‘American Horror Story: Freak Show”, episode 2 review: Michael Chiklis’ ‘strong man’ takes charge
Now that the bar has been set fairly high with the “American Horror Story: Freak Show” premiere we are expecting so see good things out of this show all season. It has all of the elements in place for thrills, chills and maybe a little romance (Jimmy Darling is a bit of a Romeo after all).
The strong man: Been dying to see Michael Chiklis? Well he finally showed up tonight with his wife Desiree (Angela Bassett). Seems they were in Chicago three weeks before, where his wife was having sex with gay men trying to help turn them straight, and when her husband found out, he murdered a man. They are desperate for work and beg Elsa to sign them and after some convincing, she does. Ethel and the strong man know each other and she warns him to stay away from Jimmy…. seems that he’s Jimmy’s father. He has a pretty bad anger problem as well as a problem taking orders. He’s already gone against Elsa’s request and has beaten Jimmy senseless in front of the other performers.
Lobster boy’s guilt: He’s never killed anyone before, making this cop first and he’s having a lot of guilt over it. They decide that with the cops sniffing around about the missing detective that they will burn the body, but he pockets the badge. Jimmy tries to warn Elsa about the strong man going against her orders and she defends him saying that they need someone strong at the freak show with a killer on the loose. Jimmy says that she already has someone that takes care of business, that he killed the cop that tried to take away the twins. She is surprised by his admission, but still not convinced that she needs to get rid of him, until she learns that the strong man billed her last and made the singing twins as the headline act (who can actually sing better then Elsa).
Jimmy tries to frame the strong man by hiding the dead detective’s badge in his trailer, but he catches on and hides it in Meep’s trailer instead sending him off to jail and Jimmy’s guilt grows even more. He decides to go to the police station and admit what he’s done to save Meep, but before he can get there, a truck drives up and dumps Meep’s dead body off.
Elsa’s jealousy: She cannot stand that Bette can sing better then she can and play’s on Dot’s insecurities about not being able to sing at all. Elsa knows that Dot is a killer and planting the seed of doubts about her is just the beginning.
Dandy the baby: His mother is keeping her concerns quiet even though she knows that Dandy is getting out of control and killing cats. Dandy wants to join the freak show, but is denied because he doesn’t have anything physical to show as his “freakiness”. He begs them them to look at his inner freak, but they won’t and he’s broken hearted. When Dandy meets Twisty the clown he is elated, especially when he goes into Twisty’s bag and sees something he’s not supposed to. He follows Twisty back to where he’s keeping the kids hostage and watches as they try to escape. Instead of helping them, he brings the kids back to Twisty’s bus of horror.
As fans of “American Horror Story” we have certainly been a little spoiled with two episodes that have run 90 minutes each. Kurt Sutter must have had dinner with Ryan Murphy and told him that he can do whatever he wants when it comes to run time. Episode grade: B+
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