Come one, come all! Witness a shocking episode of Male Incompetence! Dell can’t get it up! Dandy can’t kill! Mordrake isn’t terrifying at all! Come and observe the incompetence at the Freak Show! And prepare to be super…bored. Warning: keep your hands and feet inside at all times and buckle in for a flashback episode. Also, hold on tight for an info dump on Ethel’s sordid life history.

In ‘Edward Mordrake, Pt 1.’ we’re introduced to a slew of new characters. Con artist duo Maggie Esmerelda (the completely overrated Emma Roberts) and Stanley (the wonderfully talented Denis O’Hare) arrive in Jupiter to collect something freakish to steal (kill? Capture?) and sell after they found out that the liver of famed conjoined twins sold for $5000 to an oddities museum. Maggie poses as a psychic and easily tricks the increasingly pathetic Elsa into hiring her by appealing to Elsa’s desire to be famous. Meanwhile, Stanley is doing all sorts of weird Viking sex acts that seem to have literally nothing to do with the plot of the show.

We’re also introduced to the legendary Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley), a ghost freak with a devil face on the back of his head. Legend is if a freak show performs on Halloween night, Mordrake arrives and takes a freak with him for eternity. Although the freaks go to great lengths not to perform on Halloween, Elsa decides last minute that she must practice some new music, during which Mordrake appears…because I guess that counts as a freak show performance? There’s an odd logical leap there. But I can deal with the skip in logic compared to the ridiculously tawdry way that this famed devil-ghost arrives at the carnival. He practically floats through the tented grounds accompanied by neon green mist and incessant bursts of lightening. The whole scene feels like it’s straight out of one of those old ‘Goosebumps’ television episodes. Then what does he do? But sit down and have a heart-to-heart with Ethel. Such a spooky legend for such a polite and absolutely boring ghost. I hope he brings his a-game in part two of his titular episode because all that hype is leading straight to a whole lot of nothing at this point.

Dot and Bette are emotionally growing apart faster and faster as Dot becomes downright bitchy about everything. She turned into a diva of epic proportions seemingly overnight and poor Bette can’t escape it. I’m so bored with the rest of the characters it doesn’t even seem worth it to mention their stories this week. And what an absolutely depressing lack of Twisty in Dandy. They’ve quickly become my favorite part of this show and they were reduced to all but nothing this week.

It sure didn’t take long for almost every main character to become nauseatingly obnoxious. Dot, Bette, Dell, Elsa…they’ve gone from interesting, multi-dimensional characters to flat, boring, and utterly obvious. One is too bitchy, the other cries all the time, this one is always angry, and that one has completely lost her shit. The tropes and stereotypes abound in ‘Edward Mordrake, Pt 1.’ and I can only hope that the writers work to pull these characters back up to their first episode tenor.

I will say that Kathy Bates had some emotional and powerful moments in this episode (especially the scene in the doctor’s office) that only go to show what a great actress can do with subpar material. She’s making the most out of a paper-thin character. Yes, one could argue that Ethel has a lot going on, but it’s uninteresting and cliché.

I know the musical numbers are discussed quite a bit but it’s hard to get through a review without mentioning them. They completely polarize ‘AHS’ fans. Everyone either loves them or hates them. Unfortunately I still cannot get on board with the performances. I definitely see what they are trying to do, and I think it’s possible to do this whole out-of-place-and-time performance thing well, but they’re missing the mark. One of the biggest issues I have with the performances is that they always arrive late in the episode around the same time; the formulaic nature of the performances is off-putting. Another problem I have is their music video quality. The entire show transforms into a different entity entirely. I’d be much more inclined to sink into these bizarre anachronistic performances if they were more randomly placed and not so pointedly shot and directed. Every week at about two thirds of the way in it feels like someone yells, “cut!” on ‘Freak Show’ and inserts a music video.

I definitely spoke too soon when I said this season was turning out to be one of the most fluid “American Horror Story” seasons yet, because this episode could not pick a solid path to walk on. Other than Ethel, each character showed up for about four (dispersed) minutes of screen time, making it impossible to get involved with anyone’s story. Why in the world would I give two shits about these three new characters when I was merely teased by their presence? This episode clearly wanted to focus on Ethel, so if that’s the case, it should have dropped a few of the superfluous scenes involving superfluous characters.

I’m not giving up on this season yet, it’s allowed to have a few ups and downs. But if ‘Coven’ taught us anything, it’s that ‘AHS’ is fully capable of starting off with a bang only to fall apart a few episodes in, so I’m also not holding my breath either.

What did you think of ‘Edward Mordrake, Pt 1.’? Do you love Dora the Nanny (Patti LaBelle) as much as I do?