s brains out. Afterwards, Penny gets the same treatment while hiding behind sheets she hung out to dry; blood splatter everywhere. Legless Suzi (Rose Siggins) and others get a bullet for their troubles, too. Desiree Dupree (Angela Bassett) and Eve each scramble to protect themselves while Dandy continues nonchalantly murdering everyone in sight.
But while Desiree hides cowering in the closet of her trailer and Dandy gets crazier by the second, Eve sneaks in and cracks him a good one with a pot. They fight for a little and Eve eventually gets shot to death. Although, Desiree managed to slip free, escaping the wrath of the spoiled Mott boy.
Scariest of all, Dandy has the Tattler Twins, Bette and Dot (Sarah Paulson), tied to a post in one tent. He’s certainly planning something nefarious for these two. What could it be?
In the evening, Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters) shows up, new hands and all. He looks desperate, hungry. Wandering into the campsite, he finds nobody, only a few pieces of bread, some broken bottles. He calls for Elsa, to no response, and finds all her things packed, gone; except for the furniture. With the lights on and literally no one home, Jimmy stumbles across his dead friends: Paul, Penny, Legless Suzi, Ima, Eve, and others, all their corpses piled in the big tent. A horrific sight. Especially considering Jimmy will take it on himself, blaming himself for not being there and so on.
From nowhere, Desiree shows up weeping in Jimmy’s arms. They’re both left with all their friends murdered. How will they avenge them?
Cut to a beautiful scene where a harp is playing, the Tattler Twins walking down a makeshift aisle in Dandy’s large room. They’re having a wedding. The witnesses are all stuffed tigers and lions and giraffes. Bette looks happy, somehow. Dot, not so much. The groom kisses his bride Bette, as Dot looks on in forced pleasure: “a third wheel,” Dandy says. Have the twins given up because of all the dead freaks? Or are they planning some type of vengeance upon him? I’d like to think the latter.
The twins say they’ve hired a French housemaid. At dinner, it turns out Desiree is there helping. Dandy’s been given drugged up liquor. Uh oh – just as I suspected! So glad the Tattlers didn’t fall prey to this disgusting savage of a spoiled, rich maggot. Dandy is a great character, but a hateful one. Excited to see what these wonderful freaks will do to show Dandy the wrath of their kind.
Plus, we get a nice little brief cut to an explanation of how the twins communicated with Desiree, as well as Jimmy Darling who appears as a butler for Dandy and the ladies. Love this sequence!
Dandy (to Desiree): “You put something in my bubbly”
Waking up, Dandy finds himself a little wet. He’s chained. Even further, he’s in a large sealed tank. Outside, Jimmy is hooking up a hose to start filling the tank with water. “We‘re carny folk. It‘s gotta be theatrical,” Jimmy tells Desiree re: Dandy’s death. While Jimmy, Desiree, Bette and Dot watch on before the act begins, Dandy starts to lose it. He knows what’s coming. After the freaks tell him why he deserves to die, Desiree also gives a wonderful speech to Dandy and tells him: “You are the biggest freak of them all.” This is such a fitting end to Dandy. Jimmy talks about why the freaks will always win, and why “the freaks shall inherit the earth.” There is strength in numbers, which is how the freaks will prevail. Jimmy sentences Dandy and his “whole rotten kind” to death, as they leave him to drown mercilessly in the tank, and the freaks all take a front row seat to watch the show. Their smiles are macabre and morbid, yet so amazingly right for the moment.
“Heck of a show”
“That boy is a star“
The finale sees Hollywood in 1960 through a few black-and-white clips. Elsa Mars is the Queen of Friday Night on television with her variety hour show, and she also has a nice music career in her native Germany, as well as the world over. We get an awesome look at Elsa’s television set. There’s also Neil Patrick Harris’ husband David Burtka playing Michael Beck, Elsa’s saviour and now also husband: they’ve got a bit of a BDSM relationship going on at home, taking her back to those Berlin days before WWII. There’s a great take on commercials and advertisement with Elsa having to hawk coffee; she isn’t pleased with being “wrangled” by her husband in the commercial, not wanting to be dominated by the patriarchy. Dig it. Someone shows up to talk about Elsa’s Halloween special, though, she isn’t too impressed with this plan: she will not perform on Halloween. And why not? Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley), that’s why. She hasn’t forgotten her roots. Even further, she hasn’t forgotten about Massimo Dolcefino (Danny Huston) who shows up to see her and talks about where he’s been since Jupiter, Florida; funny enough, he did work for the army building whole towns to be vaporized by the government in the desert, for the nuclear tests. Nice inclusion of history, as I always expect with the show.
