Piece of the Puzzle: American Horror Story: Freakshow S4 E3 - Edward Moordrake Part 1

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

It's that time of the year again - time for the annual American Horror Story Halloween episode.  These have always been a highlight of the season for me, and I'm not 100% sure why.  It's not the horrific themes, since those are a mainstay of the show's every episode.  I'm almost tempted to say that it's because they save their best stand-alone narrative for the time when good horror is at a premium, but even that serves only to belittle the rest of the series.  For whatever reason, though, they never fail to disappoint.

Following Meep's death, Ethel Darling has received a terminal diagnosis: Cirrhosis of the liver.  Nevermind that she hasn't touched a drop of alcohol in years, she will be dead within the year.  Meanwhile, a charlatan fortune teller is hired onto the freakshow, intent on harvesting the Tattler twins for display in a failing freak museum that promises not to ask any questions about how the specimen came into their hands.  The girl's audition convinces Elsa that she's bound for a late-in-life surge of fame and success, for which she insists on rehearsing new material right away, not caring that it's Halloween night: a time that, according to Carney lore, no freakshow must perform, lest they summon the spirit of the two-headed Edward Moordrake.  Her rehearsal does exactly that, and now he scours the freakshow looking for a the perfect freak to take back to Hell with him.

As Freakshow begins settling into its narrative, I'm increasingly convinced that this is hands down the series' best season.  Kathy Bates is resplendent as the guilt-ridden Ethel, whose back story is finally revealed in full: a one-time celebrated freak who fell on hard times due to Dell's reckless mismanagement and exploitation of their child - including selling tickets to Ethel's "live freak birth" and letting anybody with 25 cents to burn the chance to hold "the monster baby."  Watching Ethel come to terms with the inevitability of her immediate death, turn to alcohol to help her cope and break down as the summoned Edward Moordrake delicately demands to know her story is simply incredible to watch: the perfect marriage of impeccable writing and Kathy Bates' immeasurable talent as an actress.

The character of Edward Moordrake is as unsettling of one as any American Horror Story has ever produced.  Told in an old-timey flashback, his story is as tragic as it is horrific, and his return to the world of the living even more so.  His mannerisms and speech are spot-on for a well-bred Victorian lord and the incessant whispering of his second head supremely unnerving.  His ghostly stalking of Mars' freakshow, acting as the otherworldly arbiter of the performers' sins, is the perfect secondary narrative for a Halloween-themed episode: his patient witness to the freaks testimony offering a previously unavailable window into the back stories of Elsa Mars' ghoulish menagerie.

The lead in to the episode - the pair of con artists trying to sell fraudulent bits of freak anatomy, in turn being hired to secure authentic ones - is the latest development in the series' social commentary about the exploitation of those without the civil and legal channels to defend themselves, a subject that I previously mentioned being a particular sticking point of mine.  So-called freaks, exploited and hated in life, are priceless when dead, stuffed and put on display.  That they could be poached like African game is an insufferably cruel, yet brilliantly spot-on, turn for the show.

As always, one of the show's breathtaking highlights is the freaks musical performances.  While we got the Tattler's duet of Fona Apple's "Criminal" in Massacres and Matinees, which we have not seen since she sang David Bowie's "Life on Mars" in Monsters Among Us.  This time, she takes on Lana Del Rey's perfectly apropos "Gods & Monsters," heralding Edward Moordrake's arrival in the freakshow.

And, finally Dandy Mott's newfound partnership with Twisty highlights the duality of the character: the impotent rage of him in his domestic trappings and his savage cruelty toward his helpless victims.  In a brilliant stroke of direction, they set him up directly as an inept Michael Meyers: dressing him in a clown costume, then following him with a point-of-view tracking shot as he puts on a plastic clown mask, grabs a knife and ultimately can't bring himself to kill the insufferably unimpressed servant that he professes to hate.  While his sadomasochistic turn against his victims still reeks of that petulant child in the clown mask, his sadistic actions prove more than adequate for his newfound role as Twisty's deranged sidekick.

I am immensely impressed with this episode: possibly the show's best episode overall.  And the best part is that it's a two-part narrative, meaning that there's still more to come.  The narrative is developed, nuanced and executed far better than any other on the show and I can't wait to see how it is concluded.  I give the episode a high 9.5 out of 10.

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