AHS
Last week’s episode had Elsa bent on revenge on anyone who dared to steal her spotlight, Stanley and Maggie on the hunt for an artifact to sell to the morbidity museum and Dandy prepared to fill the late killer clown’s shoes. The fate of our freaks had never been less certain … but this week’s episode only further ups the ante.
We begin with Elsa dragging out an old show prop — an iconic circus spinning wheel, on which a dummy is mounted.
“We’re all spinning on the wheel,” she says in voiceover. “I know how to stay off the wheel, I control my fate. I have survived because I know one must be willing to destroy anyone and anything, even the things you love, to keep the gods in check.”
If her words weren’t foreshadowing enough, she throws knives at the spinning wheel, just missing the dummy with each lob. There’s no doubt the dummy will be replaced with one of our freaks before the episode’s end.
In the Mott mansion’s dining room, the breakfast table discussion concerns the newly arrived Tattler twins.
“They’re freaks and so am I,” Dandy proclaims, suddenly breaking down into tears.
“When I’m with them I feel normal,” he wails.
But just as fast as the tears come, they disappear.
“I’m going to marry those girls, mother, we’re going to be together forever,” he says proudly, in spite of Gloria’s look of restrained horror.
The twins react to their new surroundings in drastically different ways. Bette is utterly taken with Dandy (“a gentleman through and through,” she writes in her diary) while Dot is mistrusting (“I have to wonder what dark intentions await,” she writes).
Dandy reads from the newspaper a story about the first surgery separating a pair of Siamese twins, sparking Dot’s interest. She envisions a future in which she is separated from Bette and meets Jimmy alone in the diner. In reality, she realizes Dandy has the money necessary for such a surgery and for now, at least, remains compliant in her current situation.
At the freak show camp, it is Elsa’s birthday, but to her chagrin, no one feels like celebrating in the wake of Bette and Dot’s disappearance (Elsa’s told her motley crew the twins had escaped during the dress fitting).
Paul the Illustrated Seal, however, gets intimate with Elsa, though her talk of a future in which she’ll have a “normal suitor” certainly seems to strike a nerve.
He leaves her tent … only to visit Penny the Candy Striper from this season’s first episode. He admits he loves her, but their exchange is cut short when Penny’s father knocks on her bedroom door upon hearing her talking. Paul hides and for the time being, they are safe.
The next day, Paul goes to the drug store intent on buying perfume for Penny, but leaves empty-handed after a run-in with Dandy. Paul notices two headbands among Dandy’s belongings strewn on the counter and seems to put two and two together.
In the tent after a show, Paul raises his suspicions with Jimmy, who slaps him across the face for doubting Elsa, but Paul remains steadfast that Elsa is lying about the twins’ departure
At the Motts’, Dot reads in the newspaper that just one day later, only one twin survived the separation surgery Dandy had told her about. Bette uses it as evidence that they are meant to be together, only further frustrating an already crestfallen Dot.
Dandy interrupts, offering to exchange a secret for a secret. He tells them he, not Jimmy, saved the clown’s victims, and is met with praise from Bette and skepticism from Dot. Dot refuses to share a secret with Dandy, and he throws another one of his signature tantrums.
That night, Stanley and Maggie meet in secret. With the twins missing, Stanley wants to take Jimmy’s lobster-like hands, but Maggie makes every excuse (“He’s leaving” … “Think about the blood”). On Stanley’s request for something easy to transport, she suggests instead the doll-sized Ma Petite.
Paul visits Elsa in her tent, but she smells perfume on him, upon which she realizes his other affair. He chooses not to back down when she confronts him — pressing harder about the twins’ disappearance.
In her anger, she wakes everyone in the middle of the night, bringing them to the big tent and demanding one get on the spinning wheel. Paul, knowing he is the reason for her madness, volunteers. “It should be me,” he admits.
She spins the wheel with Paul strapped in place of the dummy and Elsa readies her knives — it’s by far the most suspenseful scene this season, killer clowns be damned.
She throws a first knife, which lands not an inch from his right cheek. She throws a second knife, and misses again, if just barely. She throws a third … and it stabs the center of the wheel — in the middle of Paul’s stomach.
Chaos, naturally, ensues. Elsa screams, protesting it was all a horrible accident. The freaks tend to a bleeding Paul. Yet, interestingly, as soon as the freaks have carried him out, Elsa’s eyes are dry and she smirks. It’s hard not to shiver thinking about what we’ve learned at the beginning of the episode: She’s willing to destroy anyone and anything.
In the midst of it all, Maggie steals Ma Petite from her bed, taking her to a far off shed to “play a game.” We don’t find out just what that game entails, at least not yet.
The next morning at camp, Jimmy finds Ethel decorating a cake for Elsa’s birthday, which angers him. He tells her an ambulance never came for Paul, and wonders if Elsa ever called for a doctor at all. Jimmy tells Ethel about Paul’s doubt about the twins’ whereabouts.
At breakfast, the freaks notice Ma Petite’s absence, but their concern doesn’t last long, as Maggie returns with her, having chickened out it seems. She’s hatched a new plan: to run away with Jimmy. While only last week she rejected his advances, she kisses him.
Unfortunately, Maggie’s escape looks unlikely: When she returns to her tent, Stanley is there waiting for her. Angry that she failed to bring him Ma Petite, he decides they are back to his plan to obtain Jimmy’s lobster hands, complicating the situation further.
At the Motts’, Gloria attempts to console her son — but instead of tearful and childish, she finds him now frigid and detached.
“I was never destined to feel love,” he tells her, echoing the sentiments of last week’s monologue. “I must accept this emptiness as a blessing, not a curse.”
“I know why I was put here, Mother,” he goes on. “My purpose is to bring death.”
He draws a small sword from a chest and tucks it into the belt of his pants, obviously worrying Gloria. Again, she is unable to dwell on it as the doorbell rings. It’s Jimmy, looking for Dandy (and presumably Bette and Dot) — we won’t find out what will go down between the two until next week, though.
In the big tent, only Ethel sits with a slice of birthday cake for Elsa. The others are with Paul instead, much to Elsa’s disappointment.
“If I ever found out you were lying and did wrong by those two girls I’ll kill you with my own hands,” Ethel warns Elsa gently before giving her a slice of birthday cake. “Now make a wish.”
“I just want to be loved,” we hear her wish before blowing out the candle, ending the episode on the biggest cliffhanger so far.
Right now, Paul is still suffering from a stab wound, Jimmy is alone with Dandy (and remains Stanley’s target) and Ethel is still terminal. Each week is no longer a question of who will die … but who will go first?
