American Horror Story: Episode 8

Episode 8: Blood Bath

This week's episode was filled with unpredictable craziness. Numerous deaths, crimes, and other
atrocities were strewn about. I was thoroughly entertained by this week's story line, and look
forward to the coming episodes, because now everything seems like it will move a little quicker
and that more and more characters are going to die off or mysteriously disappear. The ending of
this episode however, is more twisted than anything else that has been shown on this season.

This week, Ethel, the bearded lady has become suspicious of Elsa after the disappearance of Ma
Petite. Ethel describes a situation to Elsa in which she would do anything to anyone who stole
the spotlight form her. In response Elsa says that she hasn't murdered anyone. But once again
Ethel brings up the situation where the twins went missing. When Elsa tries to storm away, Ethel
shoots Elsa in her calf in anger, and then realizes that Elsa has two prosthetic legs. Ethel suggests
that the two of them die together, because she has lost all hope of what the circus is, and what the
freak show has for her. Elsa suggests that they have a drink together first. On the same cart where
her alcohol is stored she has a knife, and throws it at Ethel before she gets a chance to shoot her.
Ethel is now the fourth death that has occurred at the freak show. To cover up the death, Elsa and
Dr. Mansfield make it as if Ethel had died in a suicidal car crash.

Poor Ethel, you were one of the only ones to realize what Elsa was up to.

Dandy's mother decides that she needs to take Dandy to a psychologist. When she goes to find
Dandy we find that Dora's daughter is with him, questioning them about her missing mother. In
the next scene, Dandy is at the psychologist's taking a Rorschach test. When he describes each of
the images, they seem to be increasingly gory. The first is of a man whose arms are torn off, and
“his insides are outside for all the world to see”. The second is of a man stabbing a woman to
death, her blood is smeared all over the wall, and he even says that it would be a “very messy
clean up”. Dandy realizes that what he went to wasn't an IQ test like his mother had told him, but
rather a psychologist's office. He then strikes a deal with his mother saying that he'll go to the
psychologist's for a whole month if she kills Regina, Dora's daughter. He says that this is
reasonable because Regina wants him sent to the electric chair, and if he does get sent there his
mother will be sitting on his lap.

If I were Regina, I would not speak to Dandy knowing what he has done before.

We are then brought back to Elsa. She is lurking around an exercise center called “be fit, not fat”.
After a short stroll she chooses whom she would like to speak to. She turns the woman,
Barbara's, exercise machine belt off, and talks to her. We learn about how Barbara ended up
there, and what her life is like. She is a wealthy girl, who just happens to be a little heavy-set. For
a while her mother was calling her pregnant to avoid the shame of having a heavy daughter. Elsa
then tells her of a place where every pound of her glorious “jiggle” would be appreciated and
celebrated. She is renamed Ima Waddler.

I must say, it's a rather unfortunate name.

After the burial of Ethel, the women of the circus decide that they want to help Paul's girlfriend,
the tattooed lizard girl, and kill her father for doing so to her originally pretty face. At her father's
home, they break in and knock him out. He is back in the the Strong-Man's caravan, and the
ladies tar and feather him. Though they originally wanted to kill him as well, Maggie the Fortune
Teller, rushes in and tells them that they shouldn't kill him. By killing him they would stoop to
even lower than him, and ruin their own chances at living a clean life. So the lizard leaves him as
he is, and tells him that if he were to ever go near the freaks again, she would kill him.

Yes, very dramatic. But I still think they should have killed him.

Back at the Mott household, Dandy's mother, Gloria, informs the psychologist that she will no
longer be needing his services, even though he suggests temporary commitment to an asylum for
Dandy. He states that he fears for her safety. When she hangs up, we find that Dandy has been
standing behind her the whole time. We are then told of what Dandy knows about his history,
because of what Dora told him when he was five. In 1929 Gloria's father was wiped out by the sudden economic crash, and in order to be able to live lavishly again, she married her second
cousin. Dandy says that he was born of “deadly sin,” and that he won't go to Europe or anywhere
with his mother. His mother explains that she loves him very much, and need not worry about
her love for him. Dandy wants to put an end to this madness by killing himself, but when Gloria
says that she wouldn't be able to go on if he were dead, he shoots her in the head.
Back at the freak show Jimmy breaks up with Maggie, saying that she should go and live her
beautiful life with someone else. Not him. He then wallows in sadness and cries, seeking comfort
from Ima Waddler.

At the very end of the episode, Dandy walks up to a bathtub in his playroom. Only after he gets
in, do we realize that he is bathing in his mother's blood.

Bathing in your own mother's blood, have you no shame?

-Jackie-