WARNING: Full Spoilers Ahead
This week’s episode of “American Horror Story” was a vast improvement from last week’s. Though I will say it still feels utterly scattered and stuffed to the brim with plot. It’s hard to feel emotionally connected to any plotline or character arc when there are so many. But there were some solid individual scenes in “Blood Bath” and some really decent performances.
I really enjoyed the last stand between Elsa and Ethel, or as I am now calling it, The Battle of the Accents. Two wonderful actresses having a very dramatic moment together. It was pure acting and done very well. I didn’t really care about the things being said or the directionality of the conversation (I find it hard to believe Ethel would believe Elsa killed Ma Petite no matter what she overheard last week, and I find it even harder to believe that she would decide to kill Elsa), but the drama that these two award winning actresses were able to conjure was supreme.
I didn’t have much of an emotional response to Ethel’s death. In fact I was slightly annoyed because all it did was cause Jimmy to drink and cry for 40 minutes. So. Much. Awkward. Crying. I’m not saying he should be a machine and suck it up or anything, but wow, they really got their mileage out of his contrived sobs. I’m not sure why I’ve loved Peters so much in the past. This season feels like he’s never acted before in his life. Between his drunken ramblings, his overdramatic yelling, and his childlike weeping…I just can’t with him anymore.
One of the great scenes this week was the ladies retribution on Penny “The Great Lizard Girl’s” father. When all the lady “freaks” decide no more!…they kidnap Penny’s father, tar and feather him and intend on killing him (only after cutting his dick off… I freaking love Desiree). But Penny has a really powerful moment, deciding to let him live. And her speech to him is simply rad. The entire scene was really strong, from the horror to the drama to the triumph.
The rest of the episode dealt quite a bit with Dandy and his mother. Those of you who read my reviews know that I love Dandy more than anything. I think Wittrock has completely surprised us all this season. I feel confident in saying that no one could have expected how overwhelmingly awesome he would become throughout the season from the first episode. And to be paired with Frances Conroy, wow. I love that pair. I was happy to get more of her in “Blood Bath.” We learned her past, including her past sins and how they “contributed” to Dandy’s psychopathy. But her greatest contribution to the episode, and I guess really the entire season, is how she highlights Dandy’s illness by simply being around him. Conroy is such a phenomenal actress she barely needs to say a word to essentially blast a spotlight on Wittrock’s character. Without her, his crazy would be less sociopathic and less interesting. This point is proven in a very visceral way this week when he kills her and literally bathes in her blood (I was pretty happy about clever episode title being both metaphorical and literal). Basically, Dandy would have been nothing in “Blood Bath” without his mother to prop him up as a suitable psychopath.
All in all, I didn’t hate this episode. I didn’t love it. It definitely didn’t leave a lasting impact, even with all the major deaths. As I mentioned above, there were some great performances and individual scenes. At this point it feels useless to complain about the hurried storylines and over-packed episodes because that’s just how “AHS” is, has always been, and will probably always be. With only a few episodes left, I will say that as annoyed as I get with the show, it tries something that nothing else tries. It doesn’t always succeed and often times it makes a heaping mess of itself. But it’s hard to truly hate a show that is doing something no other show has the balls to do. (I don’t quite know what that something is, but we all know it’s there).
A few stray thoughts on the episode:
It’s weird that we only heard the voice of Dandy’s therapist. I’m curious to see if that will be one of the many tie-ins we have been teased with, or if it was just a stylistic choice.
The Axeman Returneth! It was fun to see that pairing again and makes you wonder if the theory about all the seasons being connected because the characters are stuck in a looped sort of hell is true.
I’m slightly shocked Stanley has stuck around. The second word travels about the tiny new oddity soaking in formaldehyde at a museum, he’s going to be the prime suspect. I would have thought he’d move on to new things by now. The fact that he’s still stringing Elsa along with that Hollywood bullshit, and the fact that she still believes it is painful.
Before Ethel died she mentioned to Elsa that she hid the twins away in a safe place. Ethel’s dead now. Let’s hope she told someone else where she put them. Or actually let’s not hope for that because it might make for a fun storyline.
How did you like “Blood Bath?” Does Gabourey Sidibe annoy anyone else or is that just me?
