AHS Freak Show Episode 3: Edward Mordrake Part 1

When we last left the Freak Show folks, a string of unsolved murders was threatening the town of Jupiter, Jimmy was trying to convince the community that he and his friends were normal, and Desiree had arrived from Chicago accompanied by her husband and her boobs. Dell the strongman was also revealed to be Jimmy's father, but unbeknownst to Jimmy, his attempt to frame his dickish daddy for murder was doomed to fail. Meep the Geek met a gruesome end, we discovered that Dot and Bette are not equally talented, and Dandy and Twisty became BFFs. No big deal. 

Tonight's episode introduced the remainder of the main characters (there sure are a lot) and brought the show to an even darker place than it was before. Coincidence that Halloween is just around the corner? Nah. Here's where we are after Episode 3...

Deformities 'R' Us

Mrs. Hennings leads a tour group around the American Morbidity Museum, where deformities are celebrated and Denis O'Hare and Emma Roberts hope to sell a specimen. The father and daughter pose as a doctor and assistant and try valiantly to make some money off of a fetal goat passed off as a baby Sasquatch (really?). Though the museum folks know the pair are frauds, Mrs. Hennings challenges them to bring her something authentic and says she will pay a hefty price to boost her ailing business. She points out some of the oddities of the facility, including the liver of famed conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker which is worth $5,000. Maggie and Stanley then head off to find a freak show with similar potential treasures. 

Maggie arrives at the Cabinet of Curiosities and Jimmy is smitten right away as "Esmeralda" tells him she's a fortune teller who needs a job. Elsa is suspicious but Esmeralda cleverly surveys Elsa's tent to gather her fortune telling information. She looks into her crystal ball and "sees" Elsa's past. Elsa had wanted to be a star but another woman stole her career. Esmeralda "hears" Elsa's song and says Elsa will sing it in the future to rounds of thunderous applause. She also says a dapper man will assist in making Elsa a star she is supposed to be. Well, this is exactly what Elsa wants to hear. She's hired. All is going according to plan, and when Esmeralda runs into Bette and Dot and reports back to her father, he thinks they've hit the jackpot. Bette and Dot (Dot especially) are not pleased to meet this young, pretty, normal looking girl. I sense a love triangle...or square...in the works. 

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Give It To Me Straight

Poor Canadian Dr. Evil Ethel is having some health problems. She visits a doctor who diagnoses her with cirrhosis of the liver and gives her 6 months to a year to live. He encourages her to "keep meat to a minimum" and stay away from alcohol. The bearded woman cries, not because she is going to die, but because this man is the first doctor to ever treat her with respect. She then heads back to the freak show and downs a drink. Jimmy calls her on it and asks why she's been so on edge since Dell arrived. Ethel shoots back at him, saying the show "needed a man" and Jimmy was now free to go. Awwww. She's pushing him away before she becomes deathly ill, but I think we all know he's not going anywhere.

Ethel sits outside drinking and contemplating and she hears Dell storming out of his trailer after an argument with Hootie McBoobs, Ethel tells him she's dying and needs him to look after Jimmy...but not tell Jimmy he's Jimmy's dad. Dell wonders what it would have been like to see Jimmy grow up and asks Ethel what their son liked to be for Halloween as a kid. Ethel tells him Jimmy only wanted to be a soldier...and it seems Dell has a soft side after all. 

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Evil Has A Face

Dot and Bette are appalled when they see the rest of their colleagues partying for Halloween. They scold the other "freaks," stating the celebration is disrespectful to Meep. The twins suggest they should dedicate the day's show to him instead. Ethel walks in and shuts this down immediately. We learn that freak shows do not perform on Halloween due to a superstition of Edward Mordrake.  He was a 19th century nobleman born with an evil face on the back of his head that whispered to him constantly. Edward eventually went mad and was committed to an institution. He escaped one night and ended up at a freak show (billed as "The Two-Faced Prince") but he was not satisfied in his new home. One Halloween night he murdered everyone in his troupe and then hung himself...legend has it, if a freak show performs a Halloween show, the spirit of Edward Mordrake would be summoned. "Once he's appears, he never leaves alone. That whispering face will choose one more freak to take with him back to hell." 

Dot, in particular, could care less about Edward Mordrake and at least wants to get in a rehearsal. Elsa is on board because she's eager for dapper dude to arrive and jump start her career. Dot gets very mouthy and refers to the twins as the headliners and stars of the show. Elsa is pisssssssed and tells Dot and Bette to go to their room or she will leave them in the swamp, and the girls reluctantly retreat. Wasting no time, Elsa rehearses Lana Del Rey's Gods and Monsters" and thereby summons Mr. Mordrake. 

