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American Horror Story: Freak Show |OT| Let your inhibitions go, it's a crazy night...
- Thread starter Nemesis_
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NipplesAndToes23
Member
Who the hell trades a human being for three cases of Dr. Pepper?
Vinegar Joe
Member
Thanks...damn, that's disappointing because I was looking forward to it after season 1 & 2.
Oh well, two decent series isn't bad I guess. At least they are relatively self contained so there's no need to wade through the crap just to tie up a few loose ends.
dead souls
Member
If it was Mr. Pibb I could understand it.
This episode suffered from a dire lack of this season's only standout character: Dandy. It was boring.
Fenderputty
Banned
Even though Dandy has kinda kept the show going for me after Twisty died, this was still one of my favorite episodes.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Really liked this episode. Poor Pepper
AHS is full of horrible people and even worse family members.
It was good to show another side of Elsa, the side that genuinely wants to help and care for the freaks. But I felt that she need not have to give Pepper back to her sister though. Probably written to facilitate her appearance in Asylum and for Elsa's eventual TV success. She wouldn't have been able to take care of Pepper. The freakshow will probably be done at the end of the season.
Don't know why Jimmy is stupid enough to chop and sell his hands off. He could have been drugged and killed though.
AHS is full of horrible people and even worse family members.It was good to show another side of Elsa, the side that genuinely wants to help and care for the freaks. But I felt that she need not have to give Pepper back to her sister though. Probably written to facilitate her appearance in Asylum and for Elsa's eventual TV success. She wouldn't have been able to take care of Pepper. The freakshow will probably be done at the end of the season.
Don't know why Jimmy is stupid enough to chop and sell his hands off. He could have been drugged and killed though.
''that shit was sad, man''
really good episode, it's probably the first time I actually care about a freak and his story. Pepper ;_;7
yup.
really good episode, it's probably the first time I actually care about a freak and his story. Pepper ;_;7
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
That was one of the better episodes this season, but I still thought it was pretty boring. The actress who played Pepper really gave it her all though and made the episode worth watching.
I also thought the final shot was really interesting - Elsa actually becomes a big TV star. Surely Stanley had nothing to do with it though...?
I also thought the final shot was really interesting - Elsa actually becomes a big TV star. Surely Stanley had nothing to do with it though...?
I want this season to close off already. I feel like it's been going on too long or something.
A silly special effect disturbed you?
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
I think they're now at the "let's try to kill everyone if we can" phase of the season. There's just something very odd about the pacing for this episode. I feel like I'm watching a serialised drama from my country (the sort that runs every weekday for 20 episodes and just ends there) where they can get away with pacing because there's so such thing as self-contained episodes and you wait 24 hours for the next episode instead of 1 week or more.
I feel like they're really didn't need more new characters at this point and there's no end game. At least with Coven we had the whole supreme thing. This season has just been freaks getting into weird and horrible situations without much of an arcing device to hold them together.
I feel like they're really didn't need more new characters at this point and there's no end game. At least with Coven we had the whole supreme thing. This season has just been freaks getting into weird and horrible situations without much of an arcing device to hold them together.
Gonzo The Great
Banned
Awful. Just awful. I love Neil Patrick Harris, but how many fucking characters does this show need?
My problem is that the two heads are literally identical. Identical twins, while mostly the same, still have some visible differences. Bette and Dot, on the other hand, have the exact same beauty marks in the exact same places. It look laughably fake, and ruins the character for me.
My problem is that the two heads are literally identical. Identical twins, while mostly the same, still have some visible differences. Bette and Dot, on the other hand, have the exact same beauty marks in the exact same places. It look laughably fake, and ruins the character for me.
AlexMeloche
Member
NPH and Jamie Brewer should have appeared way sooner in the season.
Yup. They were pretty interesting.
That said the whole season has felt aimless and continues to feel this way. Season 1 was building towards the birth, season 2 was focused on escaping and season 3 was focused on finding the queen bee.