The terrifying videos of which Elsa was a part in Germany come to light. The studio head Henry Gable (Richard Holden) comes to visit Elsa, to tell her all about it. There’s no denying, obviously, it is her in those videos. How can they blame her for such hideousness? Sure, she was involved in awful business before that video, but surely having her legs sawed off is not her own fault? More of the victim blaming inherent in the world of law and order. Worse, Gable had Elsa tracked and they figured out she once ran a freak show: he tells them, her people back at the show, “they‘re all dead.” All of this goes against the Morals Clause in Elsa’s contract, so off she goes. Though, she agrees to perform on Halloween now. A last goodbye, of sorts. “Why not? Might as well go out with a bang,” she says. Or go back to the other side, she means; with Mordrake. This is certainly her plan.
Amazing part of the “Elsa Mars Hour” begins with her doing another Bowie cover, “Heroes” this time. Love her take on Bowie, especially with that German accent she puts on. Such an interesting part of the show overall this season, the musical choices.
This leads in to Elsa’s big sendoff. First, though, we watch Desiree with Angus T. Jefferson (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) in their newly wedded life, kids and all. Jimmy and the Tattlers now at home, their home, together as husband and wives – and buns in the oven. All of them watching Elsa on television somewhere or another. I love the morbidity and macabre nature of American Horror Story, but the happy endings mixed in for some characters is usually a great way to top off a season. Among the murder and loss, some of the characters here get a happy end, while Elsa’s is sort of a bittersweet release. Mordrake comes back, along with Twisty (John Carroll Lynch) and other dead freaks, to take Elsa away in front of her television audience.
Only he doesn’t take her. Elsa returns to a different afterlife than that of Mordrake’s little cabinet of souls. She is back at the freak show, Ma Petite still running around, Paul and Legless Suzi and Penny alive once more. Everything is as it once was, before all the tragedy and the blood and death. Even Ethel (Kathy Bates) is there running the ship for Elsa, happy to see her again. Ethel tells her: “The sins of the livin‘ don‘t add up to much around here. In life, we play the parts we‘re cast in.” A wonderful, weird, and intriguing end. One of my favourites to any season.
Glad those who’ve showed up are still coming back. If you want to check out more, just head up to the top of the page and click on American Horror Story for all my reviews.
American Horror Story – Freak Show, Episode 9: “Tupperware Party Massacre”
FX’s American Horror Story
Season 4, Episode 9: “Tupperware Party Massacre”
Directed by Loni Peristere
Written by Brad Falchuk
* For a review of the previous episode, “Blood Bath” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “Orphans” – click here
Once again, we come back to Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) and her treacherous Cabinet of Curiosities.
This chapter starts with Maggie Esmerelda (Emma Roberts) doing a reading for the psychotic Dandy Mott (Finn Wittrock), who last we saw murdering his mother, bathing in her blood. We get a nice, creepy cut to an Avon saleswoman at Dandy’s door, who he invites in to keep his mother “company.” What proceeds is Dandy building his own “puppet mother,” standing in as a two-headed corpse simulating Bette and Dot Tattler (Sarah Paulson). But Maggie foretells: “Your indiscretion will soon be forgotten.” He gives her a hundred dollar bill, “a hundred thank yous“, and tells her not waste the powers she holds inside of her. Which we know, or at least are pretty sure, are total bullshit anyways.
Over with Ima Wiggles (Chrissy Metz) sits being fed by Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters), who has a glass of liquor nearby. Paul (Mat Fraser) and Amazon Eve (Erika Ervin) are worried about his state. When Dandy shows up at the tent city, Jimmy goes on a drunken, sad rant, ending up on the ground after trying to swing a punch. Everyone’s worried about the twins, but now Dandy has showed up to tell Jimmy clearly: “I am your god, and I have decided you need to suffer.”
The Tattler twins are holed up in a motel room with Elsa and the greasy moustached Stanley (Denis O’Hare). They’ve whisked Bette and Dot off in the dark of night, after tossing through Ethel’s things back at the camp in Jupiter. Elsa claims Dr. Sugar is on his way there, he can perform the surgery. Although, Bette doesn’t look too happy about it.
At camp, Desiree Dupree (Angela Bassett) and Maggie are interrupted by Angus T. Jefferson (Malcolm-Jamal Warner). He has a thing for Desiree, seemingly hot and heavy. He’s her “beau.” But they run into Jimmy who has Ima bent over and is giving it to her pretty good. He’s drunk and off his head unfortunately.
