American Horror Story S04E12: "Show Stoppers"

Everyone operates by their own system of justice. Humans frequently use trial by jury. Animals use street justice. You and I use, I don't know, rock-paper-scissors. Freaks, on the other hand... well, let's just say their justice system is highly nuanced and unpredictable. For example, the murder of a freak is always punishable by murder. But what exactly defines "freak" and also "murder" changes from case to case; in fact, it changes so often you'll have better luck grasping a wet bar of soap than you will in trying to assign any rhyme or reason to freak justice. Toward the beginning of Freak Show, there seemed to be one simple rule: Don't murder a freak. But by the time the penultimate episode, "Show Stoppers," came to an end, we had freaks murdering freaks for having murdered freaks. It was just a big cycle of freak vengeance! Where will it end? No wonder this mythical race of beings died out in the '50s. Too much freak justice.

Anyway, what an episode! At least one big death, a reenactment of Tod Browning's Freaks, and more amazing Angela Bassett moments than any of us possibly deserved! No complaints here. Let's talk about it!

It was a dark and stormy night and these differently abled carnies were PARTYING.

As it turned out, this party had a theme. And its guest of honor was Stanley himself.

Whoops, word had spread that he'd conned everyone and also that he'd orchestrated the murder of Ma Petite and had been selling body parts for what felt like months. So yeah, the jig was up. But Elsa is nothing if not theatrical, so suddenly the whole dinner party became about giving Stanley a wrapped gift! In my opinion he probably shouldn't have accepted it, but who can resist a surprise present?

Whoops, it was the museum lady's head! In a flashback, we learned that during Maggie and Desiree's road trip, they'd done more than simply exit through the gift shop.

So yeah, at this point Stanley could see the writing on the wall. And that writing was mostly about the freaks pulling knives out and pointing them at him.

After a brief stint on the spinning wheel, Elsa finally threw a knife at his leg and allowed him to hobble around the circus yard, where everyone began to reenact the final scene of the aforementioned and legendary film Freaks (the plot of which had been helpfully described to Stanley only moments earlier). Suffice to say it involved him crawling around in the mud and finding himself surrounded by revenge-minded circus folk.

Bye, Stanley! You brought this on yourself!

The next day Jimmy was hanging out in a rusty shed and he was not super stoked about life or Elsa or anything else.

Also he was pretty bummed that his dad had been murdered. Elsa explained that Dell had had it coming, seeing as he'd murdered Ma Petite, but Jimmy wasn't having it. You know, only weeks earlier, Jimmy would've sworn a blood oath to avenge Ma Petite's murder, but now he was all about his pops. Fine, Jimmy. That's your business.

For her part, Maggie had come completely clean and seemed bent on redeeming herself, starting with stifling a gag while cleaning Jimmy's wounds.

She wasn't the only one stifling a gag—Jimmy was very over her!

Then things got sexy.

Bette and Dot were getting their freak on, which is a euphemism for having sex, and I chose it because this season of American Horror Story is all about freaks, did you know this? Anyway, the one thing that made it hard for them to grind down on Neil Patrick Harris was the weird doll staring them right in the face while they did their thing. Finally Bette had to say something.

Like a gentleman, he threw his evil ventriloquist dummy on the floor, but that just meant that later she would yell at him a ton and also reveal to him that HE had been the one to murder his wife and his wife's lover, not her.

And then she made her move:

She wanted Bette and Dot GONE. Gone girls. Like the movie. But with conjoined twins. Nevermind.

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