In this episode, everything is falling apart in the troupe family.  Emotions run high for the Motts and the carnies when Ma Petite goes missing and Gloria questions Dandy’s mental state.  Motherhood and the women of the Freakshow take center stage in this crazy episode.

AHS Bloodbath 01The Good

  • a couple of familiar faces return to create a more complex dilemma for Gloria and her man child, Dandy. Danny Huston plays both the psychiatrist, Dr. FeinBloom, in which Gloria goes to see and talks about her crazy son.  He also seen in Elsa’s flashback as someone in Germany who cared for her when she got her legs amputated, and made her new prosthetic wooden legs.  Gabrourey Sidibe plays Dora’s daughter, Regina.  She goes to the Motts residence to find where her mother is.  Gloria tries to make up pretty lame excuses as to why her mother is not here; she went food shopping for squashes a couple of towns over…..really?
  • A search party is conducted to find Ma Petite, but instead Jimmy finds a box where only her bloody clothes are left, no body. We all know what happened to her in the last episode.  Dell pretends to act horrified with the discovery of her bloody clothes.
  • Gloria tells the head shrink about Dandy’s childhood. She recalls his playful cold attitude with the other children, and the killing of animals for entertainment.  This kid is hardwired wrong from the beginning.  Dandy blames her for the way he is, that inbreeding is the root cause of his mental instability.
  • Ethel is dead. This is not a good thing, but an emotional one.  Her last scenes with Elsa are petty powerful.  She confronts Elsa about the twins and reveals to her that she overheard her conversation with Stanley on how to deal with them.  She also tells her that her reaction to Ma Petite’s tragedy is nothing short of a stellar performance for the troupe.  Her desire to be the star attraction creates jealously in her if anybody steals her spotlight.  Elsa uses her talent and throws a knife in Elsa’s eye.
  • Desiree, Amazon Eve, the half woman, and Penny (a.k.a. the Lizard Girl) cook up a plan to exact revenge on Penny’s father for what he did to her.  This is out anger from the death of Ethel.  Penny’s father gets knocked out and dragged back to the carnival, and gets tar and feathered by them.  Watching him scream in pain, you kind of feel sorry for him, I said almost.
  • Maggie stops them, trying to reach some sense of humanity in them, she succeeds. Too bad, they were almost about to go John Bobbit on him.  Fortunately, their revenge is satisfying anyway.
  • No twins this week…..yeah!!!
  • Stanley helps Elsa stage Ethel’s death by rigging her head to be snapped off in a car crash suicide. Believe it or not, it is a pretty clever way to hide a knife eyed impaled murder.
  • We have a new addition to the carnie troupe, a very large woman named Barbara who Elsa has christened her as Ima Wiggles, the world’s biggest fat lady. Even after all this death within the carnie family, Elsa demands that the show must go on.

The Bad

  • Dandy kills his mother. That’s a shame; she was the only person who protected him.
  • Maggie tries to be the sensible one this week. Her attempt to talk down the carnie women from castrating Penny’s father is a bit of a stretch, since she is part of a con artist team with Stanley, trying to sell the carnies to a museum.
  • I loved Ethel’s character. I didn’t want her to go.
  • Dandy bathes on his mother’s blood because he believes that he will gain power. This is the result of him reading a National Geographic article about cannibalistic tribes eating the flesh of their conquered to gain power through it.  Dandy’s psychotic belief that blood will do the same is down right creepy.
  • In a grieving state, Jimmy finds a new shoulder to cry on, Ima Wiggles, now that Maggie is out of the picture, well sort of. This is probably going to backfire for Jimmy down the road.

AHS Bloodbath 02A final confrontation between Ethel and Elsa ends in bloodshed.  Elsa’s grip on power is getting out of hand, too many deaths, and too much sadness in this episode.  Now that Gloria is gone, Dandy is falling deeper into sheer madness and his road is going to be paved in innocent blood.  Next week the twins return.