Jamie Brewer's been consistently awesome throughout the series.
Escape Goat
Member
S3 was focused?
User 479360
Banned
Just watched the last episode. Found it better than most of the others. Still, it won't save the show in my books. I'm just waiting for it to end, to be honest.
The NPH flashbacks were pretty awesome, but the doll has been handled in far too cheesy a fashion to be scary.
The NPH flashbacks were pretty awesome, but the doll has been handled in far too cheesy a fashion to be scary.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Focused in the sense that there was some sort of ending point for the plot to go towards. It was always about the witches and how they want to find the next supreme and how Fiona was threatened and slowly eaten away by the unknown replacement. This season has been just freaks encountering and doing shitty things with no arching goal.
Fenderputty
Banned
I though the same thing.
Escape Goat
Member
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
I strongly disagree with the whole "short seasons always = better (tighter! more focused! no filler!)" rhetoric that some people spout, but I think in the case of American Horror Story it really would benefit them to have a shorter season. They can only fit 10 episodes in a year if they choose to premiere the show near Halloween (which is, admittedly, the best time to premiere it) and don't want to air new episodes during the holidays. The month-ish long break completely killed the season's momentum (ditto Asylum and Coven), which is saying a lot considering Freak Show had gained virtually no momentum up to that point.
It's a drag to have to break from a show that didn't plan for a break by writing it into the season's structure - The Walking Dead does it right. Hell, even Arrow and The Flash do it right. AHS could too.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
I think 10 episodes make sense for the format. Might force them to drop some of the cast and be more focused too.
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
Agreed, or at least maybe it would force them to utilize their character's screen time more effectively - I mean, 90% of the cast that has been killed off this year didn't amount to anything. Nothing really happened with most of them. They were there one second and not there the next and nothing changed due to their absence(s).
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
Agreed.
Jessica Lange
Sarah Paulson
Evan Peters
Dennis O'Hare
all need to go away for a while
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, they're not writing characters into the plot because they're needed but because they want to keep using the same pool of actors and actresses. The list is getting far too big.
Sarah Paulson will be on American Crime Story so she might be out next year. I hope Jessica doesn't come back and if Evan does I hope they give him a different sort of role.
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
Tonight is the penultimate episode of the season.
Does it feel to you like tonight is the penultimate episode of the season?
Me neither.
That's exactly what Ryan Murphy is doing. He's less interested in telling interesting stories and more interested in keeping his friends employed. Which is admirable, but doesn't exactly make for great (or even good) TV.
We can only hope.
Does it feel to you like tonight is the penultimate episode of the season?
Me neither.
That's exactly what Ryan Murphy is doing. He's less interested in telling interesting stories and more interested in keeping his friends employed. Which is admirable, but doesn't exactly make for great (or even good) TV.
We can only hope.
I'm ready for this season to be done. Two more episodes!
I had mild hopes for Freak Show. Coven was a dull, boring mess and all the promos for Freak Show were promising. In the end both seasons feel like a bait and switch - start with a horror premise then lose focus as things progress.
Asylum was pretty good, if slightly uneven at times, but I was more invested into the characters with that season. I don't care about anyone in Coven or Freak Show.
I had mild hopes for Freak Show. Coven was a dull, boring mess and all the promos for Freak Show were promising. In the end both seasons feel like a bait and switch - start with a horror premise then lose focus as things progress.
Asylum was pretty good, if slightly uneven at times, but I was more invested into the characters with that season. I don't care about anyone in Coven or Freak Show.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
This episode was quite the mess. Especially with how Maggie
Next week look like a
finale, just because they can.
Also, there was another Asylum cameo this episode.
offering to be in the magic performance. Just randomly so that she could be killed.
Next week look like a
let's try to kill everyone
Also, there was another Asylum cameo this episode.
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
So yeah, another extremely messy episode where someone is randomly killed off for shock value. Ho hum.