Edward approaches Ethel, who pleads with him to let her stay. He is a very proper, very polite, and very well spoken man. Edward sits down with Ethel and asks her to tell him her story. He cautions her: "You must speak candidly. If you lie...it will know." We then see a flashback of Ethel's initial act as the bearded lady. She put on one hell of a show and caught the eye of Dell the strongman. Dell became her manager and pulled her out of the three ring circus she had been so successful in and essentially ruined her career. The two of them were penniless at that point, so Dell sold tickets to witness Jimmy's birth and even offered to let people hold the "freak baby" for a price. Ethel says she's ready to go with Edward, believing she deserves to go to Hell because of how Jimmy came into the world. Edward thanks Ethel for her honesty...we hear the evil face whisper "not the one"....and he disappears. 

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Fine And Dandy

For starters, Patti LaBelle does one hell of a Woody Woodpecker impression. She and Gloria have put together some Halloween fun (goodness knows we don't want a boring Halloween) complete with decorations, food, and costumes. Unfortunately for Gloria, she gives Dandy a Howdy Doody costume and he goes ape shit because that's not what he wanted. The twerp goes back to his room and makes a clown outfit which greatly pales in comparison to Twisty's ensemble.

Speaking of Twisty, the creepy ass clown spends Halloween following around the tick-or-treaters (because, you know, he blends right in), and he takes an interest in one girl in particular. Little Jessie is afraid of clowns so her asshole brother dresses up as one and terrorizes her all day. Well, Twisty shows up at the house and kidnaps asshole brother...and I'm definitely amused by this. 

Dandy visits Twisty's captives in the woods and proceeds to scare the shit out of them. He hears Twisty arrive with the asshole brother and dashes outside, hoping for more Halloween fun. However...all we get is "To Be Continued."

I have to wonder how long Twisty is going to put up with Dandy. I was entertained by him at first but now he just annoys me and I'm hoping Twisty will take him out or at least cage him up. I'm also wondering what Twisty's kill vs. kidnap criteria is. He's killed a bunch of people, but his captives confuse me. The girl was being horny with her boyfriend (dead), the asshole brother is an asshole (family not dead), and I have no idea what the boy had going before he was taken (parents both dead). I'm hoping we get some sort of clarification on that soon...

The next episode is part 2 of the Halloween extravaganza. One of the freak show inhabitants will depart with Edward Mordrake but which one will it be? Clearly he is not interested in Ethel, but her story regarding Dell's treatment of her and her baby might have sealed Dell's fate. Elsa also remains a contender since she is the selfish one who summoned Edward to begin with. We know he won't take Dot and Bette because Ryan Murphy loooooves Sarah Paulson, but it has to be one of the main characters, right? We will find out for sure before Halloween passes us by in the coming week, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that part 2 deliverers the same way the Halloween episodes deliver every year. 

TWD Season 5 Episode 2: Strangers

After last week's phenomenal season premiere we found the majority of the group reunited and on the road again (except, you know, for Beth). Terminus was no more, the cannibals were either killed or scattered, and Carol became the baddest bitch on television. While viewers were very satisfied with the season 5 kick-off, we knew the smiles and tears of joy wouldn't last long. Yup, episode 2 splits portions of the group up again....as well as portions of people themselves. Here's where we are after "Strangers."

Love Is In The Air

When the episode opens Glenn and Maggie are smooching, Bob and Sasha are smooching, Rick and his children are bonding, and Stupid Tara (she has some work to do for me to remove the Stupid) is looking around forlorn. Kind of sucks when you side with an evil leader and all of your loved ones die, doesn't it? Rick is beyond welcoming and she offers him a fist bump in return. All is forgiven. 

Tyreese and Carol are filling water bottles and getting their stories straight. Tyreese says the others know that Carol killed David and Karen...but also wants them to know that it's okay. He has no desire to talk about Mika and Lizzie though. He just wants to forget it. When the duo gets back to camp, Rick clears the air with Carol. He knows he owes her big time, and instead of asking her to rejoin the group, he asks her if the group can join her. Awwww. Carol and Daryl have some catching up to do as well, but Carol's current stance is "I don't want to talk about it. I can't. I just need to forget it." Daryl doesn't pry, but he doesn't really get a chance to because they get the feeling they are being watched. After Carol and Daryl both stand for a few seconds with suspicious looks on their faces....they decide nothing is out there and call it a night.  

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The Lord Is My Shepherd

As the group begins to travel out of the woods, they hear screams and head to the rescue (which is against most of their better judgement). They come across a priest fending off Walkers from the top of a rock. Father Gabriel has no weapons on him. The word of God is all the protection he needs - after all, he prayed for help and help arrived. Everyone is suspicious (duh), so Rick asks him the 3 questions...and Gabriel claims to have never killed any Walkers or people. "The Lord abhors violence." Ha! He does know there's a zombie apocalypse happening around him, right? The Lord must be doing a LOT of abhorring. The priest does claim to be a sinner, but he says he confesses his sins to God and not strangers.

