AHS: Freak Show Review – “Tupperware Party Massacre” (4×09)

Perhaps I've just been worn down. Perhaps we've passed through the quality looking glass and everything has gone topsy-turvy. Who knows. But “Tupperware Party Massacre” is a dementedly fun, twisted episode of Freak Show. It's a sign of vitality at a relatively late stage of the season, and thank goodness for it. The episode has laser focus, not just in terms of its plot (which continues to foreground the significance of the freak museum Stanley is working with), but in terms of its themes. Here is an episode that, finally, feels consistently and, more importantly, successfully about things.

There's been a collection of themes and motifs floating in and out of Freak Show all season long, but this week's episode is the first that draws a line through all of its various plots and still keeps them orbiting around these themes. It's no coincidence that the episode makes by far the season's best use of the massive ensemble cast—and that's including some dead characters!

Everyone in “Tupperware Party Massacre” is worried about normalcy, about feeling like a proper member of society. They all have the same goal, which is to be not something: to be not gay, to be not ordinary, to be not a freak. The characters have been born into situations, into bodies, that they can't help, and that they can't change (not for lack of trying). The sick joke is that for every one of them, their fantasy of normalcy is someone else's freakshow reality. So you get the frankly brilliant parallel between Bette and Dot, who want normal, separate lives, and are cruelly prevented from that by their deformity; and Dandy Mott, whose “perfect” life and perfect body are shot through with insanity.

But don't take this all to mean that “Tupperware Party Massacre” is too serious or ponderous. The title suggests, correctly, that we're a little off center. One of the very first images is of Dandy playing around with Gloria's corpse, held up on strings. “Now you're my puppet mother!” is creepy, unsettling, and absolutely hilarious. I can go all in on this show if “demented circus” is the tone we can keep up.

Most of the episode's set pieces bring a return to the off-kilter, Flannery O'Connor-esque Southern Gothic tone that the show's earliest episode's hinted at, none more so than the titular massacre. But even smaller, character moments embrace the horror of the grotesque. Take Jimmy Darling's fling with Ima. He's wasted drunk (and must have been for several days now) and is feeding her, or else has his pants around his ankles fucking her. The episode treats him as something of a punch line, but the sad desperation with which he gleans attention from Ima, and the wonderfully bizarre drunken sequence with Ether, paint a sympathetic portrait of the character for pretty much the first time this season. The writing, as well as Evan Peters' plaintive performance, give a new depth to Jimmy Darling, and make it much easier to genuinely feel for the kid.

Dell also gets a much-needed boost of empathy, as his guilt over Ethel and Ma Petite's deaths drive him to suicide. The sequence of his near hanging is beautiful, brilliantly filmed, with alternating flashes of black and blurry bursts of color as Dell's vision leaves him. Desiree's last minute rescue comes as a genuine relief, and you realize you've been holding your breath as Dell loses his.

Bette and Dot finally get some proper attention after a weeks-long lull this week. It's unfortunate that Sarah Paulson is still getting the same notes to play over and over, but it's still something to see how she has managed to craft two distinct, vibrant characters in the twins. Elsa and Stanley have tried to convince them that the surgery to split them is a good idea; they've made up some cockamamie story about how they each have their own heart and sets of lungs, so it'll all be fine! Sweet Dot is naïve enough to believe it, and while Bette's not, she still longs enough for a normal existence to consider the option anyway. The twins' awkward romantic encounter with Jimmy is another in a line of appropriately weird scenes; it's about time for the show to take more consistent storytelling advantage of the menagerie of curiosities it has on display.

The overall season arc gets a kick in the ass this week as well, as Dandy becomes an outright, outsized villain, convincing the town cop with surprising ease to shoot Regina in the head, and slaughtering a party full of housewives. He converges with the freaks once more, as Jimmy's drunken escapade ends up getting him nailed for the murder. The comparison here, of the freak with a good heart and the normal kid who's a secret axe murderer, might be obvious, but at least now it's once again explicit, providing an easy justification for the plot, so that the story can make other, more interesting observations about its characters.

“Tupperware Party Massacre” is a really strong installment of Freak Show, exemplifying the season's best strengths and addressing many of its weaknesses. Most importantly, it hits exactly the right mark of weirdness, while still balancing it with both horror and thoughtful drama. At its best, Freak Show can keep all of these balls in the air, and become wildly entertaining as a result. At its worst, those balls wind up scattered across the floor. Luckily, for now at least, Freak Show is at its best.