Alright, A LOT happened in tonight’s episode of American Horror Story: Freak Show. It was the part two episode to last weeks “Edward Mordrake”. Quite frankly, I don’t really wish to discuss anything other than the man behind the mask of Twisty the Clown.

Twisty the Clown’s Back Story:

If you would be so kind as to remember Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley), you’ll recall that he’s in search of a freak to add to his undead troupe. To find who he is looking for, he interrogates the performers – digging into their dark past. Their traumas, regrets, sins – Edward wants to know. Mordrake stumbled upon our friend Twisty, in the middle of his questioning of Elsa (who’s back story I will discuss later.) Mordrake becomes interrupted from his interrogation once he hears the music of Twisty’s tiny toy piano, which he is playing to accompany Dandy’s Halloween performance of tricks and treats. He follows the music to find Twisty, whom he urges to remove his mask. The clown refuses, and Edward basically tells him don’t make me make you. With that, our misunderstood friend removes his mask. As you can see in the picture posted above, he looks so sad to reveal himself. The poor thing looked like he was in pain. For the first time in season four, we get to hear Twisty’s voice. And with that, we begin to learn about what turned this man into a killer. “I was a good clown,” he began, “the children loved me. I made them laugh.” We are then taken back in time, to when Twisty was a performer at a freak show. He was a clown for the children. Entertaining them with fun tricks and balloon animals. He was a hit. Unfortunately, his popularity was not met with kindness from the rest of the freak show troupe who made claims of their seniority. Then they made a cruel, sick lie saying that Twisty was getting a little too friendly with the children whom he so loved to perform for. One night after a performance, the troupe invites our clown to sit around the fire. Twisty is clearly mentally disabled and his cast mates call him “simpleton”. They ask the clown “why he talks so stupid? Did your mom drop you on the head?” “How did you know?!!” Twisty replies, “too many cocktails.” The troupe then begins to tell Twisty how everyone knows what he did to the children, and that soon the police are going to come for him. “You better run,” they said. And so he did. Twisty ran back to his home in Jupiter, only to find that his mother was dead. To try and make some good out of his sickly sad situation, Twisty tries to make toys. He creates simple contraptions that he thinks are sure to entertain, and then off he goes to the toy store to try and pitch his ideas. When his toys are turned down, it deeply upset him and the owner threatens to call the police if he doesn’t leave. And so he left. This disappointment was the straw that broke this young mans back, and he attempted suicide. He put what appeared to be a hunting rifle into his mouth, and pulled the trigger. “I was too dumb to kill myself,” he said. While his face was bandaged and healing, he made an outline of a smiling face on the bandages with his blood. And so his mask was formed. Off Twisty ran to Elsa’s freak show. Only to see that all of the children that Twisty loved to do tricks for were there. The freak show stole the children, and Twisty had to get them back. He began killing parents and kidnapping the children. “I didn’t make them do chores, I gave them candy, I got them a pretty babysitter (our heroine amongst the kidnapped), I was a good clown.” After Twisty told his tale, Edward Mordrake stated “you have made the demon weep.” He told the clown to rise, and killed him, to make him part of his undead troupe. Twisty was then reincarnated in the same ghostly form as Mordrake. “Come, my brother,” Edward says as he helps him up. Once Twisty rises, we see the man who he used to be. It was the most strangely beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I’ll be the first one to say that I absolutely bawled my eyes out during Twisty’s back story. It broke my heart to see such an innocent being become completely sabotaged by the mean hearted carnival troupe members. The entire time Twisty was telling his story, I couldn’t help but think about just how innocent he is. His reasoning behind his murders and kidnappings was so childlike that it almost made sense when he described it. This villain was so misunderstood his entire life, and I could feel my heart going out to him and sympathizing with him the entire time. Saying that I bawled my eyes out was an understatement….I was ugly crying.

Tonight we learned another very important back story. Miss Elsa’s. Her past was equally as tragic as Twisty’s in her own right.