The group follows Father Gabriel to his church where a well timed canned food drive had kept the priest stocked for quite some time. Rick and company want to examine the church to make sure they aren't being lead into a trip. Carol finds notebooks of written entries on the various books of The Old Testament. Daryl passes by a picture of The Last Supper. Glenn passes by a quote about not giving up. Michonne looks at religious drawings done by children long gone from the parish. The place is clear and there's a broken bus out back that might be easily fixed. Too good to be true? Probably.

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We Need Supplies 

Gabriel's canned goods have started to run low. He knows of a place near by with a ton of food, but it's "overrun" by a dozen Walkers. Heh. That's nothing for this group. So Rick, Bob, Sasha, Michonne and a very reluctant Gabriel embark on a food journey, but not before Rick tells Carl he doesn't trust the priest and they are not safe. "It only takes one second and it's over. Never let your guard down." Poor Carl. He just wants to hang out with his baby sister and sleep with a roof over his head...and he'd probably be over the moon with a tub of pudding right about now.

The priest takes them to a food bank with some plumbing issues. Bob says it best as they all look down at the swampy basement: "If a sewer could puke, this is what it'd smell like." There are Walkers roaming through the water and they've been down there so long, they look like Davy Jones' crew. Gross. Rick, Michonne, Sasha and Bob wade through the water and take out the Walkers while Gabriel cries off to the side after seeing a zombie church lady who he apparently knew.  Bob has a clooooose call, but in the end they find the mother-load of food bank supplies and head back to the church. 

Upon arrival, Carl points out some scratches and knife marks on the side of the building. There's also a carved message that says "You'll burn for this." Carl still wants to give Father Gabriel the benefit of the doubt...but Rick knows this priest is shady. Did Gabriel lock his followers out of the church for his own survival? Did his congregation scratch away at the doors and windows as they were eaten by or became Walkers? He hasn't mentioned anything about anyone else living in the church with him. I have to wonder if Gabriel had been looking out for number 1 when the apocalypse hit and never looked back. Maybe these are the sins he won't confess to strangers. 

I guess we can worry about all that stuff later, because a feast is in order following the slimy Walker battle. The group even drinks the communion wine. Abraham toasts to the survivors but follows it up with a lengthy and rousing (and kind of awesome) speech about going to Washington and helping the world get back to normal. Eugene says they will all be safe there and Judith seems to agree via some gargles. Rick is on board with heading to Washington and it seems we finally have a plan beyond "let's not die, mmkay?" 

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Food For All

The group disperses for post-dinner activities ranging from taking turns holding the baby (Sasha) to threatening Gabriel's life for the safety of the group (Rick). Tara comes clean and tells Maggie that she was part of the group that attacked the prison...and you know...she was standing right there when The Governor slowly decapitated Maggie's father. Maggie handles it well, and I realize that we're 50 minutes into the episode and no one has mentioned Beth. You'd think that remembering Hershel might also trigger some thoughts for Maggie about her missing sister. 

Daryl finds Carol out by the abandoned car they came across earlier in the day while they were filling water jugs. Is she fixin' to leave? Doesn't matter. A car that greatly resembles the car that took Beth zooms by and Daryl recognizes it...which means he remembers Beth...which means other people might also remember she's missing at some point. Too much to hope? Daryl and Carol take off in the abandoned car without so much as a "hey guys we're going to run an errand."

The final post-dinner event comes from Bob, who is inexplicably standing outside by himself looking at the church. He leans against a tree and starts to cry...and then someone knocks his ass out. When he wakes up, Bob is tied up and surrounded by Gareth and the remaining Terminus survivors, which includes the douchebag that Tyreese claimed he killed last week. Grrr. Gareth explains that they have to do what they need to do to survive now that Bob's group took away their home. He says they need to hunt and nothing that happens to Bob is personal. "If it makes you feel any better - you taste much better than we thought you would." Yup, Bob is now missing half of his leg and the Terminus group is chowing down.

Mmmm...Bob's leg.

The episode ends there and so does the brief happiness our favorite characters were sharing. Carol and Daryl are now "missing" along with a portion of Bob, Gabriel probably has some shady tricks up his priest-ly sleeve, Tyreese clearly has yet to get his shit together, and the Terminus survivors are on the prowl. None of this is good. I have to wonder why Bob was crying though...at first I thought he was just optimistic about the trip to Washington and the potential to cure the world, but now I'm thinking he was bitten in the water during the food bank raid and just didn't tell anyone. That would certainly be a setback for the folks eating him, but we'll have to wait and see. Will the Terminus camp attack the church? Will Daryl and Carol find Beth? Will there be one hell of a love triangle when they do? And WHO is this Father Gabriel? I will be looking forward to the answers to any of these questions in the next episode. 

