FULL SPOILERS AHEAD

Holy shit, those were a tense final 10 minutes.

‘Pink Cupcakes’ is every horrifying thing that “AHS” has ever attempted, all rolled up into 46 minutes. This episode was all sorts of crazy both in story and narrative. I feel like Ryan Murphy has completely given up on any sort of logical narrative storytelling. This episode went from hyper-real flash forwards (fantasies? Delusions? Who knows? The show didn’t make it clear), to Jimmy crying and sexing, meanwhile Stanley’s working his con-man magic to convince Elsa, Dot, and Bette that he can make them all television stars, Desiree finds out she’s 100% female, Dell is 100% gay and super possessive over his month-long crush on hustler Andy (Matt Bomer), and Dandy gets sent to his room for killing the maid.

This week more than any other week felt so disjointed, although I think I say that in every review. Each individual storyline was really entertaining and unique, but there are simply too many of them. It’s too jumbled, too busy. Like a gaudy outfit.

Let’s start with Stanley and the subsequent, entirely confusing, flash forwards. The episode opens at the oddities museum from a few weeks back, Stanley and Maggie are there for the grand reveal of their contribution to the museum, a dead and pickled “seal boy” (i.e., handsome-faced Paul). So I’m like…well shit. That was a jump from last week. Then Emma Roberts’ voice breaks through bringing us to reality where she and Stanley are discussing his plans to murder and sell the freaks to the museum. Seal Boy is safe…for now. This same surreal narrative tactic is used in a much more detailed and unnerving way later in the episode with Dot and Bette (resulting in one hell of a disturbing image: Dot laying in bed still connected to a dead and rotting Bette). When I refer to the flash forwards as confusing, I’m not saying the content is confusing, but rather the way they are utilized. There is no reason to believe that these are fantasies or delusions of Stanley’s. They are all too real, which leads me to believe they are possible outcomes for these freak show members. Regardless of whatever those were, they provoked very real moments of anxiety.

On to The Jimmy-Desiree-Dell-Andy part of the episode. Jimmy and Desiree…what the hell, guys? It’s incredibly clear the creators needed a reason for Desiree to visit the doctor so they throw a distraught Jimmy at her and make us watch a totally out of the blue hook-up between the two. That is until his lobster hands cause some serious bleeding. Long story short, Desiree finds out she is actually 100% female and the bleeding was a miscarriage. And that “ding-a-ling”? Just a distended clitoris. (Wow, this got real, real fast). Anyway, she’s leaving Dell because it turns out he’s got the hots for a local hustler, among a myriad of other reasons. Does Dell want her to leave despite the fact he does not like women? Hell no. So, you know…that makes a ton of sense. Apparently strongmen just need to be angry and irrational all the time.

And now, for the real coup. Dandy. I’ve been saying it for weeks, you guys: Dandy is my favorite character. He’s complex and unapologetically insane. Yes he is whiney and insolent and we all hate him…but all those emotions we feel toward him are exactly what we should be feeling toward him. And this episode proves that more than any other one. After Dandy has a super-duper underwear workout Patrick Bateman moment in either a complete rip off or utter homage to “American Psycho” he heads out and picks up Andy for a night out in Twisty’s trailer. A night filled with absolute…complete…horror.

We were warned. We’ve been told for a few weeks now that Matt Bomer’s scene would be the most disturbing thing the show has ever done and they were not kidding. There’s this pure moment of psychosexual tension right before the murder of Bomer’s character that had my stomach in knots. But that was nothing compared to what would follow. In fact, the whole “unsuccessful murder attempt” itself wasn’t as disturbing as the aftermath: the slow-dying Andy, the one-armed pleading, and the unsophisticated sawing sounds. It was bonkers, for lack of a better word.

Elsa continues to be, well, Elsa. She’s delusional and will do anything for fame. Speaking of fame. The show stepped outside of its boundary of using anachronistic music for performances and used Bowie’s “Fame” in a montage of Elsa preparing herself for…fame. I know. I can’t handle the laziness either. Oh! Speaking of laziness, Elsa sang “Life on Mars” again. So there’s that. The only interesting thing she did this episode was turn the twins over to Dandy as playthings.

There was a lot to love in this episode. Dandy’s brutal quest to become the perfect killing machine and his mother’s priceless reactions to everything he does. Matt Bomer was amazing. He played his role to perfection—really an unforgettable couple of minutes in the bar with Dell. And although the flash forwards were narratively confusing and a bit frustrating once they were logistically unrealized, they were dark as hell and evoked a lot of emotions. But as usual, Murphy stuffed too much into the episode. Jimmy’s scenes were wholly disappointing, laughable at best. Maggie’s such a bore, and it felt as if certain storylines were dropped in favor of others. Something’s happening and then oh! shiny object. Let’s move on to something else. And I’m not going to lie, Gabourey Sidibe’s role felt like a desperate and random attempt at keeping her in the “AHS” family.

What did you think of ‘Pink Cupcakes’? Is anyone enjoying Dandy yet?