(btw how much time has elapsed since the season began? I've got no sense of the passage of time this year)
And what's even happened with Dandy? He's been mostly absent for the past few episodes. Out of all the characters, he seemed like he was on an actual path - becoming more and more of an insane killer with every passing episode (even bathing in blood because he thinks he's a god or something) only to...become mostly normal again? For some reason? Was there a catalyst that caused him to quit acting crazy for a while that I missed? (the prospect of him running the freakshow is quite tantalizing though)
And this season hasn't been scary at all, but I will admit that it has some of the most disturbing stuff on the series to date: the snuff film scenes, the psycho war veteran who talks to a puppet, what they did to Dennis O'Hare...that's some fucked up shit yo.
I must've missed it. What was it?
EDIT: Ooooooooooooooh, holy shit. The crazy doctor right? Hans Gruper? I didn't make that connection while watching the episode but I actually did pause the video to google that name because it sounded familiar to me (the search results only came up with the Die Hard villain so I just chalked it up to deja vu).
That's actually pretty cool. Was that John Cromwell's son again?
Can't believe I missed that.
(btw how much time has elapsed since the season began? I've got no sense of the passage of time this year)
And what's even happened with Dandy? He's been mostly absent for the past few episodes. Out of all the characters, he seemed like he was on an actual path - becoming more and more of an insane killer with every passing episode (even bathing in blood because he thinks he's a god or something) only to...become mostly normal again? For some reason? Was there a catalyst that caused him to quit acting crazy for a while that I missed? (the prospect of him running the freakshow is quite tantalizing though)
And this season hasn't been scary at all, but I will admit that it has some of the most disturbing stuff on the series to date: the snuff film scenes, the psycho war veteran who talks to a puppet, what they did to Dennis O'Hare...that's some fucked up shit yo.
I must've missed it. What was it?
EDIT: Ooooooooooooooh, holy shit. The crazy doctor right? Hans Gruper? I didn't make that connection while watching the episode but I actually did pause the video to google that name because it sounded familiar to me (the search results only came up with the Die Hard villain so I just chalked it up to deja vu).
That's actually pretty cool. Was that John Cromwell's son again?
Can't believe I missed that.
Napoleonthechimp
Member
This season seemed to suffer from a lack of cohesion
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
I had to check Wikipedia for his name as well but I quite sure it was him even before I confirmed it. No reason to throw in a name otherwise. The whole revenge subplot with Massimo Dolcefino character seems needless anyway. If he really cared so much for Elsa why did he still stay around and continue making hands for Jimmy after Elsa escaped?
AHS has never really been good with getting the sense of time across anyway. They seem to do whatever seems convenient lol...Same goes for Coven.
And as for Dandy, the promo for the finale
suggests that he'll be back to his killing ways, possibly the whole freakshow this time
Ratings have gone down quite a far bit over the season.
It was highest with the premiere at 6.13 mil and the previous episode (episode 11) was down to 3.11 mil. Sadly the lowest (at 2.99 mil) was for that Pepper episode. That was a good standalone episode.
EDIT: Just read the AV Club review and it pointed out how incongruent Maggie's action was.
Her being almost sawed by Dandy in the earlier episode would have scared her off that specifically trick. It really didn't make sense for her to want to participate so eagerly.
Great read! Thanks for the posting.
Rat is back, Rat is back! Glad to see you back. You probably did not deserve the ban.
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
There is no rhyme or reason to anything this show does methinks.
True. Coven was really wonky in this area also.
Right, and that's really poor writing. Instead of dropping Dandy (mostly) altogether, they should have tried to strike a balance between his scenes and with those of the rest of the cast.
I think most people tune in just to see what kind of crazy shit they'll cook up next and the Pepper episode was probably the least crazy episode of the season.
Yeah, that scene was the low point of the episode for sure. Nothing about it made sense. Sawing through a body with a hand saw wouldn't be that easy and all the freaks were just backstage so why didn't they rush out to help her when she started screaming???
XD thanks!
