Wow! Okay, a lot of really important stage setters happened in “Pink Cupcakes”, episode five of American Horror Story: Freak Show. Let’s discuss some of the important information that we learned in tonight’s episode.

1) Stanley is a slime ball: “Pink Cupcakes” opens up with Maggie and Stanley in a motel room discussing their game plan for the murder of the freaks in Elsa’s troupe. With the bodies of the freaks, they’ll both make a pretty penny at the Museum of Morbidity’s in town. Maggie is firm in her stance of not wanting to murder anyone, but Stanley urges her that “accidents can happen.” After a demand of increasing her percentage of the pay, Maggie agrees to Stanley’s delight. “Fraulein Elsa’s cabinet of curiosities is about to be a cabin of bad luck” he says. Maggie is Stanley’s way in to the freak show, as she is posing as a fortune teller there. While she does her thing, Stanley poses as Mr. Spencer – a talent agent from Hollywood “the land of dreams” as he calls it. Naturally, Elsa takes great interest in Mr. Spencer since she’s trying to make her dreams of being a star a reality. Spencer discusses the possibility of Elsa being on television and having her own TV hour, much to her disdain. Elsa claims that television takes away from the beauty of the silver screen. “I would rather be boiled in oil than to be on television.” However, her mind changes in a jiffy after she gets booed off stage during her performance at a full house night at the freak show. She invites Mr. Spencer back into her tent and asks him to “tell me more about this television”. So, now we have Miss Elsa feeling good – we see her in a montage of sassiness, getting all dolled up for a publicity shoot to the tune of David Bowie’s “Fame”. As miss thing is leaving the tent, she sees none other than Bette and Dotte, the conjoined twins leaving in Mr. Spencer’s car instead. Here is when things get fishy. We see the girls and Spencer sitting in a beautiful park having a picnic, supposedly discussing the opportunity for the twins to have their own TV show, the “Tatler Sister’s Hour”. To celebrate, Mr. Spencer offers the ladies two gorgeous pink cupcakes. “Pink cupcakes?! What a treat!” Bette exclaims in delight. Then we flash to a scene where we see Spencer injecting the cupcakes with some type of poison. Bette takes a big bite of her cupcake and then begins to cough. “It serves you right for being such a glutton” Dotte says. As Dotte snaps her sassy remark, Bette begins to foam at the mouth and we flash to see the sisters laying in bed. For Bette, it very well could be her death bed. Mr. Spencer then lashes out at Dotte, appearing to try and choke her while saying “you should have just ate a cupcake!” Thankfully for the girls, this is just what Mr. Spencer wishes would happen. We then flash back to the picnic where Dotte turns down the treats saying, “No cupcakes. We have to watch our figure if we’re going to be television personalities.”

Desiree’s one hundred percent womanhood: It’s a full house night at the freak show, and Del Toledo is no where to be found. So, off Jimmy runs to Del and his wife Desiree’s tent. Miss Dupree is unaware of her husbands whereabouts and is clearly intoxicated. Jimmy sits down beside Desiree and she begins to tell him her woes about Del and his behaviors. She talks about how happy that he used to make her feel. She confesses “I never felt more alive in my life and now I feel nothing but empty.” Jimmy then leans in for a smooch and Miss Dupree asks the Lobster Boy to make her feel again 😉 All is going well until Jimmy’s heavy duty fingering causes her to bleed. Once Desiree is at the doctor’s office, accompanied by Ethel, she learns some shocking news. The bleeding caused by Jimmy’s pleasure claws was actually a miscarriage. The doctor goes on to tell Desiree that she is in fact one hundred percent woman. He tells her that her body had too much testosterone in it and it began to rapidly produce estrogen to compromise for it. Explaining her third breast and her enlarged clitoris which she thought was a “dang a lang”. The doctor let’s her know that all of these body mishaps could be fixed via cosmetic surgery and he’d be happy to do it.

Del Toledo’s sexuality: In tonight’s episode we are taken to what appears to be a gay bar of some sort, where we see none other than the strong man himself, Del Toledo. We see him sitting with a young man named Andy, whom we later learn is a prostitute. The boys are discussing Andy’s artwork, as he likes to sketch and Andy confides in Del that he’d like to go out west and do caricature drawings for a band that’s on tour. Del vetoes this idea though, saying that “if you’re getting out of this place, it’s going to be with me”. Del then professes his love for Andy. The feeling doesn’t seem to be entirely mutual though. In tears he talks about the hurt his body experiences while performing as the strong man, he then utters a line that I loved so much “There is nothing worse than the hurt of loving someone you can’t have.” #TRUE. Del then exits the bar and goes back to his and his wife’s tent, only to find Desiree with her bags packed. She tells him that she’s moving into Ethel’s tent and that she’s a woman through and through. Miss Dupree also let’s Del know that once she gets her cosmetic surgery she’ll be a normal woman and “too much woman for you to handle”. MEOW. At the very end of the episode, we see Del in the doctor’s office. He threatens the doctor and his family if he performs any type of surgery on Desiree. To ensure that the doctor keeps his surgical hands to himself, Del breaks both of them. RUDE.

Dandy’s serial killer quest: Alright! We all know that Dandy is totally bat shit crazy by now but this episode delves even deeper into that. Tonight we learned that Dandy wants to be the greatest serial killer of all time. We see him working out in a montage of weirdness. He proclaims that his problems stem from not having a creative outlet since his mother, Gloria wouldn’t let him be an actor. “I hate her!” He screams in his montage while breaking a mirror. While toning and perfecting his body he claims “This body is America. Strong, violent, and full of limitless potential.” Well shit – someone’s cocky! Then, in true serial killer fashion he goes on to say “my body holds a heart that cannot love.” #classic. Sweet Dandy Boy mentions Twisty the Clown and how it was he that introduced him to the art of murder. With that Dandy is off to none other than the same gay bar that Del Toledo has just stormed out of and a distressed Andy is now accompanied by a handsome stranger. Dandy takes the prostitute to his old stomping grounds of Twisty’s van. He tells Andy that he wants them both to turn around with their backs facing each other and take off their clothes. On the count of three, they’ll both turn around. On Andy’s third count, Dandy turns around with Twisty’s smiling mask and stabs Andy repeatedly. “Rule number one of a good killer” Dandy says, “make sure all of the evidence is gone. Start with the limbs.” We then see him throw an amputated arm into a bath tub of sulfuric acid. He then goes back into the van, but the prostitute has not yet died. “How can you still be alive?!” Dandy cries, “you’re making me feel bad!” At this point, Andy is pleading for death and Dandy Boy, being the merciful killer that he is delivers the final stabs into his victims back.

One final surprise: Once Elsa learns of Bette and Dotte’s television show plans, she tells the girls that Mr. Spencer has asked her to mentor them. She tells the twins that she has booked them an appointment with a stylist in town for the following morning. So off the ladies go, but the twins discover that they’re not being driven into town but to the front door step of Miss Gloria and Dandy’s home. “I believe I have something that you want,” Elsa declares as she gestures grandly to the girls. Uh oh!!!!

That was some pretty heavy stuff! I thought that “Pink Cupcakes” was a fantastic filler episode. We learned a lot of new secrets about our beloved freak show troupe and it will definitely create some intense drama next week! What did you guys love about tonight’s episode? What did you hate? Leave me a comment and let’s chat! Goodnight. -Sarah