  

AHS Freak Show Episode 2: Massacres and Matinees

Last week's season premiere of American Horror Story introduced us to Fraulein Elsa and her freak show. We saw many familiar faces (though some of them were doubled, bearded, and painted), and we established that the newest face of Twisty the Clown was downright terrifying. The biggest surprise though...is the actor behind Twisty. For those of you who aren't sure if you can watch the rest of the season based on your clown fears, this is the guy playing the part. I mean, he looks like he should be hosting Scrabble nights with milk and cookies followed by a relaxing chapter from "Chicken Soup For the (fill in the blank) Soul." I feel a little better now. I'll just have to imagine his Fargo accent when he appears on screen.

Anyway, episode 2 brought in some strange and mysterious new characters as well as some surprising interactions. We also lost a freak show performer tonight and saw the beginning of a feud among the freaks. Here's where we are after Massacres and Matinees.

Try Not To Look Guilty
The episode opens with the freak show regulars having a quiet meal under the tent. Jimmy and his webbed hands kills the mood when he switches the radio over to a panicked voice recapping the 4 unsolved murders and missing child from the town of Jupiter. The announcer also broadcasts the search details for the missing detective...who our friends literally ripped apart last week. A car pulls up immediately with two other detectives who want to search the grounds. Elsa offers them a ticket to the show instead, but she is informed that the police are enforcing a curfew until the murderer is caught.  Bummer.

Jimmy is seriously on edge. He snaps at his comrades and then enlists them to dig up the detective's body parts to burn them. They come across his badge as well, which Jimmy puts in his pocket. He apologizes to his friends and explains that his frustration comes from people not giving them a chance. Jimmy thinks that if the locals just get to know them, they wouldn't be "freaks" and alienated the way they are now.
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Don't Care How, I Want It Now.
Dandy sits across from his mother in their very fancy dining room. It's just the two of them and yet they sit at either end of a very long table. I imagine there's distance between them often even though they really only have each other....and Patti LaBelle. She's their maid, Nora. She serves snails for dinner which Dandy finds incredibly boring, and rightly so - dude drinks his alcohol via a crystal baby bottle, nipple and all. Good God. If that's not thought provoking, I don't know what is.

Momma Gloria dotes on him and it's unnerving. She wants him to be married, she wants him to have a baby, and she (most of all) wants him to be less bored. He calls all of the girls Gloria has introduced him to "smelly cows" and says babies are "more boring than anything." Anything? He wants to be a thespian. Oh, and he's bored. He leaves the room to go be bored somewhere else. Nora then notifies Gloria that she found some cat parts on the property, but Gloria says Dandy nothing to do with it...and this sounds like this is a recurring act of non-boredom.

You know what else is REALLY not boring? Twisty the Clown. Gloria comes across him walking down the open road. She rolls down her car window and asks if he does private parties for children. Seriously? She's not afraid of him? How are people not alarmed by his appearance? Gloria wants Twisty to cheer up her son and offers to pay him handsomely. Well, Twisty had just come from murdering a toy store owner and his clerk, so he knows a thing or two about cheery environments.

Dandy, in the meantime, has traveled back to the freak show to tell Jimmy that he wants to be a part of it. Dandy thinks this is where he belongs and makes a big dramatic case to join the show. He asks Jimmy to take a chance on him but Jimmy sends him home, telling Dandy to be thankful for what he's got...

What Dandy's got now is a dirty, creepy ass clown. Twisty is in his house and he has refrained from killing Gloria and Nora, which I find very interesting.  Dandy offers up all of his toys to the clown to begin some entertainment, and Twisty seems excited to perform....but then he catches Dandy going through his bag. He hits Dandy over the head, grabs his bag, and peaces out.

Dandy comes to pretty quickly though and follows Twisty into the woods, where the clown's young captives are trying to figure out an escape plan. Twisty pulls out a toy robot from the now very bloody toy store, but his audience is not amused. I guess plan B is whipping out the head of the toy store clerk (shock value?) which causes screams and gives the girl the opportunity to whack Twisty in the face with a large piece of wood. Both captives run like hell...but our fearless young lady runs right into Dandy who brings her back to the clown.  Twisty himself catches the boy quickly, so the two of them are back to being screwed.
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Yes. She Has 3 Boobs. 
Angela Bassett's character Desiree arrives with her strongman husband Dell Toledo (played by Michael Chiklis). Desiree has 3 boobs. A trio of titties. A bevy of breasts. A horde of hooters. A jungle of jugs. A collection of coconuts. A mixture of mammies. A trifecta of tatas. She has. 3 boobs. My brain can't quite get past the 3 breasted woman from Total Recall, but at least Angela Bassett is way hotter. Desiree also has a penis (bonus!) and calls herself a full blown hermaphrodite.

Anyway, Dell Toledo is answering an add Elsa placed when she was trying to find the showstopper that ended up being Dot and Bette. Apparently the happy couple got themselves into some trouble in Chicago recently when Desiree was helping some poor kid pop his cherry....and Dell walked in and snapped his neck. On the road again.