Elsa’s Back Story:

During Edward Mordrake’s interrogation of Elsa, we learn about her deepy troubled and tragic past. We are taken back in time to the Wiemar Republic in Germany circa 1932. We are taken into a brothel, where we bear witness to unspeakable sexual acts, until we get to the very back room. There, we meet the ghost of Elsa’s past – a leather clad dominatrix. We see her emasculating a young soldier by putting a dog collar on his neck and making him walk on his hands and knees. “Walk, schnauzer.” “Does the puppy have to go pee pee?” She asks him. She then walks the man to a toilet with nails sticking out of it and forces him to sit. Ouch. Miss Elsa begins building a reputation as the gal to go to for some creative sexual torture. She gained an audience of people whom she called “watchers” who would sit through her sessions with her victims. “I was the star.” Flash forward to a new scene, where we learn that Elsa got asked to be filmed by one of the watchers. While she is on the bed, the camera man urges her to have another drink – clearly Elsa has been drugged. “Are you getting my close up? Where is my costar?” She asks. About three men then come into the room, and the camera begins rolling. A drugged Elsa is then cuffed to the bed, and her legs are sawed off. The young soldier whom she would emasculate would find her and save her life, as she was left to bleed to death. “He followed me everywhere, he fell in love with his whore.” The sick film made it’s way through out Europe, and Elsa became a star in the worst way.

There was one thing I truly adored about this episode aside from all the fabulous information that we learned. And that was Edward Mordrake’s manor of speaking. I loved hearing him talk to these freak show members, and people who were severely down on their luck. He spoke to them with such care and his facial expressions were mesmerizing. Whenever he would refer to whom he was speaking to as “my dear one, my lovely, my children, my wonder” my heart would melt. Something about this was so sweet to me. He was calling these people things that they probably have never heard themselves referred to as before. He called Twisty “my wonder”. That clown has probably never been called anything but “simpleton” all of his life. It touched my heart, and I appreciate the writing for Mordrakes’s character so so much.

Now, let’s do a quick recap of all of the other good stuff that happened tonight:

We find Jimmy Darling and Maggie Esmeralda where we left them last episode, on their way home so as not to break curfew. Unfortunately, Jimmy’s bike runs out of gas, and they’re forced to walk. We then get to see our sweet crew of kidnapped kids in Twisty’s van. The “pretty babysitter” gets her legs untied with the help of one of the boys. Upon Twisty’s return, she kicks him in the legs when his back is turned and takes off running. As usual, our girl gets caught – but she’s in luck, because Jimmy and Maggie are there to witness the whole thing. They follow the clown into the forest and are crouching close to the van making a game plan when Dandy comes waltzing along to smack them both in the head. “Now the real Halloween fun begins,” he says. We are then shown a stage in the woods where we see Dandy with a human sized box, and Twisty playing on his tiny child’s piano off to the side. The newly kidnapped Jimmy and the rest of the victims are tied up and seated in the audience. Then, Dandy introduces us to his assistant “Tiny Tits” AKA Maggie, who’s in the box. Dandy states that he’s always been curious about how the sawing a human in half trick works, and begins to try it on Maggie. Thankfully sweet Jimmy gets himself untied, whacks Dandy, and saves the day. They take off running, and Maggie gets the three kidnapped kids to the road and the police. Jimmy gets caught by Twisty and is taken off to the van, while Dandy is left screaming “you ruined my Halloween fun! I hate you I hate you I hate you!” Jimmy witnesses Twisty’s interaction with Mordrake and is then found by the police. Of course the episode isn’t going to end with everyone happy happy joy joy. We are joined again by Mr. Dandy, who discovers Twisty’s dead body in the woods. He takes the smiling mask the clown wore, and puts it on. He then makes his way home, only to be hassled by his arch enemy, Dora the maid. Their interaction together is brief, because after refusing to take a lunch tray up to his mother, he slits Dora’s throat with a pair of scissors. The episode ends with Dandy removing the smiling mask showing his own serious face which then breaks into a smile and an eventual maniacal laugh. End scene.

I absolutely LOVED this episode. What did you guys think of it? How did you feel about Twisty’s back story? How did you feel about Elsa’s? What do you think is going to happen next week? Leave me a comment and let’s chat! Goodnight. -Sarah