Zeitgeisting TV: 'AHS: Freak Show'; Episode 11 - 'Magic Thinking'

Jason St. Amand:

After a two week hiatus, we're back with the third-to-last episode of "American Horror Story: Freak Show"! For the last few episodes, the season has kept up a great pace and it felt like things were coming together and less cluttered. But things took a turn with "Magic Thinking."

I was left confused with this episode and I'm disappointed we're STILL getting new characters (albeit pretty great characters) with just three episodes left. In past seasons, there was an end in sight: We were guessing who would be the Supreme in "Coven." We wondered how Lana would get Sister Jude out of "Asylum," and we were on edge with how the Harmon family would end up in "Murder House." But where are we going with "Freak Show"? I guess we're waiting to find out how Elsa Mars becomes a legendary TV star (remember in the last episode, which ended about a decade after "Freak Show," Pepper found Elsa on the cover of an old Life magazine). But what about the rest of the troupe? Stanley dies? Jimmy and Maggie end up together? Do we even care? It's all pretty aimless.

This week, we're introduced to wondering crazy salesman Chester (Neil Patrick Harris) and his dummy Marjorie (Jamie Brewer). Chester is desperate to get into the freak show and after Elsa notices he's a math guy, and a WWI vet, she lets him in and plans to hand over the keys to the troupe to him. But little does she know Chester is nuts. So much so, he makes Dandy look sane. And while I think NPH is good at the confused and wounded crazy Chester and Brewer is fantastic (we always said she was one of the best actors in the "AHS" universe) as Marjorie (who maybe is real? I don't know), it's truly dumbfounding as to why they're appearing now, when Ryan Murphy and co. should be wrapping things up. They are shoehorned in and the writers quickly give us the back story and we have no time to get to know them and develop any connection. It's a shame because these are some pretty great newbies.

But Brewer is so good in this episode and gets my golden star (though Michael Chiklis came in a close second - I found the transformation of Dell great and was actually sad and surprised when Elsa blew his brains out after he confessed to killing Ma Petite). Seeing her hunched over, over-killing Chester's wife / wife's lover in that flashback - blood splattered on the wall - brought back some classic "AHS" imagery and reminded me how good this show can be. That's the thing with "Freak Show" - when it hits its lows it still has moments that reel me back in. I also like the use of the dummy in general because "Freak Show" has been weird and dark and not horror. This is one of the few times (maybe besides Dandy and Twisty) that "Freak Show" uses a horror trope.

I digress: back to Brewer. Casting her as Marjorie was perfect and it was fun to realize it was she from the first time she spoke. For such a small part, she really carried this episode and I was thrilled anytime she was on screen, especially during the episode's closing scene when she demanded Chester, who, if you haven't figured it out by now (thanks to all those lines about being made out of wood etc.), is the REAL dummy!

And back to Dandy for a moment. It's so weird to me that the writers have kind of dropped the ball on his storyline...i guess it's not weird because the biggest problem with "Freak Show" is that it has too much going on and can't continue a balanced juggling act. But Dandy easily has the most compelling and interesting story lines going and you'd think he'd be a top priority. From "Magic Thinking," we gather he's over ruining Jimmy (I guess having him locked up and on trail for the Tupperware massacre is punishment enough? Dumb.) and set his sights on Chester who is involved with the ultra-horny twins, who are on a mission to pop their cherries. I'm not sure what his master plan is (he captured Marjorie in order to trick Chester? Does Dandy see Marjorie as a person too? What's going on?!) but I guess we'll find out in the final episodes.

Robert Nesti:

It did occur to me that the inclusion of Neil Patrick Harris into the mix was something that Ryan Murphy and the actor worked out over dinner sometime after the season began. NPH is an amateur magician, so this allowed him to have a meta-moment on the show. And to introduce new characters so late in the story does seem a bit lazy: a deux ex machina to bring the loose threads together. That said, I really liked this episode and disagree that it is disjointed. The inclusion of Harris's Chester is a great touch that not only brings to mind a popular horror meme - the crazy ventriloquist and his evil dummy, but also the relationship between Norman Bates and his mother in "Psycho." Just the sequences where Chester is putting the dummy, Marjorie, in the box brought to mind the sequence in that film when Norman takes his mother down into the fruit cellar.

You do, though, bring up a larger point that's been plaguing this season: how do you create horror in a story that eschews the supernatural. Not that Murphy et all didn't cheat a bit: the appearance of Edward Mordrake and, now, Marjorie, bring that element into the show. The horror this season is more rooted in reality - "the evil that men do"-kind-of-thing, which makes things more difficult. The way the show's team has achieved this (and whether they have or haven't is up for debate) is to show extremes of behavior: a father disfigures his daughter with tattoos, turning her into a "freak"; a sleazy con man has members of Fraulein Elsa's troupe killed to populate a creepy, classy museum; a silent clown combs the town on a vicious murder spree; a crazed man kills his mother and bathes in her blood; even Fraulein Elsa's backstory is one of absolute viciousness: her legs are cut at the ankles in the making of a snuff film. Supernatural is easy, real-life horror is hard.

