American Horror Story: Freak Show: “Edward Mordrake (Part 1)”

Halloween is obviously an ideal time for American Horror Story to let the freaks fly. Every season, AHS throws in some strange character to test the limits of the audience, to see how strange they can make things. Usually they go way too overboard. Most of the time, these characters are introduced at Halloween—with the exception of Asylum, introducing Ian McShane’s psychopathic Santa Claus near the more appropriate holiday. Murder House gave us far more of the Rubber Man than we probably ever needed, and last year in Coven we had the unfortunate Minotaur rape that is one of the dumbest stories to go down on this already-crazy show/

So now that it’s Halloween time once again, this seems like the moment when American Horror Story: Freak Show loses all of its good focus, introducing some weirdo that’ll make the show obnoxiously stupid. Yet, here we are at “Edward Mordrake, Part 1,” the first half of Freak Show’s two-part Halloween episode, and this still stands as the best season so far! But with the introduction of Edward Mordrake, there are far more question marks in the air about the future of this season.

Every season the show will also introduce a supernatural element to each story. Monster House had ghosts, Asylum had aliens, and Coven had whatever the hell weird thing they could think of that week. With the first two episodes of Freak Show, all the horrors we had seen were purely natural ones—at least I think it’s safe to assume that Twisty the Clown isn’t a werewolf or anything.

With the introduction of Edward Mordrake—first the myth, then the “man”—we enter into the world of the supernatural that Freak Show has otherwise avoided so far. And yet, as with many things that haven’t worked in past seasons, this season it isn’t half bad.

Mordrake, played by Wes Bentley, is known in the freak show circuit as a legend—a talented noble Englishman who just so happened to have another face that talked to him on the back of his head. After trying to silence the voices and going into a mental institution, Mordrake joined a freak show, where one Halloween night, he killed his entire troupe, then hung himself. For that reason, freak shows never perform on October 31, due to fear that Mordrake will again show up to add to his undead group of freak ghosts.

But the newest additions to the show aren’t necessarily all ghosts. “Edward Mordrake, Part 1” also introduces us to two con artists, Stanley and Maggie—played by Denis O’Hare and Emma Roberts, respectively. The two are looking for freakish things to sell at a very Mutter looking Museum. So, what better place to go than to a freak show? Maggie joins the freak show, pretending to be a fortune teller, and telling Elsa essentially what she wants to hear: that there’s still hope for her career.

This works perfectly into the appearance of Mordrake. While I’m sure that Mordrake actually does exist, since this is American Horror Story (where the weirdest explanation is always the right one), the episode is written in such a way that it’s still unclear if Mordrake is actually there. Only two people see Mordrake: Elsa, who is still high off the optimism Maggie fed her with lies, and Ethel, who has been heavily drinking throughout the entire episode.

To be honest, when Kathy Bates was announced to return for Freak Show, I was horribly disappointed. Yes, Bates is a fantastic actress, but the way she was used in Coven was downright idiotic. Emmy be damned, it was awful! But Bates as Ethel this season has been tremendous, even with that questionable Baltimore accent.

In this episode, we see that Ethel has, at most, a year to live, due to cirrhosis of her liver from heavy drinking. “Edward Mordrake, Part 1” is a sad reminder of how terrible Ethel’s life has been. The scene between Ethel and her doctor at the beginning of the episode is one of the most touching moments in this show’s history, and the glimpse at her past with Dell is heartbreaking. When Mordrake comes to visit Ethel and gets the rundown on her awful life, not even Mordrake can make things worse, and he goes on to find the true victim to take with him.

As always, there’s a lot going on in American Horror Story, with us seeing the problems in the marriage of Dell and Desiree, Dandy’s attempt to be like his new clown friend—hell there’s even Patti LaBelle dressed like Woody Woodpecker! But most interesting has got to be Ette & Dot’s ability to dream events that are to come. We see the dream where they are undergoing surgery to be separated. Of course one wants this to happen—especially since only one of them can survive such an operation. My theory: it’s Stanley pretending to want to marry one of them to get a reward, yet he won’t want them, once the two are split apart.

Although Mondrake and a whole new level of ways to scare this season opens up Freak Show up to the possibility of failing, this season seems to have learned far more from the mistakes of the past. Even with introducing at least two new characters each episode so far, AHS seems to know where these characters are going, how to present them, and has interesting stories for all of them. If it can handle these new elements in a smart way, maybe all the weird ideas can finally work out this season.

Ross Bonaime is a D.C.-based freelance writer and regular contributor to Paste. You can follow him on Twitter.