It is morning before Gloria finds Dora dead. Dandy tries to blame it on an intruder, but Gloria knows it was Dandy, and is mad she has to clean up another one of his messes. As punishment, she sends him to his room. Gloria has the gardeners dig a 12 foot deep trough for her very special tulip bulbs. Clearly she pays them more than enough to buy this ridiculous excuse. Gloria and Dandy do, in fact, plant tulips there – after they bury Dora. Dandy once again begs his mommy to let him be an actor, promising that he wont kill anymore. She rants about how inbreeding was meant to preserve the bloodlines, and mentions Dandys fathers psychosis. I assume that means the inbreeding is deep in the Mott bloodlines, and she seems to hint that her husband picked up street people to kill. Daddy hanged himself from a tree; Dandy promises he wont do that.
Dandy works out in his room, practices his facial expressions, and vows that if he cant be an actor, he will be the U.S. steel of murder. Makes sense to me. He feels Twisty was put on the earth to show him the way, but he is no clown – he is perfection. He heads out to a gay club / strip joint / brothel, where he will eventually approach Andy. But first, Andy is engaged with Dell. Andy is a prostitute whom Dell has been visiting nearly every day since they rolled into town a month ago. But now Dell has fallen in love with Andy and wants to take him away from the life – but Andy has to wait because Dell still loves his wife, and he is not ready to come out. This is just fine with Andy because, as he delicately states, This is my office. When Im here, Im working. You get what I am saying? Dell storms out, heartbroken. Dandy takes his seat and Andy turns on the charm. What would you like? $1 for a chat, $5 for a dance, $10 to go into the alley, $20 to take me home.
Dandy chooses the $100 to take me to your creepy murder van in the woods option. (Its on the secret menu.) When Andy makes his move, Dandy pulls away and declares that hes not a fruit. He suggests they turn their backs on one another, undress, count to three, and see what kind of magic happens. They do that, but when Andy turns around, he is confronted by a naked Dandy wearing Twistys mask. He violently stabs Andy, but he isnt dead and tries to crawl away. Dandy tries again, adding a half-dozen wounds to his back. He sets about getting rid of the evidence by sawing off his limbs and dissolving them in a tub of acid. As Dandy begins sawing off the second arm, Andy wakes up. How can you still be alive? Dandy shrieks. Andy begs to be killed. Dandy continues sawing off limbs.
The next morning, Gloria receives a phone call from Doras daughter, Regina (who kindly informs us that she is going to secretary school in New York) looking for her mother. Gloria blows her off, then asking if she thought she was a good mother. Regina is uncomfortable by this line of questioning and hurries off the phone. Dandy shows up, soaked in blood, naked save for tighty-whiteys.
Jimmy is emboldened by Esmereldas willingness to read his palm and tries to kiss her. She pulls away and he runs off. Its nearly showtime, anyway, but Dell is nowhere to be found (because he is trying to seduce Andy). Jimmy goes looking for him, but instead finds Desiree, drunk and lonely. After some words of comfort and support to each other, Jimmy tries to steal his second kiss of the night. This time the kiss is reciprocated, and Desiree begs him to make me feel something again. They start fooling around, then Desiree starts to scream and Jimmy notices his hand is covered in blood.
Ethel rushes Desiree to the kindly doctor who tended to her. Desiree is scared and has never been to a doctor before. Desiree gives a bit of her own backstory while being examined: her mother and the midwife who delivered her thought she was a boy and named her Derek. She lived as a boy until she hit puberty, then the breasts came in. The doctor informs her that she is definitely, 100% a woman. She was probably born with an excess of testosterone and her body got confused and started producing more estrogen, leading to her third breast. Her dingaling is simply an enlarged clitoris that can be surgically reduced. And the bleeding? That was a miscarriage.
Dell is back by the time Desiree returns. She is proud to tell him that she is all woman and can have babies. Dell is far from excited. Ethel told Desiree about Jimmys true parentage, and she goes ballistic, blaming Dell for having freak blood running through your veins. She is going to have the surgery to reduce her clitoris and get herself a normal life with a pretty house and babies – and not with Dell. She moves into Ethels caravan that night. Dell, in turn, pays the doctor a visit and threatens his grandkids if he lays a hand on Desiree. Then he breaks both the doctors hands to ensure he retires.
Stanley is playing the role of a television network executive, looking to cast Elsa. She would rather be boiled in oil than appear on television, which she considers the death of art and civilization. (This is not meant as an ironic nod to the fact that AHS is a television show. Television as a media was hated and feared for decades after its invention. It wasnt until The Sopranos debuted in 1999 that people finally started to accept television as more than just the idiot box.) Anyway, this stance only lasts through her evening performance. She does Life on Mars for a sold-out crowd and is booed off the stage. Then she starts planning for her escape to the boob tube.
Stanley is literally fantasizing about bringing Elsas freaks to the American Morbidity Museum. He has even put a deposit on some massive fish tanks to display the bodies. His most vibrant fantasy includes the twins, whom he invites on a picnic to tell them about getting their own television show and feeds them poisoned pink cupcakes. Bette eats hers and dies right away, but Dot refused hers. As she lays in bed, agonizing over the dead twin on her shoulder, Stanley tries to force her to eat the cupcake. She again refuses, so he smothers her to death.
This is all played out as fact, but it is not. Im not really sure what it is, because in the episodes final scenes, Elsa claims to be taking the twins to a discrete dressmaker who will get them all dolled up for their television debut. Instead, she delivers them to Gloria Mott. I brought you something I believe you want. It seems that everything up to the twins murders is real, because they believe they are getting a TV show, and that Elsa will be their mentor. Did Stanley wimp out? Did it not work? Was it pure fantasy?
Other than the strange twin subplot, I found tonights episode quite good. It was surprisingly cogent. To be fair, I may also be blinded by the beautiful Matt Bomer. Im not sure what is going on with Matt Bomers Andy. It feels like he could be a really cool addition to Elsas freak show – not just that he is missing limbs, but that he is the boy who cannot die. But sadly, this will probably be one of those story threads that just disappears. I think Bomer was only contracted for one or two episodes.
And once again, I am taking exception to the music choices. I actually think Life on Mars works well as part of Elsas stage show, but two other modern-ish songs were used tonight: as Elsa gets ready for photos, David Bowies Fame plays, and in the gay bar, Slave to Love by Roxy Music plays. Both of these are the standard recordings of the songs. Nothing has been changed, there is no altered instrumentation. Again, it just really takes me out of the setting.
