Piece of the Puzzle: American Horror Story: Freakshow S4 E1 - Monsters Among Us

In which I review the latest episode of American Horror Story: Freakshow.

While investigating a woman's gruesome murder in rural Florida, police discover her shameful secret: her daughters, Siamese twins Bette and Dott Tattler.  They rapidly capture the grotesque imagination of the locals, as well as that of Elsa Mars, the owner of the new freak show located just outside of town.  Realizing that the twins murdered their mother, she convinces them to join her menagerie of freaks: the only real chance that they will ever have to fit in.  But when the police name the Tattler's the prime suspects in not just their mother's murder, but a string of killings occurring in the area, Elsa Mars and her company of aberrations will need to intervene on the twins' behalf in order to protect their new headline act.

Freakshow continues to prove that series creators' Brad Falchuk's and Ryan Murphy's decision to reinvent American Horror Story with each successive season was the perfect direction to take the series,  By doing so, each season has a distinctly unique identity : with a setting, cast of characters and narrative exclusive to that dozen or so set of episodes.  By shifting from ghosts to Nazi-created monsters to contemporary witches and now to a modern-day retelling of Tod Browning's Freaks, the series becomes a horrific experience that transcends the trappings of any one season.

American Horror Story's latest installment has what is easily the horror genre's best physical character design since Hellraiser's cenobites.  Inherently more unsettling than the fantastical extremes of the genre - phantoms, vampires, zombies and the like - real-world deformity provides a readily available source of visual discomfort for the audience: bearded women, flipper-handed carnies, conjoined twins, pygmies, amputees and other grotesques.  The visual highlight of the episode is easily Twisty the Clown - a deranged performer that's essentially a cross between Captain Spaulding and Leatherface.

In addition to the visual possibilities of the Freakshow cast, they also provide the narrative tension of the show.  Monsters Among Us presents an already escalating contention between the townsfolk that both hate and fear the freaks next door and the persecuted performers' decision that they've born enough abuse.  The Tattler's killed their mother because of her authoritarian need to keep them shut inside at all times: away from anybody who would possibly see them.  Elsa's landlord tried to evict the performers because the thought of them on his land gave his wife nightmares.  Local residents even tried to buy the freaks themselves as if they were slaves being paraded on auction.

While without a doubt an exuberant opening to a promising season, the film suffers by over-using Twisty the Clown.  Establishing his parallel narrative, which will undoubtedly prove linked to Elsa's Freakshow, through his initial double-murder was easily the most memorable scene.  Bringing up his murder spree in conversations with the other characters cemented his importance to the series.  The problem is that they continue to use him beyond that point.  Showing his entire string of murders, as well as how he torments abducted children through his failed attempts at clowning, strike me as moments that would be better used in a slow reveal over the next episode or two.  The show stands to gain more in withholding this character - building the tension and mystery surrounding him - then it does to make as much use of him as it did in this episode.

Freakshow continues American Horror Story's tradition of small-screen horror in the exact manner that I had hoped that it would.  All of the characters introduced - from the trick turning Jimmy Darling to the abusive Tattler twins - have immense dramatic potential.  Elsa Mars' desperate dreams of latter-day stardom directly channel Sunset Blvd.'s Norma Desmond without being a derivative rehash of a sixty-four-year-old character.  With its stellarly seasoned cast and proven writers, this may prove to be the series' best season yet.  I give this episode an 8 out of 10.

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