Cut to Jimmy at a little house party where women are again paying him for pleasure. Only he’s hammered and can’t get the job done. He stumbles out seeing a vision of his mother Ethel (Kathy Bates) chastising her son for being drunk, for “wasting his life grieving” over her. It’s a surreal scene where even the other women seem to be talking to Ethel. Except Jimmy snaps out of it – all the women scared, telling him to leave quietly. And so he does. Poor Jimmy.
Even worse for him is the fact right after they usher him out, Dandy comes knocking and says his car has broken down. He needs to call “the auto club.” Will this be the episode’s name coming to bear: a true Tupperware party massacre after all?
What little humanity is left in Elsa melts away before our eyes. We flash from present to the near past, where Stanley essentially talks Elsa into bringing the girls for the surgery. Then back to the present again, Stanley continues pumping bullshit into everyone around him, trying to convince the twins they’ll be able to live, each of them, on their own. Bette does not like the idea whatsoever. And you can see a little worry in Dot’s eyes, as they’re left in a shed by Stanley and Elsa, alone in the dark.
But first, back to the bloody massacre at the Tupperware party. A husband comes home to find Dandy left the place in quite a mess. His wife, and all the Tupperware friends, are floating in a bloody pool.
Over at the Mott residence, Dandy is filling his bathtub with a little water and a lot more blood. Up shows Regina Ross (Gabourey Sidibe), who quickly gets the confession: “I killed your mother.” He reassures Regina her mother was buried “weeks ago“, the blood in the room was mostly his mother’s who is now dead, and some blood from “some lovely ladies” he’s putting into the bath. Very eerie scene watching Dandy prance around, raving, stripping down for a bloody bath saying “I AM A GOD. A god who was chosen to walk among men.” I don’t every usually use this word, but that whole scene is god damn epic. He sends Regina running, alive, and doesn’t worry; not only is he god, apparently, he screams “I AM THE LAW!”
Bette and Dot are at odds, regarding the separation. Bette knows they both can’t survive, she isn’t stupid. Dot knows it, too, we already understood that. Bette tries to convince her they can do anything together: “How much would you give for the health and happiness of the one you love?” And she further tells her sister she couldn’t survive alone, not without her. She says she’d give her life for Dot, if there had to be a choice mad. They love one another unconditionally, despite all that’s happened in their lives.
Stanley still has Dell Toledo (Michael Chiklis) under his thumb. Because Dell, for all his faults, has started to gain a conscience. Of some sort. Then out of nowhere, Stanley whips out his apparently massive penis. “You‘re a freak,” utters Dell. He’s tempted, you can see. In the present moment, he’s writing a note to Desiree, saying he “can‘t go on” with a noose hung up behind him and Ma Petite (Jyoti Amge) coming to him in ghost form. Even Ethel’s ghost haunts the trailer, eternally disappointed in her ex-husband. And when Dell finally tries to hang himself, the light almost closing in and taking him, Desiree comes in and cuts him down: “Sorry,” he tells her.
Meanwhile, Stanley is with another man friend, dressed up as a very unprofessional doctor. He’s practicing to be Dr. Sugar: memorizing the Brody names, the various things he’ll have to say. Very nasty intentions here, but Stanley simply calls it “euthanasia.”
A police officer and Regina show up at Dandy’s door. He invites the man in, offers a drink, but the officer wants some answers. Then we get a little lesson in what 1950s Florida felt like for any people of colour. Dandy spirals his way through a conversation about his power, his white power. “I have seen the face of God and he is looking at me from the mirror,” says Dandy. The rich young man offers the officer a million dollars to “dig a hole” for Regina, and easy as that: the cop blows a hole through her head and asks for a shovel.
At the carnival, Jimmy is stumbling around drunk. He finds Bette and Dot returned, they don’t want to be separated anymore, neither of them. They want to stay together, as a family. And they want Jimmy to be a part of their lives. He is headlong in despair, he needs something to ground him, but can’t seem to find it anywhere else. Turns out, though, Dot has loved him since first sight. She loves his tenderness. She slips off her clothes, telling Jimmy how “different but special” he is. He politely asks how Bette feels about it, to which she replies they can have privacy, and she is also totally with her sister, she wants her happiness. Strange, yet romantic in a sense, as well. Only Jimmy says he can’t be with them after a short kiss and embrace; he says he’s in love with somebody else. So sad, especially considering Dot does not easily let her emotions free like that. A heart breaking situation. At least she has Bette in the end.
