PeakDash

“Freak Show” came back from its two-week hiatus with an episode that almost makes up for all of this season’s false starts and sluggishness. Delicious new characters are introduced, old scores are settled and the table is set for the final two episodes to be great.

First, we find out exactly how Jimmy lost his hands. In order to pay for the legal help Stanley promised him, Jimmy agrees to cut off one of his hands to sell to Stanley’s “collector friend.” He drinks some poison Stanley just happens to have on hand and is rushed to the ER. When he wakes in the hospital, writhing in pain, the nurse refuses to give him meds because she was friends with one of the Tupperware partygoers he’s is accused of murdering. (Hellooooo ethics.) He looks down groggily and finds that both of his hands are gone. Credits.

Bette and Dot are in a really good place in their shared life. They finally feel a sense of belonging with the life-loving freaks, they’ve given up the idea of surgery and their sisterly bond is stronger than ever. Now, their only concern is having sex for the first time, but finding a suitable candidate is proving more difficult than they’d thought.

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Enter Chester (Neil Patrick Harris!) a charming chameleon salesman and war veteran from Georgia who instantly wins favor with the twins. An aspiring magician, he came to Florida in the hopes of joining Elsa’s troupe. He tries winning Elsa over with his magic tricks and his secret weapon, an intensely creepy ventriloquist dummy called Marjorie (voiced by Jamie Brewer), but nothing works. That is, until he shows her the records he’s kept of his chameleon sales. Impressed with his bookkeeping skills, Elsa agrees to bring him on board if he helps keep her books organized. Chester tearfully thanks Elsa for the opportunity, dropping to his knees and kissing her hand. Normally, Elsa would eat that kind of behavior up, but something about Chester is … off.

It doesn’t take long for that “something” to start to reveal itself. Marjorie appears to be alive. As in, sentient and scary as all get out. After Chester’s meeting with Elsa, she accuses him of grovelling and complains that he didn’t get her top billing. The only thing worse than a living dummy is a ticked off living dummy.

Over in town, Dell arrives at the hospital and is dismayed when he sees the state Jimmy is in. He’s even more upset when he finds out that Jimmy gave Stanley permission to only cut off one hand, but he holds off on his fuming in order to tend to his son. The hospital staff didn’t even concern themselves with whether or not Jimmy ate. They just left a plate of food next to their newly handless patient. Dell tenderly feeds him and they have another impossibly sweet father-son moment.

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Once he gets back to the fairgrounds, Dell storms into Elsa’s tent and breaks the news about Stanley and Jimmy’s hands. Worried that Jimmy will be unable to defend himself once the police haul him back to jail, Elsa urges Dell to break him out. Amazon Eve, who was helping Elsa pack before Dell arrived, offers to team up for a “strong man/strong woman act” after all.

Meanwhile, Chester plans some collaborating of his own. While digging through Elsa’s collection of magic trick paraphernalia with Paul, Chester found a Goldin’s Sawing Box. Inspired, he wanted to incorporate sawing a woman in half into his act and have the twins serve as his assistants. At first, they think that he’s chosen them because they are freaks, but he insists that he’s chosen them because they are beautiful. In fact, he says, they remind him of old friends. Cut to a flashback of two dark-haired women kissing on a bed as Chester sits nearby. The twins are pleased by his words and the act goes off without a hitch.

Dell and Amazon Eve pull off their act, as well. They spot the police taking Jimmy back to jail and trick the cops into stopping the car. Then, Dell bashes both officers’ heads in and sets Jimmy free.

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Back at camp, the twins have decided to take their relationship with Chester to the next level. They show up in his tent and literally ask him to deflower them. At first, he starts to freak out and we get another flashback from his past. His wife, Lucy, and her lover Alice were making out on their bed once again while he sat across the room, holding Marjorie and wearing his army uniform. In the present, the twins assure him that he’s the one they want and he’s able to compose himself … so long as he can hold Marjorie the whole time. Unfortunately for Chester, Dandy’s private investigator was spying outside and quickly reports his findings to his boss. What could possibly be more frightening than a heartbroken Dandy?

Actually, an angry Marjorie might be worse. After Chester forces her to go into her crate, we get another flashback to his earlier days in Georgia. He and Alice had a heated confrontation about everything from his uniform (the war had ended four years prior) to her relationship with his wife (he’s not that cool with it). Marjorie overhears and demands to know if he’s going to do something about Alice’s mouth. When Chester looks over to Marjorie, there isn’t a dummy standing in the doorway, but an actual woman. She tells him that they need to get rid of Alice and Lucy.

Back in the present, Elsa has a surprise for Chester. After looking at his books, she determined that he is a “man of means” and has decided to reject the carnies’ bid to buy the freak show in order to offer it to him instead. He accepts, but Elsa quickly realizes that she’s made a giant mistake. The deal done, Chester begins to talk about his plans for Marjorie — he wants her to headline the show and have the big tent all to herself — and it doesn’t take long for a look of “Oh shoot, I just sold my business to a man who thinks that his dummy is alive” to register on Elsa’s face.

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Chester rushes off to deliver his news to Marjorie, but when he opens her crate she is nowhere to be found. Shortly afterward, the police arrive to camp in search of Jimmy. Elsa masterfully mocks the sheriff, but threatens to lose the upper hand when Chester rushes out, demanding the sheriff put out an APB for his puppet. (I laughed so hard when he describes her as “two and a half feet tall, fully extended” that I almost missed the rest of that scene.) She shoos him away and the cops begin to search the fairgrounds yet again.

Distraught, Chester begins his search anew, but is interrupted by Dandy, who is wearing the most ridiculous fur coat I have ever seen my life. It kind of looks like something a Pimp Named Slickback would wear but more gaudy. Anyway, Dandy tells Chester that Marjorie is angry with him for sleeping with the twins and has decided to run away. He also says that Marjorie plans to tell everyone the truth about what happened back in Georgia. You see, Dandy’s private investigator found out that Chester is wanted for the murders of Alice and Lucy. The two women fell in love while their husbands were at war and the police believe that he killed them both in a jealous rage, but Chester insists that Marjorie did it.

It’s kind of amazing to watch Dandy interact with someone he believes to be more unstable than himself and Finn Wittrock’s line reading of “What a sicko! So, tell me, how did they die?” is literally all the proof you need that he’s “in” this year. 

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Judging by Chester’s flashbacks, Marjorie really did snap and stab both women a bajillion times. Chester insists that he tried to stop her and Dandy assures him that he won’t turn her in. He even tells him that Marjorie is waiting for him in the big tent. Chester rushes over and there is the real-life version of Marjorie, eating grapes and looking sour. She isn’t leaving him, but she wants top billing. And she wants him to murder the twins in half. Naturally.

She might want to think carefully about whether harming the twins is worth incurring the wrath of their fellow carnies, though. Dell returns from his rescue mission to find Desiree in his trailer with a gun. She’s fuming over Ma Petite’s death and forces him to confess. He admits it and Elsa pops out of the shadows and shoots him from behind. You do not kill freaks without paying for it.

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