~ Legion of Leia
The second episode of American Horror Story: Freak Show is here, and this season is promising to give me nightmares. Can’t sleep clowns will eat me!
We meet our freak show cast in the morning. It’s breakfast time at the freak show as they gather around the radio, which breaks the joyous music with an announcement that a killer is on the loose. A Jupiter County Police Officer is missing. Here come the police, right on cue to question the freaks and shut down the show with a curfew. The Police promise to be back for more inquisitions into the twins, the freak show and their connections to these cases.
In the town’s local toy store, that is eerily empty, as a young man searches and ultimately finds the owner of the shop. Well, his head at least. The killer clown is still in the toy shop, and with perfect timing kills the young man just as he discovers the head of the shop owner. Poor kid.
A lovely night is being spent with the freaks drinking up, celebrating and chanting “kill the copper.” Jimmy is upset, feeling guilty for killing someone and taking him away from his possible loved ones. He laments their disposal of the body. Speaking of awkward dinners, we enter the home of the weird Brat and mother from the previous episode. Seated in a long hall, drinking cognac out of a baby bottle, and proclaiming he doesn’t want to be a rich man, he wants to be a thespian and storms out.
The maid, played by Patti La Belle, informs the mother that it’s happening again; the neighbors are complaining about their missing animals and she found the bones again. The freak show gets a visitor. The strong man, Michael Chiklis, and his beautiful three boob-d hermaphrodite wife, played by Angela Bassett, are seeking a job at the freak show. Chicago, 3 weeks earlier, we see a man with 3 boobs himself enter the room with an enraged strong man. The poor chap is killed for having sex with his wife. Needless to say they are joining the freak show.
Brat’s mother is on the road searching for something to cheer up her son when she finds a clown — a killer clown that is — wandering down the road. She asks him to come with her to cheer up her son. Meanwhile, her son is back at the freak show chatting up Jimmy and begging to join the show. Jimmy is upset that a person with everything is trying to throw it all away and tells him to leave, which he takes not so calmly.
Mother is waiting for her baby Daniel and he comes home extremely upset. The mother has a present. A creepy clown! Hooray! He can do whatever he pleases with his own personal clown, which is apparently having an epic stare down.
Ethel, the bearded woman comes and has a chat with the strong man about Jimmy, who happens to be his son. Through a flashback we see that he tried to kill Jimmy when he was an infant, which caused Ethel to threaten him to stay away from her son. Jimmy is unaware of any of this, and the strong man doesn’t want to claim him anyway.
The two-headed girl is trying out a new act, trying being the operative word. When hope seems lost, Dot finally opens her mouth and sings, and, despite what her sister says, does have a talent. The strong man suggests a matinee while the curfew is enforced, which is a power struggle. It’s not a suggestion. It’s more like a demand.
Daniel is performing for the clown, who isn’t amused. So now Daniel wants a show from the clown, but the clown instead hits him over the head and leaves. Daniel follows. In the diner, the freaks come for dinner and sit right at the counter, causing people to leave and complain, because people suck.
Enter the strong man who can’t believe the freaks have left. He starts a huge fight with Jimmy. The strong man wants the freaks to know their place so he takes Jimmy out and beats him.
On the clown’s bus, his two captives are formulating a plan to escape. The clown is back and enters the cage he keeps them. He wants to play, and has brought them a toy from the toy shop, as well as a head. The girl hits the clown on the head and they both make a run for it in opposite directions. The boy is quickly dispatched by the clown. Daniel retrieves the girl, and scolds the clown for not confining them better. “They’ll need a better method of confinement if they are going to have any fun!”
The freaks storm back to their haven. Jimmy rushes to Elsa to tell her what happened with the strong man, but finds Elsa willing to give the strong man’s idea a try. So the matinee begins and an amazing rendition of ‘Criminal’ is performed by the Siamese twins, causing men to act like Beatles fans, turning this into a crowd-surfing concert. The police are soon back with a search warrant for the grounds for evidence, but apparently the anonymous tip was Jimmy telling Del the strongman had something to do with the crime. Del being the jerky smart cookie he is, slipped it into another cast member’s trailer, the chicken-eating geek named Meep, causing him to get arrested instead. Meep is immediately placed in a cell filled with horrible criminals, and instantly attacked.
Elsa seems to be playing the twins against each other, telling each what they want to hear, and causing a growing rift between them. Jimmy is drowning his sorrows and losing it over Meep being in jail. He decides to turn himself in to save Meep. As he’s leaving, a car throws something at him. It’s the body of Meep, badly beaten, and dead.
Well, that was the first cry of the season for me. Stuff is getting real, and really sad. I truly am enjoying the depth of horror they are serving this season. Tears and Fears, my favorite things.
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