American Horror Story: Freak Show: “Blood Bath”

But as Elsa goes on to say, the cycle of life will continue, without any of them. So when Elsa kills Ethel when threatened, Elsa not only covers up Ethel’s death, but replaces her with a new freak. As we’re coming to the last few episodes of Freak Show, I’d say this is the first true glimpse we’ve had at how dark Elsa is willing to get for her career. Even though Elsa is slightly upset about losing her best friend, the slightest push from co-conspirator Stanley puts her priorities back in place. And even though we’ve known she fancies herself a star, never before have we seen just her so blatantly describe herself as a savior. But these delusions of grandeur have been set up all season to be what eventually destroys her.

The most obvious of murders, though, is Dandy finally killing his mother, especially around the time she starts questioning his actions. We see that Dandy has always had a darkness to him, killing animals, and even “losing” one of his only friends. Dandy was always headed down this road, he just needed the push from Twisty to get him to this point. Gloria Mott loved her son too much to do what needed to be done, but with the arrival of Regina Ross searching for her recently killed mother, it’s easy to imagine Gabourey Sidibe putting up with much of Dandy’s crap.

Finally, the least important attempted murder is also symbolically the most essential, with the tar and feathering of Penny’s father. Penny understandably wants retribution for her father’s actions, so she gathers the lady freaks, and they kidnap him, and threaten to kill him in a pretty gruesome way. But when Penny chooses to forego murdering her own father, she makes herself better than how people see her. For these so-called “freaks,” we’ve seen the public treat them as such, and there is no hope, no future, no ambition. They can do whatever, and it doesn’t matter. But thanks to the last-minute intervention of Maggie, they realize that they are their actions, not the way they look. We’ve seen these “freaks” do some awful things—especially Dandy—but like Jimmy, or even at times Ethel, the actions create the person, not the outward appearance.

I’m very fascinated to see where Freak Show goes from here. With “Blood Bath,” it killed off two of its best actresses, with Kathy Bates and Frances Conroy. In past seasons, the show has killed these two off, but brought them back in strange ways that were pretty awful. But due to the realism we’ve seen this season, dead is now dead. As we wrap up the final third of this incredibly strong season, fingers are crossed that AHS can keep up the quality for once, and stick the landing at the point where it usually just falters.

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