Elsa informs them that the position has been filled but Dell begs for a chance. She reluctantly welcomes the strange couple to her family. The bearded Ethel, however, is not so welcoming. She waits for Chesty McBreast to leave the trailer and takes the opportunity to confront Dell...in her weird accent. I mean, where the hell is she supposed to be from? Her voice is some combination of Canadian and Dr. Evil. Anyway, Ethel warns Dell to stay away from Jimmy. Apparently Dell is Jimmy's father and always believed Jimmy was a mistake. Dell says he wants nothing to do with him. Dell is kind of a dick.
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Sing Out Louise! (Major points for those who get that reference).
It's audition time under the big top.  Bette butchers a song completely, but Elsa doesn't seemed concerned about whether the twins are good at anything. They have two heads and are her opening act which is good enough. Dot, however, does have a hidden talent. After Jimmy encourages her to sing just to him, Dot croons "Dream a Little Dream" and we have ourselves an act.  

Jimmy is inspired at this point. He's ready to make the world see that freaks are people too, so he takes a group of them to a nearby diner hoping for a normal lunch experience. Several customers either leave or make comments, but the initial sit-down goes okay. However, Dell happens to be passing by while he is hanging flyers and completely ruins everything. He yells at them, causing an uproar and scaring the diner's owner and staff. So much for "if they just get to know us." Dell takes Jimmy outside and beats him up while the rest of the freaks watch, and I'm pretty sure he just made some powerful enemies. Dell is definitely a dick.

Jimmy goes to Elsa and tells her about the detective. He says he has a plan to frame Dell for the detective's disappearance by planting the badge in Dell's trailer. Dell, meanwhile, has staged a 3pm matinee and essentially thinks he's running the show. He introduces Meep the Geek, who promptly bites the head off a baby chick, and then we get straight to the two-headed song and dance act. Dot sing's Fiona Apple's "Criminal," which is extraordinary in itself given the timeline here is decades before the song actually came out. Bette tries to join in where she can but it's Dot who draws the applause...which puts a sad face on the slow and usually smiley twin.

The two other detectives arrive once more, acting on "an anonymous tip" to search the home of Dell Toledo. They find nothing in Dell's trailer and start to search everywhere. Dell had Jimmy's number from the start, and he planted the badge under Meep's bed. The detectives take Meep to the police station and throw him in a room of criminals who believe he's the serial killer. The next time we see Meep is when a couple of guys drop his dead body from a truck at the freak show entrance.
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The episode ends there and I already hate Dell Toledo. His wife is awesome, but his treatment of Dr. Canadian Evil Ethel and Jimmy pissed me off immediately, and poor Meep's only crime was to frequently bite the heads off of animals. I'm not sure how Jimmy is going to deal with all of this. His social experiment failed, his badge planting plan failed, and a friend of his died in the process. God knows what he'll do when he finds out that Dell is his daddy.

Speaking of boys without a daddy, Dandy is one warped dude. I can only imagine he will partner up with Twisty now (his very own clown) and I'd say the girl's days are limited. The little boy is probably still rescue-worthy, but who knows if other captives will join him in the upcoming episodes. Will Twisty and Dandy invade the freak show? Will anyone put Dell in his place? Will Desiree grow a 4th boob? Because that would be awesome. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks, but we've definitely got one hell of a fight brewing.

TWD Season 5 Premiere: No Sanctuary

The new season of The Walking Dead kicked off with a bang (literally) and we saw some serious close calls tonight. When we last left the group, Tyreese was continuing the journey with Carol and baby Judith, Beth was nowhere to be found, and everyone else who was still alive was locked in a train car at Terminus...which, by the way, was not a safe haven for all. Several mysteries from last season's finale were solved, but the road ahead continues to be treacherous for our beloved characters. Here's where we are after the premiere: 

Terminus Then

We see a flashback of Gareth and other cannibals Terminus inhabitants locked away in a train car, much like our favorites were locked in at the end of season 4. Screams of terror are heard outside and we jump to the "now."

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Runaway Train

Rick and company are using all of their resources to make weapons and defenses - belts, zippers, pieces of wood from the train car, and so on. They are ready to fight the Terminus douchebags approaching the cars, but the douchebags are smarter than we thought. They drop a can of tear gas into the car from above and then storm in to grab Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Bob, and four other poor suckers out of a nearby car. These captives are dragged to a room and bent over a trough while the most recent victim is being butchered on a table close by. This is not good. Two of the butchers suit up and make their way to the end of the trough where the 4 other dudes are waiting (seriously, when it's 4 favorite characters and 4 extras, you know who's dying first). One butcher clobbers dude #1 over the head and the other slits his throat and dumps him forward. The other 3 extras meet their end that way as well. By the time the killers approach Glenn, there is a ton of blood gathering in front of him. 

