There is an image from the premiere episode of American Horror Story: Freak Show that made me physically recoil on my big, comfy couch. A young couple are making out in a field. He leaves her to run to the car, and, out of the bushes, comes a paunchy clown, his garments filthy and a HUGE, disturbing smile across his face. He delights the young woman with tricks and then clubs the young lovers after the boyfriend returns. She wakes up to find the clown stabbing her boyfriend to death, and she takes off like a shot. The camera then switches to her point of view and the clown sets his sights on her (you can almost hear his neck click into place) and he begins chasing after her in a frenzied run that I honestly don’t think I will be able to shake for a long time.
The color palette of Freak Show seems lighter and more, dare I say, welcoming than past seasons? The trailers featured crimson reds and pale blues, and the two balloons that Elsa Mars (the incomparable Jessica Lange) carries as she stalks the halls of a hospital in 1952 are pink and a pale teal. She talks her way into seeing a “monster” admitted to the hospital, and she discovers Bette and Dot Tattler, twins born to one body. “How lucky to have a sister…” Lange coos in her playful German accent.
The Tattler twins are both played by the underrated Sarah Paulson, and this is probably her most extreme AHS role to date. Bette is a dreamer who has a burning passion for movies and fame (“I want to see Singin’ in the Rain, mama! In glorious TECHNICOLOR!), but Dot is silent and observant. They can speak to each other internally, and Dot is wary of Elsa’s intentions before they are whisked away to become the headlining act in Elsa’s freak show (the strange murder of Bette and Dot’s mother convinced Elsa to track them down).
Fraulein Elsa’s Cabinet of Curiosities has seen better days. Not only does it feature Kathy Bates as a Bearded Lady of Ceremonies (an homage to John Travolta’s Edna Turnblad?), it showcases Evan Peters’ Jimmy Darling aka Lobster Boy. Jimmy has a reputation for pleasing the ladies of Jupiter, Florida with his strange hands, and the look on Peters’ face is reminiscent of Johnny Depp from Edward Scissorhands. The only people that show up for the show (even with the headlining Tattler twins) are Gloria Mott (Frances Conroy) and her son, Dandy (Finn Whittock), a petulant twirp who shouldn’t be able to wrap his mother around his finger and pull off a sweater that tight. Gloria tries to even buy the Tattlers from Elsa, but she balks at Gloria’s offers.
Then that damn clown keeps showing up. The residents of Jupiter are being kidnapped and slaughtered in their sleep, and the clown keeps emerging from the shadows. It’s like Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck read all the message boards about fans being afraid of clowns and amped up the presence of this painted ghoul. A policeman tracks down Bette and Dot from the posters Elsa placed all over town, but before he can arrest the twins for the murder of their mother, Jimmy intervenes and kills him. Jimmy gives an impassioned speech about how they will all act like monsters If society sees them as so, and then the troupe participates in dismembering the policeman’s body…as the clown looks on menacingly behind a tree. If that wasn’t enough, he pops up again riding the carousel at night. He’s terrifying.
If Lange is actually leaving at the end of this season, Murphy is giving her a fond farewell. During a performance, Elsa sings David Bowie’s “Life on Mars,” and it’s just as weird as you’d think it’d be. It’s sort of a triumphant moment, because it shows that Murphy can still take us all by surprise. Elsa Mars might be a faded star, but that doesn’t mean that she will stop acting like the diva that she know she can be (“Stars don’t pay,” she tells a waitress before slowly stalking out of a junky diner). Last season, Lange’s Fiona Goode was only concerned about her diminishing physical beauty, but Elsa Mars is worried about her legacy. Lange is serving some Norma Desmond in the final scene, but the kicker comes at the very end. I’m not sure a lot of people would have guess what Elsa does in the final scene of the premiere.
The brightness of the setting gives the horror an even bigger oomph. Murder House, Asylum and Coven all featured dark aesthetics, but Freak Show pitches a tent in our mind that scary things can happen all around us. Who knows is Murphy can keep it up—he has a tendency to let it all go to hell—but he definitely has our attention.
Just don’t take a balloon from that clown…
