Oh American Horror Story. Whether you’re giving us a birds-eye view on
a bloody fertility orgy, showing us glimpses of the hellish mindscape of a
former nun through clever use of the Name Game, or making a rubber fetish suit
wearing killer your central figure of evil, you always know how to entertain
us.
It’s a Ryan Murphy show- WTF moments are
always to be expected, but Freak Show provided a lot of campy shock moments in
its first episode, and I’m here to count down the top five moments.
Please note: there are obviously spoilers for last week's episode under the cut.
5: Bette and Dot: Murderers At
Large: The show’s heavily promoted Sarah Paulson’s performance in the
duel-role-in-a-single-body part of Bette and Dot Tattler, but the first episode
provided a surprising twist to the girls’ backstory; Bette murdered their
mother because she refused to let them go out and see a movie, and for guilt
Dot stabbed Bette while the latter slept.
Surprisingly, the show didn’t drag out the question of the twins’ guilt
for multiple episodes; the bad deed informs and inspires them to accept Elsa
offer to join the touring troupe of freaks.
But the sight of Paulson, lost in a melodramatic moment worthy of a 40s Technicolor
celebration that would make Bette herself envious, stab herself through the
miracle of prosthetics and CGI is pretty wtf-worthy.'
4: Elsa’s Secret. Throughout the first episode, Elsa at first
seemed to be a classic dragon mother type; extremely protective of her troupe
and willing to go to any length to protect the freak show and its
employees. But the final moments showed
her alone in her trailer…taking off her prosthetic legs. It was a surprising shock of vulnerability
that shows a layered depth to the character that was unexpected. Between Elsa’s deformity and her German
accent I fully expect a Nazi-related flashback to take place, but for the moment
it’s an interesting quirk that shows that she relates to her freaks on a more
personal level – a very wtf-ish one.
3: Getting Your Freak On: The best example of Elsa’s willingness to kill
for her troop of freaks came in the form of her treatment of Penelope, a young
candy striper whom she manipulated to gain access to the Tattler Twins. To ensure Penny’s silence, Elsa gives the
girl free passes to the freak show, and then keeps her captive and drugged for
days so that nobody will believe her story.
Elsa then plays a movie for her, and there we see glimpses of a quasi-pornographic,
alcohol-soaked orgy in which everyone is fully clothed and yet their behavior
is very freaky…and it features a girl who looks an awful lot like Penny herself. For all of her complexities, we learn quickly
enough that Elsa can be selfish – and that her iron determination to protect
the freak show isn’t entirely about protecting the freaks themselves.
2: The Baddest Clown In Town: Twisty is perhaps AHS’ scariest villain ever,
which is as it should be, for he is a silent, murderous clown who seems to be
completely unaware of how terrifying he is.
The most WTF-worthy Twisty’s done so far is keep the survivors of his crime
captive and alive, caged, and at his beck and call. He’s so removed from reality that he grows
enraged when they don’t react to his shenanigans with laughter, but even he has
enough sense to produce of a WTF moment when he watches Elsa’s freaks rip apart
the body of a detective who wanted to arrest Bette and Dot.
1: Two Words: Lobster Shocker * : Over the past three seasons of AHS, Evan
Peters has become the show’s shaggy-haired romeo and the show’s sex symbol. His character this time out, Jimmy Darling,
will likely follow that track record…even though he has a claw hand and uses it
to pleasure suburban women at Tupperware parties .
Lobster Shocker is TM to my
friend, Sammi. We get up to some things
watching this damn show together.
No comments:
Post a Comment