‘It’s the freakiest show’

‘American Horror Story’ returns, this time with killer clowns and musical numbers

Since the premiere of “American Horror Story” in 2011, co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have made sport of pushing their show to the most graphic, terrifying extremes a basic cable channel like FX will allow. (Season Two, “Asylum,” is among the most disturbing, batshit-crazy seasons of television I’ve ever witnessed.) And because the show is an anthology, Murphy and Falchuk get to completely reset each year and imagine brand new ways of scaring the pants off their viewers while engaging with and often subverting the tropes and traditions of campfire storytelling. Season one, “Murder House,” injected new life into the tired haunted house story; “Asylum” followed, exploring the grotesqueries of a mid-century insane asylum (with Nazi doctors, alien abductions and demonic possession thrown in for good measure). Based on fans’ responses, season three, the witch-themed “Coven,” seemed to be less successful. I only watched a few episodes but found its lightness and humor refreshing after the relentless suffering in “Asylum.”

Over the course of the premiere of “American Horror Story: Freak Show,” directed by Murphy and co-written by Murphy and Falchuk, we’re introduced to a handful of circus performers who exploit their own physical abnormalities for entertainment. It’s 1952 in Jupiter, Florida (a real town, terrifying for its name and for the fact that it’s Florida). Just outside of town is an ailing circus, home to one of the country’s last remaining freak shows. The matron of these freaks is Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange, once again overacting her heart out and owning a goofy accent), a legless eastern bloc immigrant who desperately wants to save her circus. To that end, she recruits conjoined twins Bette and Dot Tattler (Sarah Paulson) to join her motley crew, which includes bearded lady Ethel Darling (Kathy Bates), Ethel’s syndactyly-afflicted teenaged son Jimmy (Evan Peters), and Ma Petite, the World’s Smallest Woman (played by actual world’s smallest woman, 20 year-old, 24-inch-tall Jyoti Amge).

Of course, because this is “American Horror Story,” the Siamese Twins are homicidal, having killed their own mother after years of forced isolation. Because this is “American Horror Story,” Ethel is a pimp who forces Jimmy to pleasure repressed housewives with his large, animal-like paws. Because this is “American Horror Story,” you know that at some point in the near future, the Twins and Jimmy’s paw will likely have a very twisted, very graphic sex scene. And because this is “American Horror Story,” you know that the absolutely terrifying, nightmare-inducing, gives-me-goosebumps-just-typing-this-sentence killer clown, Twisty (John Carroll Lynch, buried under a bone-chilling makeup job that’d make Pennywise piss himself), will at some point torture and kill a leading character you’ve grown to love. Probably the world’s smallest woman.

The premiere features plenty of horrific sequences involving violence and foreshadowing of future depravity, but its most shocking moment is an upbeat musical number—a signature Murphy move—that shouldn’t be nearly as successful or moving as it is. Elsa and the freaks close their routine for their only two patrons (a dysfunctional, wealthy mother and son played by Frances Conroy and Finn Wittrock) with a hilariously anachronistic rendition of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars.” It’s at first jarring, then laughable—Elsa dressed like a glam queen from the 70s, covering a song that hasn’t yet been written, presumably chosen by Murphy and Falchuk for its forehead-slapping connection to Elsa’s last name and on-the-nose lyrics (“It’s the freakiest show”). But Lange kills the performance, playing it straight and tragic while Murphy directs the hell out of her. By the end of the song, I was reminded of why I love “American Horror Story” so much: the operatic, kitchen-sink approach to storytelling, the stylized tangents, the over-the-top, go-for-broke emotional peaks and valleys. This is a show incapable of saying “no,” that makes a virtue of gluttonous excess, that refuses to pause for self-assessment, as if derived straight from the ids of its creators.

As a television producer, Murphy is ever the vigilant activist, always determined to shatter taboos, deeply concerned about equal rights and political to a fault. He also lacks discipline and subtlety, and his storytelling is often unbearably preachy and sentimental (see: “Glee,” “Running with Scissors,” “The Normal Heart”). It’s no coincidence that his two most artistically successful projects are “American Horror Story” and “Nip/Tuck;” Murphy’s most in his element when coupling his leftist sentimentalism with loud, transgressive narratives that dare the viewer to be offended. The dares in “Freak Show” come fast and furious; but despite it being first and foremost a horror show tailored for Halloween season, the secret to its success thus far isn’t just its violence and unsavory excesses. The vividly written and realized characters, the care for humanity, the social themes cleverly interwoven through each narrative, all serve to make it one of the most entertaining and memorable series on television.