The police show up for Jimmy Darling, claiming he murdered all those women at the Tupperware party. They found his glove at the scene of the crime. But we know it was all Dandy behind the massacre. The cops whisk Jimmy off to jail, as the rest of the freak show is left reeling and worried for him, his life.
Looking forward to the next episode, “Orphans”. We’re going to see a familiar face in the American Horror Story series come back to link Asylum with Freak Show.
American Horror Story – Freak Show, Episode 7: “Test of Strength”
Stanley and Dell come together tenuously. The unthinkable happens to Penny at the hands of her father.
American Horror Story – Hotel, Episode 6: “Room 33”
FX’s American Horror Story
Season 5, Episode 6: “Room 33”
Directed by Loni Peristere
Written by John J. Gray
* For a review of the previous episode, “Room Service” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “Flicker” – click here
This week’s episode, “Room 33”, begins with a nice flashback to 1926 in Los Angeles. The Countess (Lady Gaga) goes to – yes – MURDER HOUSE from Season 1. She’s pregnant, and ole Charles Montgomery (Matt Ross) has the solution.
I’m loving this return to the first season, such an excellent connection. It isn’t passing either, like the earlier episode with Marcy the realtor. This opening sequence is slightly gruesome, especially once Montgomery takes a good huff of the inhalants to get things going. But the real fun begins when the baby ripped from Countess’ womb attacks the nurse helping Charles with the abortion.
“Congratulations— it’s a boy.”
Biggest trip of all for John Lowe (Wes Bentley) comes after waking up in bed, his little lost boy Holden next to him. When he chases the kid downstairs, John finds his wife in one of the glass coffins in the empty pool. This prompts a good fainting spell, like it would.
Then we move to Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare) and Tristan Duffy (Finn Wittrock) rolling around in bed together, having sex. Wow – did not expect this at all. Pretty wild scene. Not only that, there’s some strange connection between these two already. They each reminisce about what it’s like to see one another, both of them with their own sweet sort of poetry about the other. Strange moments, though, only because they’re so quickly coming on! Otherwise I think these two make an excellent pairing.
Meanwhile, The Countess has got Will Drake (Cheyenne Jackson) on her own bed, giving him the business. But naturally, he is a gay man: “My cock and my mind operate separately,” Drake tells her. She decides there’s a need for an extra hand in all the fun, sending a text to Tristan. Then he has to go upstairs, to help out with Will’s dick. Well Tristan continually tries denying he is gay, even though he isn’t opposed to having sex with a pre-op transsexual (nothing wrong with it – no judgement on my part – but he IS at least bisexual). And still, The Countess easily persuades him into doing the deed, then she says: “Just fluff him up a little. I‘ll finish him off.”
Alex Lowe (Chloë Sevigny) drugged her husband up, put him back in the room and then set things to look as if he’d called her, probably drunk. Not as if she’s a vampire now, carrying that ancient virus, and sleeping in a glass coffin. She’s luring John into believing he is having a “psychotic break.” I feel so god damn bad for Dt. Lowe, and it only gets deeper when he heads down to the emptied pool – where, of course, not a single coffin is still lying on the floor. I’m constantly wondering how far this breakdown of John’s will go: is the Ten Commandments Killer, or is he just a good guy being done wrong by all the evil forces around him at Hotel Cortez?
Perhaps my favourite moment of the episode’s start is when Countess goes into a darkened room, picking up her supposed child, and tells him/her she’s going to Paris. Afterwards, they’ll have a massive amount of money it seems. But what is the child? Has it not grown since? It looks like a tiny infant still. Or is it another child? I doubt it. I imagine that’s still the child. So what, who, is it?
Finally, Donovan (Matt Bomer) and Ramona Royale (Angela Bassett) show up at the hotel in order to start enacting a bit of revenge. Ramona is clearly the most keen on doing in The Countess. She and Iris (Kathy Bates) are both surprised, for the worse, when they discover the kids in the coffins aren’t where they ought to be. A wrench is jammed into things for now. Although, between two feisty women like Ramona and Iris, I’m sure something will happen soon enough: Ramona wants the key to ROOM 33. Isn’t that where The Countess keeps her survived abortion baby?
At the same time, Donovan runs into the two Swedish girls who died at the hotel – they find out the tough way what’s really going on. I thought this whole sequence was awesome! Bomer is a great actor, in my opinion. He leads us into a scene with a girl named Carol who committed suicide at the Cortez – turns out, she came back and found a purpose in terrorizing guests. You never get to leave, sadly.