Gareth enters and Bob tries to reason with him. He says they can work through this (this totally reminds me of Rick's conversation with The Governor at the prison), but Gareth is only interested in the bag Rick buried in the woods. He holds a knife tip to Bob's face and I'm starting to really hate him. Rick names all of the weapons hidden in that bag, including a machete, and says "that's what I'm gonna use to kill you."

The conversation is interrupted by the sound of an explosion. Gareth goes off to investigate and tells the butchers to stay back with the fresh meat. Rick, who has been using a sharp sliver of the train car to undo the ties on his wrists, takes the opportunity to stab the shit out of the 2 butchers. He then frees Glenn, Bob, and Daryl as well as the captives still in the train car. YES!!!

Outside, Mary the bbq queen is having an "oh shit" moment as she realizes the defenses are down and the explosion allowed an army of Walkers into the compound. It's feeding time, flames be damned, and they are chewing the hell out of everybody. Rick's entire group makes it out of the compound safely, and they retreat to the woods to recover the bag of weapons. 

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All Roads Lead To Terminus

Carol, Tyreese and Baby Judith continue to make their way to what they hope will be a sanctuary, but Carol informs Tyreese that she plans to only drop him and the baby off. She's not going to stay. A Walker approaches then and Tyreese chickens out of killing it. Carol doesn't have a ton of time to scold him because a whole hoard is on its way, drawn to the sound of gunfire or something like it nearby. 

The trio takes another route and comes upon a Terminus douchebag near a cabin. He's preparing to set off fireworks (to draw the Walkers away from the compound) and talking shit about Michonne and Carl on a walkie talkie.  Carol puts a gun on him, confiscates the walkie talkie, and ties him up in the cabin. She leaves "I don't want to kill nobody" Tyreese with the hostage and baby to go be a badass and approach Terminus. 

Tyreese lays Judith down in an empty cooler and chats with the hostage. The douchebag tells calls Tyreese one of the good guys, saying "saving a baby is like saving an anchor when you're without a boat in the middle of the ocean." He then says that the good guys will be the ones that die today. He encourages Tyreese to take the baby, take his car, and get the hell out of there. Tyreese gets distracted by noises from the compound and approaching Walkers and completely misses the hostage grabbing Judith. Really Tyreese? The douchebag threatens to break Judith's neck and tells Tyreese to go outside, which he does. The hostage hears the sounds of the Walkers suddenly stop, approaches the door, and gets pummeled by Tyreese. Dude is dead pretty quickly. 

Meanwhile Carol uses the ole zombie blood and guts bath to travel with the Walkers unnoticed. She reaches the fence, sees Rick, Daryl, Glenn and Bob being dragged into the butcher's warehouse, and she knows she has to act. With countless Walkers ready to invade, Carol shoots and blows up a massive gas tank which takes out the Terminus fences and allows the Walkers to overrun the compound. Carol is one bad bitch. And I love her. Love. Her. 

Carol is still donning the zombie guts poncho and makes her way into Terminus around the same time Rick and company are executing their escape. She finds a room of weapons and teddy bears and also comes across that creepy room with candles and the names and belongings of people we assume have been barbecued at some point. We're reminded that the walls are painted with words like "NEVER AGAIN. NEVER TRUST. WE FIRST." The moment of observation is interrupted by bbq Mary, who makes a failed attempt to disarm Carol. Mary explains that Terminus was once a true survivor sanctuary before a group of bad people invaded and took it over (hence the flashback we got at the beginning of the episode). "They raped and they killed and they laughed over weeks, but we got out, and we fought and we heard the message: You're the butcher or you're the cattle." Carol doesn't care. She asks where her friends are...and shoots bbq Mary in the leg when she doesn't respond. Mary reiterates that Terminus now is what Terminus had to become, and proudly says "and we're still here." Carol responds "You're not here and neither am I." She then promptly lets the Walkers in the room and continues her journey to find the group.

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For Real. Carol Is Awesome. 

Rick starts doling out the weapons and wants the group to go back into Terminus and take out any survivors. No one is on board with this plan and luckily Carol shows up as the perfect distraction. Daryl's reaction to seeing her is priceless. So emotional. Rick realizes Carol single-handedly saved their asses and before he can really thank her, she leads him and the rest of the group to the cabin....where they are reunited with Tyreese and Judith! I just about ugly cried. Tyreese tells Carol that he had to kill the hostage (I guess we're all supposed to be proud of him?) and the group collectively decides they need to head to Washington D.C. to get Eugene where he needs to be. 

The group passes a Terminus sign and Rick marks it to read "no sanctuary." The episode ends with a mysterious figure approaching the same sign...and it's MORGAN! Holy shit! 

