Episode three of “American Horror Story: Freak Show” was the first of the two Halloween episodes, and it brought plenty of haunted twists and turns.
Emma Roberts and Denis O’Hare make their first show appearances as Maggie Esmerelda and Stanley. Esmerelda and Stanley are attempting to make some money with bodies of dead freaks. The two head to Jupiter, Florida with the plans to kill someone from Elsa Mars’ troupe. Their way in is through Esmeralda who tells Mars she is a psychic and Mars believes her after a very positive reading.
Another important new character is Edward Mordrake. Ethel Darling tells the Tattler twins about the curse of Mordrake. Mordrake had an additional face on the back of his head that resembled a demon. The face would talk to Mordrake and eventually drove him crazy, to the point of attempting to kill the alter ego. Mordrake later became committed to a mental institution, but escaped. He then went on to performing in a freak show as a pianist, but when the audience would see his second face, they’d become horrified. One Halloween night, Mordrake kills all the freaks and then himself.
Darling explains to the Tattler twins the story of Mordrake is why no freak will perform on Halloween. If one does, they summon the spirit of Mordrake and cause him to take another freak victim to hell.
However, Mars doesn’t listen to this superstition after hearing Esmerelda’s fortune telling of a man visiting to hear her great talent. She decides to perform and Mordrake is summoned to the toupe. Mars sees Mordrake and thinks he is the man from the fortune telling, but then he quickly disappears.
Instead, Mordrake appears to Darling because he thinks she will be his next victim. He makes Darling tell him her whole freak show story, from her first successful performance to her declining period and then to her attempted re-image by exploiting her son’s “freak” birth for money. Mordrake sees how guilty Darling feels about all of her actions and decides he needs to find a new victim. That is where the cliffhanger stands for next week’s episode.
Other character updates include Darling’s doctor’s discovery of her having cirrhosis of the liver and a prediction of living only another three months to one year.
The Tattler twins have a dream of Dot asking for surgery to have Bette removed from their body. Bette tells Dot it’s wrong of her to want that, but Dot is greedy for attention and to be her own person. She tells Bette she will do whatever is necessary to have that dream become a reality.
Dandy is doing whatever he can to become like Twisty, but can’t bring himself to actually kill someone.
Dell Toledo and Desiree Dupree have a physically violent argument after it is revealed Toledo has an erectile disfunction.
Plus, more is revealed of Stanley during a sex scene with another man when it is foreshadowed that he has some type of deformity with his penis.