(Photo Courtesy of FX)If last night’s premiere of “American Horror Story: Freak Show” is any indication, the fourth season of FX’s hit anthology series could be the best yet, with series creator Ryan Murphy going straight for the jugular and pulling no punches in the first hour and a half of the new series.
Set in the sleepy town of Jupiter, Florida, in 1952, “Freak Show” stars AHS veteran Jessica Lange as Elsa Mars, an ex-German patriot who runs a traveling freak show. Viewers are introduced right off the bat to Sarah Paulson’s Siamese twins Bette and Dot Tattler, who, after gruesomely killing their mother, are brought into the show by Elsa in an attempt she hopes will bring in bigger audiences. Elsa emphasizes that the show is family, a point illustrated by how tight-knit the rest of the group is, including Evan Peters’s “Lobster Boy” Jimmy Darling, Kathy Bates’s “Bearded Lady” Ethel (who also happens to be Jimmy’s mom) and others.
As always on Horror Story, Lange is excellent. Once again, she adds a depth to her character, and in a surprising reveal in the final moments of the episode (titled “Monsters Among Us”), shows that her character has much more to her than meets the eye. Bates is excellent as well, nailing an early '50s Baltimore accent, but the real star of the episode is Paulson. The amount of work put in to play two totally different characters by one person must be a daunting task, but Paulson absolutely nails it, portraying each sister differently and letting audiences know that although they may share the same body, Bette and Dot could not be any more different.
While the episode drags a bit in the first 20 or so minutes, things pick up immediately thereafter, making the 90-minute episode feel like a two-hour film. Between laying the groundwork for future plotlines and establishing the characters and setting, Freak Show has the potential to be the best season of the series yet.
(Photo Courtesy of FX)It also has the potential to be the scariest.
Prior to the season premiere, series creator Ryan Murphy (who wrote the episode and directed for the first time since the show’s second season) promised to give audiences one of the most terrifying clowns ever. Fortunately, he lived up to his promise, and I can honestly say that I may have been instilled with a fear of clowns.
Twisty, played by John Caroll Lynch, is absolutely terrifying. The clown, who hides behind a mask with a wicked grin on it, stabs several people to death in the episode while also kidnapping two young children to keep locked up in a school bus. It’s disturbing as hell, but frankly, the parts with Twisty in them were some of the best of the episode. I look forward to seeing not only his backstory, but also how his storyline plays out.
The same can be said for the rest of the characters as well. We still have yet to meet several main characters, including Michael Chiklis’s “Strong Man” Dell Toledo and Angela Bassett’s three breasted Desiree Dupree, but I am greatly looking forward to seeing how things shake up between the character’s we’ve already met, especially after their acts at the end of the episode. Trouble seems to be heading their way, and I look forward to seeing just how bad it is, considering some of the twisted things Murphy’s come up with in the past.
Perhaps more so than anything though, what has me most excited about Freak Show is that it seems to be set in reality. Unlike the ghosts, witches and other supernatural elements the previous seasons have included, “Monsters Among Us” seems to establish that this season will feature more grounded horror, indicated by the numerous brutal stabbings throughout the episode. In that sense, I’m looking forward to seeing what Murphy has up his sleeve and how he plans to scare audiences without relying on anything otherworldly to do it.
I give the episode 4/5 Pitchforks, but greatly look forward to the adventure that will be this season of “American Horror Story.”
“American Horror Story: Freak Show” airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.
Tell Shane how scared of clowns you are at seweinst@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @S_Weinstein95
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