Gonzo The Great
Banned
Horrible episode. Again. Another character killed off for no reason. Remember when Massimo said that he has no humanity left? My guess is that he tries turning Elsa into a wooden Pinocchio-like doll so the two can finally be together. His greatest masterpiece yet.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
As bad as this season has been so far, I really liked the episode. The music was pretty good, and that magic trick, pretty sweet.
hobblygobbly
Member
Well Evan Peters was basically non-existent in Coven so it was fine for him to be in this season. But yeah, isn't Jessica Lange stopping after next season? I remember an article about it when Coven began I think.
Freakshow was meh so far, it's things like randomly killing off characters that are weird like Maggie, it was just random. It has decent characters like that psycho Dandy which I found interesting. It needs to go back to how it did the plot/narrative of Asylum. I'd also like to see more of the actor who played Sister Sister Mary Eunice (Lily Rabe) more.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
AHS's solution to resolving subplots and conflict is to kill off one party or more, sometimes everyone.
"Oh no what do with do with Jimmy and Maggie's flip-flopping romance plot? We only have two episodes? Let's just kill her tee hee. It'll shock the audience!"
Jimmy took like 1 second to recover from hearing about it. It was apt that he said that he didn't want to hear the details. He sounds as interested as the audience at this point.
Look at what they did with Coven's finale. Who would think that putting the last known four witches (baring the two older ones) to death inducing tests to find a leader is a great idea anyway? If they haven't wrote in the increased in enrolment plot they were down to only 3 witches.
On a side note, they never really made it clear on how the witch community worked in Coven anyway. Were there other covens? Why was there a magic council and was it really just the 3 of them? Why didn't any of the other covens care and why did they not touch on the warlocks/male witches story that they said they were going to do? Because they wanted to bring in Stevie Nicks? Who knows??? Lol
Jessica has been rather indecisive since the second season. Coven was supposed to be her last and then she joined Freakshow. She was supposed to be in a supporting role but ended up being a main again. She said she wouldn't do a next season but I seem to recall her changing her mind again.
As for Lily Rabe, she's starring in her own new series on ABC. It's called The Whispers and it's a mystery drama involving aliens and children. Sounds like it could be bad. They recently went back to re-edit the first episode because they wanted to stretch a mystery (that was actually revealed in the original cut) and make it last for the whole season instead. And they seem to be not talking about the aliens anymore or something.
Host Samurai
Member
This has been the strangest season. Started with a crazy killer clown to ghosts to Russell Edgington to Dandy to NPH. I actually like the weirdness to it
BoboBrazil
Member
Dandy and the clown were really the only interesting characters this season. Season has been horrible and I've had to force myself to watch the last few episodes to finish it. There doesn't seem to be an overarching plot this year and the characters just go from aimless subplot to aimless subplot in between scenes of extreme gore. Even Coven had a clear storyline from the beginning. Usually the last episode of each season has been the worst also so there isn't much hope for the final episode this season.
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
That's a bingo!
I don't know about the other questions, but I believe they did mention other covens - druids and the like.
That still baffles me to this day. I have absolutely no idea what went down there. There are still a couple things that Murphy said was coming this year that haven't happened yet -
(the return of Twisty and Mordrake)
She's all over the place. I think she was honestly surprised by her Emmy win for Coven (totally undeserved, imo) and that may have enticed her into coming back for another season (5). I seem to remember reading an interview recently where someone asked whether Lange would be back next year and the question was completely dodged, so I wouldn't be surprised if she returned once again. (as the lead :/)
Nemesis_
Member
The recent interview someone did with Sarah Paulson kind of dodged the question too. I wouldn't be surprised if she came back next season.
But I definitely agree that they need to write characters first and cast actors second.
I'd be happy if the introduction of American Crime Story and Scream Queens means that the American Horror Story cast gets a little bit thinned
But I definitely agree that they need to write characters first and cast actors second.
I'd be happy if the introduction of American Crime Story and Scream Queens means that the American Horror Story cast gets a little bit thinned
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