Episode 8 of American Horror Story Season 4: Freak Show was indeed a blood bath with secrets and revelations, putting some shocking series favorites on the wrong end of a loaded gun.
We missed the Freaks last week for Thanksgiving, but they certainly delivered a kicker in this episode. Read below for the recap and watch out: SPOILERS AHEAD!
The show opens with Gloria confessing to a psychiatrist that her son Dandy had always been a sadistic, malicious child. She goes so far as to reveal that their gardener's son disappeared after playing with Dandy, but she refuses to acknowledge his connection to the current murders. Before she leaves, she agrees to bringing Dandy to see the psychiatrist.
Back at the Big Top, Ethel can no longer take Elsa's theatrics and accuses her of "mercy killing" anyone who would dare steal the spotlight from her. Ethel shoots her in the leg and is shocked to find out what had been kept secret from everyone at the Freak Show: Elsa is an amputee.
Elsa recalls the German doctor who saved her life and gave her the wooden legs she now wore -- one with a hole shot clear through.
"I am just like the rest of my children. I love you because I understand you. You think you know me? You don't know me at all," she tells Ethel.
Ethel still doesn't buy Elsa's act and says it's time for the curtain to go down, pretending she is going to shoot herself next, but Elsa sees through her lie and suggests a toast. Before Ethel can shoot, Elsa stabs her in the eye with a dagger.
Stanley and Maggie help Elsa cover up Ethel's death to make it look like an accident. Stanley is all too happy to help because he could collect a good paycheck just by producing her decapitated, bearded head.
Elsa doesn't waste any time replacing her friend Ethel. She brings a newbie to the Freak Show, Barbara (played by Metz), whose family cast her out for being too large. They opted to tell people that she got "knocked up" rather than admitting to having a "big fat pig" for a daughter.
Meanwhile, Penny the "lizard girl" has the support of Desiree and other women at the camp as she seeks revenge against her father. They kidnap him and Penny herself helps to tar and feather him up as he begs for forgiveness. Desiree wants Penny to mutilate him like he mutilated her but is talked out of it by Maggie, who insists that her father would win if she went ahead with killing him. Eventually, Penny lets him live.
Back at the psychiatrist's office, Gloria is able to trick Dandy into going; he is not amused. The doctor is concerned about Gloria's safety, especially after Dandy's answers to the inkblot test, but Gloria doesn't think twice about his warnings to have her son committed.
Dandy has a plan up his sleeve, saying that he will continue going to the doctor, but only if Gloria kills Regina, who has become a nuisance to him for asking him and Gloria where her mother had gone.
Unwilling to kill Regina, Gloria instead wants to escape to Europe. Dandy holds a gun up to his head, but Gloria begs him not to kill himself, saying that she can't live without him.
In a shocking moment, Dandy simply says, "OK," then shoots his own mother. He laughs and cries at the same time as she bleeds to death.
With two series regulars dead and some new characters added to the mix, the Freak Show never fails to shock and awe.