I was so engaged with Chester that I didn't miss Dandy, who didn't appear into well into the episode. Chester's a great character and I would give my gold star to NPH, if only because he plays crazy so convincingly. I agree, though, that Jamie Brewer is quite amazing; but some of that had to do with the stylized way she was presented. I love the notion that she's a figment of Chester's imagination, though that may or may not be the case. And I love the way that Dell was both humanized and punished for his murder of Ma Petite. One thing about this season, and maybe about the series in general, is that there is no moral compass in its universe. In this case, the larger community of Jupiter, Florida is filled with corrupt public officials and bigoted townspeople. In this world, how can anyone get justice except to seek it themselves? This is why Fraulein Elsa may turn out to be the great avenger. She has made the first step in that direction by killing Dell; will Stanley (Denis O'Hare) be next? And what of Dandy? Plus it's been promised that Edward Mordrake and Twisty will be making a return. For me, the more the merrier. I didn't think "Coven" came together until its last two episodes; and am having the same feeling about "Freak Show."

Jason St. Amand:

I don' think "Magic Thinking," this week's episode, is disjointed, but "Freak Show" as a whole. In fact, these episodes, taken on their own, range from decent to fantastic but when we back up and zoom out, "Freak Show" feels more like a collection of moments than a cohesive story.

You're right. Murphy and co. have traded in the typical horror we saw in "Asylum" and "Murder House" for the themes of "people are true freaks" and "human nature can be the scariest thing of all" and not monsters and evil ghosts. I think Dell's speech in this episode magnifies that. As he's feeding Jimmy, he explains how he was an outcast in a family of outcasts - all because he was normal and didn't have the lobster hands his father and uncles had. You can still look normal, having perfect genetics, but that doesn't mean you're a monster. Just a look at Dandy - the scariest character this season, and arguably of all "AHS" seasons. He's handsome, charming and rich but he's a raging lunatic.

NPH did do a great job. And I agree with a point you made - I think he wanted in on the "AHS" world so Murphy had to scramble and shove him in there. I don't think it works as much as you do. His story does feel pinned on but I guess it could be worse. Still, that does't take away from his performance. Maybe it's just nostalgia's charm, but when I heard the halted and deadpan voice of Brewer, I was totally thrilled. I hope she's got some more scenes in the last two episodes. She's the actor I miss the most this season.

You're right about Elsa. Killing Dell seems to be the first step in the right direction on a moral level. Is she going to continue to doing the right thing and seek justice for all her freaks? Is becoming a TV star how she's rewarded?

You and I are both asking a lot of questions (we should be wrapping things up!) and I have my doubts that Murphy and the writers will have enough time to answer them all with just two hours left in "Freak Show."

Robert Nesti:

Well, I felt the same way about "Asylum," which telescoped a lot of the story in the final episode in ways that brought the narrative together. Whether or not it happens with this season we will see soon enough. But this brings up a larger question: after four seasons, can this show go anywhere new? I guess next season, which has to do with government scientific experimentation gone wrong, takes the story more into the sci-fi realm (and it being set in the late 1940s/early 1950s gives Murphy et all an opportunity to introduce Cold War tensions into the narrative. We'll see next fall.

For now, though, "Freak Show" needs to be tied up. Whether or not it will blow me away (as "Asylum" did) or leave me disappointed ("Coven") remains to be seen. Given the bleak moral universe the show embraces, I wouldn't be surprised to see Dandy get away with his heinous crimes. The only thing that can stop him is Elsa and her troupe, or perhaps this is where the supernatural comes in. Edward Mordrake is on the horizon. I thought it was very smart to have Dandy and Chester meet up and that Dandy comes off as the sane one. Perhaps Chester could have been more smoothly integrated in the story if he had appeared sooner, but that he's arriving at the point when Dot and Bette have made their peace makes perfect sense. Again, as with "Asylum," there's a lot going on with what seems too many characters, so much so that it feels difficult to separate the forest from the trees; but it is certainly an entertaining mess. Or as the New York Times put it last week, a gorgeous mess. There is nothing else like it on television at this moment: it's like a fevered dream and I am sorry to see it coming to an end.

As a footnote, it was funny to watch an old Joan Crawford movie, her second-to-the-last, called "Beserk!" recently. Set in a circus, replete with its own troupe of human oddities, it featured Crawford as a tough-as-nails owner that sees profit when members of her company began to die in unpleasant ways. I wonder if Murphy was inspired by this B-movie for "Freak Show" and that Jessica Lange is channeling Crawford as at her scariest.

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