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That was a pretty jam-packed hour but after an entire season of wondering what the hell Terminus was, we got the full answer and watched the entire place burn down in the new season's premiere. That's a payoff I'm very excited about. What happened to the Terminus folks who made it out alive though? Will we see them again soon? Will the newly reunited Grimes group catch a break for an episode or two? What will Morgan's role be? And WHERE THE HELL IS BETH? Anyone remember Beth? Here's hoping we see her soon, and here's hoping she's not super pissed that she's been an afterthought for a while now. Regardless, this was an amazing episode and it's going to be a long 7 days until the next one. 

The Walking Dead Season 5

The return of The Walking Dead is almost like Christmas come early. Moving into season 5 of this survivor story, we’re at a point where the series has far surpassed the initial “zombie show” branding, and viewers are 100% invested in the characters - walkers or no walkers.  As season 4 came to an end, I agonized over Rick and company’s confinement at Terminus, my heart broke for Carol and Tyreese, and I wondered if Beth had become barbeque. With the prison gone and only a portion of the group reunited, the season 4 finale left me hanging far more than the previous 3 did. There’s so much to find out when the new season kicks off – will the gang get out of Terminus unscathed? Who will set them free? When will Rick find out Judith is alive? Is Eugene really the key to curing the virus? Has Smokin’ Hot Rosita always been so smokin’ hot? Not sure how long it will take to learn this information, but and I have a feeling it will be one hell of a ride along the way. 

AHS Freak Show Premiere: The Gates of Hell

Welcome back, American Horror Story fans. Tonight's premiere was startling but it definitely did not disappoint. In one episode we were introduced to murderers, schemers, sexual deviants, and spoiled brats, just to name a few. We were treated(?) to blood, gore, and torture that would make last season's Madam LaLaurie beam with pride. Freak Show's tone, however, is far more dark than Coven, and the returning actors and actresses once again have challenging material to work with. Here's what we learned tonight: 

In The Beginning...

We find ourselves in Jupiter, Florida in 1952 where Bill the Milkman is checking in on a customer who has a collection of unopened milk bottles on her front porch. He wanders through the house and finds the old woman lying on the kitchen floor in a puddle of blood. He then proceeds to search the house with a rolling pin. Really? I mean, there is blood everywhere. What the hell is Bill going to do with a rolling pin? Maybe calling the cops would be the next logical step? Or perhaps getting out of the house as fast as possible should be considered here? Nope. Bill the Milkman is brave and he's totally approaching the closet that's whispering at him. The look on his face when he opens the door tells me that the rolling pin is probably useless. 

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Two Heads Are Better Than One?

A woman with decently painted toenails is rushed into an operating room. The nurse pushing the stretcher leaves the room and promptly vomits in a trash can. Could it really be that bad? The patient's x-rays reveal 1 bladder, 3 kidneys, 4 lungs, and 2 hearts. Yeah I could see where one's stomach could be turned by that. 

Jessica Lange makes her way through the hospital halls trying to find this strange woman. She passes her business card to one of the volunteers and introduces herself as Fraulein Elsa, promoting her "Cabinet of Curiosities." Elsa manages to snag the volunteer's uniform and is permitted to visit the patient with multiple...well, everything. She encounters Sarah Paulson with two heads, or Dot and Bette, who can communicate to one another with their thoughts. Interesting. Bette is a little on the slow side, making Dot really her caretaker. Elsa cuts right to the chase and asks if the duo has ever had sex because they share only one reproductive system. It's a fair question. I'm curious about how all that would work too.  Dot and Bette share some awkward banter regarding masturbation, and I think I might FINALLY enjoy a character (or characters) played by Sarah Paulson in AHS. Woohoo!

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Send In The Clowns

Speaking of reproductive systems, a young couple is about to get it on during a picnic. The delicious looking boyfriend heads to his car to get something (so I immediately assume he'll be dead soon), and his girl waits for him on the blanket. Instead of her beau...a dirty, scary, freaky ass clown arrives instead. I would be pissing my pants right about now, but she's only slightly startled. Did I mention dirty, scary and freaky? He has a smile on his face that would make The Joker jealous and has a half torn mask about his head that looks to be ripped in a very bloody way. Ew. He bows and produces some flowers...and then begins to take some wooden juggling batons out of his bag. The boyfriend returns just as the girl starts to realize she should be pissing her pants, and the freaky ass clown clobbers them both in the head with the batons. He then proceeds to stab the shit out of the boyfriend with scissors. She gets up to run but I'm pretty sure she has zero chance of escaping the killer.

We later see the home of Jeffrey and Mildred Buckman. As Jeffrey gets up in the middle of the night to investigate a noise, the freaky ass clown slips into the bedroom and stabs away at Mildred with the scissors. We hear on the radio that Jeffrey is a victim of the bloodbath too and Troy, their 8 year old son, is missing. Cut to a broken down, dirty bus in the woods where Troy and the unlucky girlfriend are held hostage. The freaky ass clown appears with a little toy clown (overkill?) and proceeds to make balloon animals. Well...almost. The balloon pops, the youngins scream, and the clown goes ballistic and breaks a whole bunch of stuff on the bus. I can't figure him out.

