As the story begins to unfold, the main characters reveal their true personalities to the audience. Even though the cast is not yet complete; we are still waiting for the return of Emma Roberts, and Gabourey Sidibe, we can understand the general tone of what this season is going to be.
The murder of four people and the disappearance of a Jupiter detective have led to a huge manhunt and an investigation for the killer. Jimmy and his circus friends listen to the announcement on the radio with great anxiety. With their circus rolling into town, all eyes are on them for the unfortunate murders and missing police detective. 
He must make the decision to dispose of the detective’s body that is buried behind the circus and destroy all evidence that the cop was there. Amazon Eve, Skeleton Boy, and Jimmy dig up the body and get rid of it. Only the badge is left, Jimmy takes it.
As Jimmy and his carnie-associates try to cover up a murder, we get a closer look at the Mott family. Gloria Mott and Dandy Mott are mother and son that live in the town of Jupiter. We last saw them briefly in the first episode watching the circus show alone. As the loving mother, Gloria tried to buy the twins from Elsa for her son; Dandy also tries to get friendly with the twins, but was both unsuccessful. The relationship between mother and son is a bit creepy. Frances Conroy who plays Gloria is wonderful as the spacey, eccentric mother trying to keep her son entertained. She brings a neurotic quality to her character and I love that. The man-child Dandy, play by Finn Wittrock gives you an inside look at what a psychotic looks like. When he gets rejected by Jimmy to join the circus, Dandy’s reaction is priceless and frightening. He doesn’t take rejection well. When he gets home, Gloria tells him that she has a surprise for him waiting for him in his room. He yells at her saying he doesn’t want anything right now. But she insists on telling him that he will like his surprise. He walks in and finds a clown standing in the middle of the room. The clown happens to be the serial killer, Twisty the Clown.
Back at the circus, Elsa gets a couple new circus performers to audition. Michael Chiklis and Angela Bassett join the cast. Chiklis plays Dell the Strongman, and Angela plays Desiree Dupree, the three breasted hermaphrodite. Their past brings a lot of baggage to the circus and might bite them in the ass in the future. But Elsa takes them in because she believes that Dell will be useful as security for the circus. Now that the investigation of the missing detective has put the circus on curfew, he can make sure that nobody leaves the grounds and break curfew. Unfortunately, he has other ideas about the show. He believes that matinees will bring people to the show without breaking curfew, and make money at the same time. Elsa strongly disagrees, but is strong armed by him. It seems like a power play is happening between Dell and Elsa.
The show must go on. It is the twin’s big night. Elsa is extremely nervous about how the audience will respond to Bette and Dot. Fortunately, she is a big hit with the crowd, but Elsa fears that her stardom is going to fade away with the success of the twins. Her fear gets the better of her, and plans to drive a wedge between the sisters.
At the Mott’s house, Dandy tries to play with his new toy. Twisty is unimpressed with him, and Dandy doesn’t like that. He distracts Twisty with other playful toys, while he looks into his bag. His eyes widen with excitement, but he gets knocked out by the clown. Twisty runs out while Dandy is down. He goes back to his trailer to play with his kidnapped victims. But they’re waiting for him; they escape by blindsiding him with a two by four to the head. 
For the first time we get to see his mangled face behind the mask. It is all sharp teeth and nothing is happy about his real smile. They almost get away, only to be stopped by Dandy who follows Twisty from his home.
Back at the circus, Jimmy gets a bad feeling about Dell when he gets a beat down by him in town after he and his circus friends attempt to have lunch at a local restaurant. He is determined to get rid of Dell by any means necessary. He comes up with a plan to plant incriminating evidence in Dell’s trailer and have the police find it, but Dell catches him planting the detective’s badge in his trailer. Jimmy’s plan backfires and instead of him being arrested, another circus performer is framed, Meep the Creep becomes the scapegoat. Helpless to do something, Jimmy can only watch this innocent boy being taken away by the police. He sulks around the grounds when Ethel, his mother finds him drinking. Jimmy tells his mom that he is going to do something. Ethel fears that Jimmy knows about Dell being his father and wants to confront him. She tries to talk him out of it, but he is confused as to why she would tell him not to. She then realizes that he is talking about breaking Meep out of prison. Just then a truck pulls up and throws a large sack in front of the tent. Jimmy opens it up and finds Meep’s battered body in it. Jimmy screams out of anger and frustration. His anger draws attention from the other performers and a crowd gathers around Jimmy.
Unlike last season, this one is becoming much darker and scarier. Just by watching these two episodes, I get a sense there are two stories being told here. One is the circus life and how they deal with discrimination from the outside world. The other is Twisty the Clown and his happy happy joy joy adventures with his new found friends. The question is who the real monsters in this show are, we’ll find out as the season continues.
