‘American Horror Story: Freakshow – Episode 6’ Review

Stars: Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Frances Conroy, Michael Chiklis, Denis O’Hare, Even Peters, Emma Roberts, Minn Wittrock, John Carroll Lunch, Patti Labelle | Created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk

“Bullseye” starts with Elsa throwing knives at a spinning board over a monologue about how she won’t let anyone in her way on her path to being a star. It’s her birthday week, so the freaks put on her usual birthday celebrations to her delight, but when she notices that some of them are sad the mood quickly sours, and it gets worse when she’s told it’s because they miss the twins. Irate, she shouts at them all that the twins were ingrates and left her, while the obvious truth being that they were sold to Gloria Mott for Dandy.

Paul, however, gets increasingly suspicious of Elsa, who he’s been having a secret affair with for quite a while as well as with Penny, the nurse Elsa took in from the first episode. As more and more pieces begin to click in his head, he tries telling Jimmy only to get a slap and told that Elsa would never do that. Undeterred, he pushes on. Meanwhile, as Bette eats up Dandy’s affections, Dot is distrusting and sees herself as a captive, and Stanley, now furious that the twins have been taken from him, pressures Maggie to kill Jimmy for his hands.

When I was thinking how best to describe this episode, the one word that kept popping up was ‘slow’. Compared to the previous episode, there was significantly less going on and at a much slower pace. It felt very much like I was watching an old crime show as Paul went around digging up clues and getting laid. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good character, but I don’t feel an episode with him as the main character was a good idea.

More disappointment came when Dandy had very little screen time or action other than a tantrum and reading the newspaper to the twins, nothing more was made of Dell and Desiree despite everything that came out last episode and I don’t think they were given any screen time, and I kind of feel like everything that happened after Penny storms out to see Paul is little more than a time filler; we could have ended with the events just before she leaved. As it is, it leaves us with no real tension or surprise, and that’s really disappointing.

Every season has an episode that just doesn’t really satisfy, and to me this is that episode.

*** 3/5