‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’ Recap, Episode 4: “Edward Mordrake, Pt 2”

Ghostly freak Edward Mordrake is still roaming around the circus and conducting Proust questionnaires of all of Elsa’s performers to figure out which one he’s going to murder and carry off into the… wherever he hangs out with dead freaks? I dunno, there are a lot of questions I don’t think we’ll ever have answered here, like, for example, who designed that terrible back-of-the-head face on Wes Bentley’s head? Elsa Mars doesn’t have an inkling that Mordrake is who he is, so she’s all, “Be my new manager? I’m the best singer in the world.” Of course, Mordrake has his Ghost Freak Squad attack her and rip off her wooden legs, and then demands to know “all about her darkest hour.”

Jimmy and “Esmerelda” are out on a midnight cruise on the motorbike, which conveniently runs out of gas. Esmerelda thinks it’s a trick on Jimmy’s part to get a roll in the woods (which happens, sorta, because there’s a curfew on). They just so happen to notice Twisty the Clown running through the forest after one of his captors, who escapes from his creepy school bus of terror.

Back in Elsa’s tent, she begins to tell Mordrake her backstory: Berlin, 1932, everybody fucked everybody with everything because I guess they were all really bummed about losing World War I. (Did you guys cover this in AP World History? I must have been out sick that day.) Anyway, I was hoping Elsa’s backstory would be some sort of Cabaret reference, but instead we get The Night Porter. She was a dominatrix who forced her Nazi soldier customers to do things like crawl across the floor like puppies or sit bare-assed on toilets covered in nails. (And I think that’s when I decided I hate this show.)

“They said I made men ejaculate gold,” Elsa tells Mordrake (great writing, wonderful dialogue) as she gets to THE POINT, finally, about what happened to her legs. Some indie filmmaker drugs her and films her as men in dresses and panty-hose masks handcuff her to a bed and then saw off her legs. Ugh, GERMANS! The worst. The film, of course, made it all over Germany (“I was a star!”), but, alas, being the now legless star of a creepy snuff film doesn’t do much for your career.

Then Mordrake’s second face tells him that Elsa’s “the one,” and she demands he kill her. But Mordrake has another idea after he hears some music playing off in the distance.

Is it the music coming from the creepy magic show that is happening in the woods? Jimmy and “Esmerelda,” trying to get to the bottom of the whole creepy clown biz, are attacked by Dandy, who, along with Twisty, set up an impromptu show in which Dandy tries to saw “Esmerelda” in half. He’s as bad at tying knots as he is magic, and Jimmy breaks loose and lets Twisty’s captives go. As Twisty is about to murder Jimmy, that old recognizable green fog starts creeping in and, ta-daaaa, there’s Edward Mordrake demanding to know Twisty’s backstory.

Twisty takes off his mask to reveal, again, that half of his mouth is missing, but he speaks anyway: back in the ’40s, when he was a normal clown (meaning, only slightly terrifying but not particularly evil), he was performing in a circus. The little people in the freak show were mean to him and somehow convince him that he’s a pedophile and that he’s going to jail. He’s not the smartest clown, that Twisty, so he runs off. But he can’t get work again because of his bad reputation, so he relocates to Jupiter and tries to sell some of his toys. Suddenly, he snaps, and puts a shotgun in his mouth and shoots off half his face.

So then he started stealing kids, but because he cared about them. He legit thinks he’s doing good here, but Mordrake isn’t affected by his sob story and, instead, murders him. But at least his face is restored, presumably because not even Mordrake can stare at that gross mouth for all of eternity. And that’s a series wrap on Twisty the Clown!

Dandy, though, finds Twisty’s body and his scary mouth mask and puts it on, but skedaddles once he hears sirens heading his way. Maybe there will be a Twisty 2.0?

The cops show up and interrogate Jimmy and “Esmerelda,” and they’re a little dubious about the story of what happened. But, you know, this is Florida, the 1950s, and a Ryan Murphy show, so mystery solved! Jimmy, though, isn’t too thrilled, because he’s still sad about Meep getting killed in jail.

Back at the circus camp, everyone is like, “Yay! Curfew is lifted! None of us were taken to Freak Purgatory with the two-headed Wes Bentley!” But then cars start rolling up, and Elsa is immediately convinced that the town has come to run them out of Jupiter. But it turns out everyone is just happy that Jimmy saved the town, and now they’re all pleased as punch about the freak show in town. (Can a freak show survive if no one is freaked out?) But, like clockwork, in walks Denis O’Hare, now posing as a Hollywood talent scout named Richard Spencer, so I don’t think things will get too comfy.

Back at Dandy’s house, poor Patti LaBelle is still shuffling around in a maid’s uniform. When Dandy walks in wearing his clown costume and Twisty’s mask, she’s like, “Bitch, please.” But then Dandy cuts her throat. One thing’s for certain: this was Aretha Franklin’s favorite episode.

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Photos: FX Networks