It’s amazing what one good episode can do.
Freak Show is as insane as ever, but “Bullseye” continues on from “Pink Cupcakes” and gives most, if not all, of its insanity some context. Finally the characters begin to feel like they inhabit the same space, and the show overall is more of a piece with itself, rather than cobbled together from bits of various stories.
Specifically, it’s Dot and Bette’s disappearance that serves as the lynchpin that draws the rest of the show into focus. It’s a central plot event that touches all of the other characters on the show; it draws suspicion onto Elsa, sheds further light on Dandy’s dementedness, sparks Maggie into action with Jimmy. The more that these elements all achieve at least some sense of interconnectedness, the better off the show will be.
Everything is connected not just by plot, but also by an emerging central theme, which, generally, is love. Love is what Murder House and Asylum previously boiled down to, as well (Coven did not boil down to anything at all), but while the first dealt with familial love and the second with a kind of compassionate love, Freak Show deals directly with romantic love, and treats it as a passive act, something that is received from someone else more readily than it is given.
And so you have Elsa, who on the occasion of her birthday demands the love and attention of her sideshow family. She’s becoming thoroughly unhinged, in a way that gives the character a little more definition, if not necessarily more dimension. This is still very much the mode that all of Jessica Lange’s American Horror Story characters have been played in, but there’s no denying that it’s a mode that plays to her strengths. She goes from shrill desperation, to manipulative violence, to quiet longing, in the span of an hour. This is by far the best showcase Freak Show has given Elsa to date, and I’m looking forward to seeing where Lange takes the character.
Perhaps surprisingly, this is also a standout episode for Paul, who, as played by Mat Fraser, is the episode’s moral center. It’s Paul who is most concerned about the twins’ disappearance, and who begins to suspect foul play on Elsa’s behalf. He’s also sleeping with the candy striper from the premiere, played by Grace Gummer (I believe—I can never tell which Gummer is which), so he certainly doesn’t let his condition keep him from getting around. I like the idea of fleshing out some of the other freaks, and Paul is as good a place as any to start, especially with such a talented actor in the role.
Even in Dandy’s case, all he really wants is love. He’s decided he’s in love with the twins, though even this seems to be more because it is a requirement of the identity he’s constructing for himself than because it’s an emotion he’s feeling. (In fact I wonder at this point whether Dandy feels anything at all.) When he reads Dot’s diary and learns that she’s planning to fleece him for the money necessary to have Bette surgically removed, he reacts characteristically, which is to say that he flips a shit. I can’t heap enough praise upon Finn Wittrock, who has taken an utter cartoon of a character and made him the most compelling presence on the show. The scenes with the Mott’s are mesmerizing, candy colored fantasias that are more freakish than anything going on in Elsa’s camp.
We also spend some more time with Stanley and Maggie, and I’m less convinced by the show’s treatment of these characters. They’re very isolated from the rest of the show, sharing scenes only with each other for the most part. Maggie at least branches out a bit. Her romance with Jimmy, if one can call it that, falls flat, unfolding more because it is expected than because there is anything inherently interesting about it. What does work is her abandoned attempt to capture and kill Ma Petite, which stealthily becomes the episode’s scariest, most unsettling thread. This episode once more utilizes the flashes to murders that don’t happen, but does a better job of demarcating this than “Pink Cupcakes” did. They work, as another way of objectifying and dehumanizing the freaks. (It’s worth noting that Dot gets in on this action, too, imagining a future where she is no longer attached to her unwanted sister.)
After a slow start, Freak Show has really taken off. It’s nice to once again approach these episodes with more anticipation than trepidation, and as the season starts to pull into sharper focus (as opposed to Coven, which by this point had gone completely off the rails) the story promises to only become more enticing. If Ryan Murphy and company can keep delivering episodes like these, then Freak Show looks poised to become the series’ redemption.
Stray Observations
- I’m seriously with the Gummers, though. How does anyone keep the Streep-spawn straight?
- “I’m going to take my business to Woolworth’s. They’ve got ice cream.”
- Dell and Desiree both take the week off, and while I wouldn’t say that they aren’t missed, there was obviously no room for them this week. I’m more concerned with the continued underuse of Evan Peters, who seems to be getting the shaft again this season. (Although nothing will be so bad as his nearly completely mute turn in Coven.)
Michael Wampler is a graduate of The College of New Jersey, where he completed both B.A. and M.A. degrees in English literature. He currently lives and works in Princeton, NJ while he shops around his debut novel and slowly picks away at his second. Favorite shows include Weeds, Lost, Hannibal and Mad Men (among many more). When not watching or writing about television, he enjoys reading, going for runs, and building his record collection.