“Eternity can be tedious without something enjoyable to break up the day“
Ramona heads into Room 33, looking for little Bartholomew – The Countess’ feral abortion child. There’s a highly creepy scene here, with P.O.V shots from the baby, then a good one as it attacks Ramona. Everyone is in league, or almost everyone, against The Countess. Liz and Ramona are catching up, in a friendly way. Even Donovan, despite loving her and sniffing her panties, wants some revenge on the woman. Iris wants none of it, which is clear. So there is a lot going on against the lady of the house. Tristan is caught in the middle somewhere, I’m not sure if he’s going to fully fall in love with Liz, or if Countess will reel him back in. Either way, I feel a showdown at some point coming between Liz/Countess, as she may feel utterly betrayed by his loving Tristan. We’ll certainly see how things go from here.
The two dead Swedish girls find a purpose, or at the very least fun, in the hallways of the Cortez. They bang then kill a guy (well one of them bangs him), a bloody, nasty mess. After that, they unhappily talk with Alex Lowe about their purpose – she suggests crushing the minds of their prey, instead of so much gory murder. Apparently, Alex says she knows a guy who’s always wanted a threesome. Oh no…
John Lowe shows up at a new crime scene, asking his partner whether or not it’s a Ten Commandments Killer murder. But the cops don’t want or need him around, he’s obviously spinning into a downward descent. Back over at the Cortez, former Dt. Lowe lies around in the halls with a bottle of booze. He’s full of self pity, as well as self loathing. Then around the corner come the two Swedish walking corpses. They’re going to seduce John into bed, which they proceed to do. It’s a weird and bloody ride for Lowe, whose mind can’t handle whatever is happening. He takes off into the darkness,blood all over him, and heads to the front desk. Upstairs, Miss Evers (Mare Winningham) is cleaning up the bedroom, talking about the sheets and how full of blood they are, but ultimately it’s all about John losing his mind.
In the corner of the room, after everyone leaves, James March (Evan Peters) appears. Then quickly disappears. This almost drives John fully to the brink, banging his head off the wall. He knows he has to leave, so he begins to pack frantically. Will he make it through the doors and back out into the world alive?
“This is my breakdown— I‘m gonna have it!”
Before Lowe leaves, little Bartholomew climbs into his suitcase without him noticing. SHIT! Where is this going to lead?
At home, John arrives with his daughter Scarlett (Shree Crooks). The girl is obviously pissed with her whole family after the strange events of the past couple episodes, even worse she was left at a friend’s house indefinitely, so that’s never a fun thing for kids. You can see John wants to repair his family, if that’s even going to be possible with a vampiric wife/son, and an emotionally damaged daughter now.
But again, we see the perspective of Bartholomew creeping around the Lowe house. John tries to track it down and finds it in the kitchen. We don’t get to see the child-thing. We watch in horror as John sees it, his eyes widened. Then he fires off shots, scaring the shit out of his daughter and making her afraid of him. There’s no sign of Bartholomew. Only a bloody trail. More adding to John’s deteriorating mental state, except we know the truth.
After the daughter is carted off to the grandparents and John is deemed even more insane, Alex finds little Bartholomew in the grass. Still, we don’t get to see him! I love how it’s being drawn out. The suspense kills me, in the best sort of way.
Liz finally confronts The Countess about Tristan. There’s an awkwardness at first, and then we come face to face with her jealousy. They all meet in one of the hotel rooms, she wants to have it all out in the open. The Countess doesn’t like the taste of betrayal, which she says tastes like charred spots on meat. A great scene comes here with Tristan laying everything out there, telling Countess about his “real love” for Liz, as opposed to her method, the sort that only brings sadness and despair and agony.
Nothing lasts forever, though. She lets Liz have Tristan, but immediately slits the boy’s throat right there. A fantastically gory gush comes rushing out, flying everywhere. Poor Liz, I thought this was going to be a good thing for her.
Then, in Room 33, Alex has brought the child back for The Countess. They bond over saved sons, each saving the other’s now, I guess. Does Alex really feel this way? Is she merely playing a game to lull in The Countess? What will truly happen
FINALLY! We see the face of Bartholomew. An eerie shot to say the least.
Very excited to see the next episode, “Flicker”, which is directed by Michael Goi – he’s a regular Director of Photography on American Horror Story. Stay tuned with me for another creep next week, fellow fans!