This disgusting creature, we learn, is Twisty the Clown. Twisty, yeah, no kidding. Even Pennywise would be in way over his head here. I'd take "They floooooat. They all flooooat." over the shit this clown is doing any day.  

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What's Your Pleasure?

On a much more lighter note, we join a living room full of disgruntled housewives who don't seem to be getting their worlds rocked as often as they'd like. A woman walks out of the adjacent hallway with an "I just got laid" smile on her face and I wonder if this is a vibrator party or something. The hostess has a surprise hidden in her back bedroom to help with the women's, um, needs...and that surprise is returning cast member Evan Peters and his oddly shaped hands. His name is Jimmy Darling this season and he is quite the ladies man. Seems his deformity makes him very popular with otherwise unsatisfied women, and I can imagine he's left many happy customers behind in each town during his travels. 

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Come One, Come All

Getting back to Elsa, she is the driving force behind one of the last remaining freak show attractions. She and her special friends are struggling to stay afloat and find a home that will draw an audience. Her landlord wants the show to pack up and get going, but Elsa uses her reproductive system (is this a theme?) to buy her troupe some more time.

Elsa hopes that Bette and Dot are the answer to her troubles and can be the mind-blowing attraction that the Cabinet of Curiosities needs. She seeks to befriend them and earn their trust...beginning with their "tragic story." The twins claim that they witnessed their mother being murdered, but Elsa sees right through them. Bette has a flashback to their mom refusing to take the girls to see Singin' in the Rain, telling them that she won't let them leave the farm. Bette pitches a fit, her mom leans forward and slaps her, and Bette kills her mom with a knife. Dot does nothing to prevent any of this and later stabs Bette (well, herself really) with scissors as punishment, causing them to end up in the hospital. What's the deal with the scissors? Mom, by the way, is the old woman Bill the Milkman found at the opening of the episode. The whispers he heard behind the door were Bette and Dot.

Elsa claims she wants to save the ladies and off they go to the freak show. Bette writes in her diary and expresses all of her excitement for her new surroundings, while Dot writes about her despair in their situation. They meet Jimmy first, followed by Kathy Bates' character (yay!) Ethel, the bearded woman. She is Elsa's right hand and she's also Jimmy's mother. I can't figure out what Ethel's accent means, but she sure knows how to keep people in check. We also see the return of Pepper from season 2 and that makes me very happy.

Before Elsa's dreams of Bette and Dot headlining a show can take flight, a detective finds the twins in their tent and immediately arrests them for murder. Jimmy hears the cries for help and tries to reason with the detective, who says the girls are monsters. Jimmy whistles and the other "monsters" arrive just in time for the detective to get angry and call them all freaks. Well, Jimmy has heard enough and he slits the guy's throat. The group has some family bonding time later....hacking his body to pieces....while Twisty the Clown looks on from afar.  

The Main Event

A mother and son buy out the entire first show featuring Bette and Dot. American Horror Story staple Frances Conroy and newcomer Finn Wittrock play Gloria and Dandy Mott, affluent folks who have a fascination with the inhabitants of the Cabinet of Curiosities, ranging from sword swallowers, contortionists, the world's smallest woman, and a singing Elsa. It's quite a spectacle. Gloria and Dandy offer to pay $15,000 for Bette and Dot but the twins have no desire to leave. Elsa says the girls are "one of us," which immediately takes me to the disturbing dinner table scene from Freaks. Disappointed, Gloria and Dandy spew some insults at Elsa and leave. 

Elsa and Ethel discuss the evening's performance and Ethel assures Elsa that she deserves all the applause in the world and should become a household name. Elsa listens to some music, takes off her legs....no really...she's apparently an amputee...and calls it a night.

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The hour and 32 minute premiere ends there and what a premiere it was. While I absolutely enjoyed the humor and sass of season 3, Freak Show has a sinister feel that I'm already thrilled with. We have many weeks ahead and many characters we've yet to meet, but if tonight's introduction is even a fraction of what we will encounter this season, I'm all about a front row seat. 

American Horror Story: Freak Show

Tonight we welcome back American Horror Story and it feels sooooo good. The theme for season 4 is Freak Show and Ryan Murphy has already touted this season as the scariest so far. The teasers and trailers for Freak Show have been creepy as hell, and with a serial killer clown to look forward to, I imagine some viewers will be anxious well before the FX “viewer discretion is advised” warning is over.  The returning cast includes Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Angela Bassett, Evan Peters, Frances Conroy, Dennis O’Hare, Emma Roberts, Gabourey Sidibe, and (recent Emmy Award winner!) Kathy Bates.  I'm not sure how you can go wrong with this cast, but regardless, the wait is finally over and I’m eager to see what Freak Show has behind the curtain.