American Horror Story: Edward Mordrake, Pt. 2
October 29, 2014 7:36 PM - Season 4, Episode 4 - Subscribe

The second part of the AHS Halloween episode.

Will Edward Mordrake claim one of the company of freaks? Will we learn why Twisty is so twisted? What's up with Dandy, anyway?
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord (22 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hey, whoever said that Twisty would go to freak-hell and Dandy would take his place got it 100%! I'll miss you, Twisty.
posted by codacorolla at 8:08 PM on October 29, 2014 [4 favorites]


Love it, but I fear that the show is writing out the wrong characters. Twisty and Mordrake are great; Dandy is going The Full Insufferable, though. He's less the villain you love to hate and more the villain you hate to watch. That's really the only downside, however (and since this is AHS, I know Mordrake and Twisty will be back, possibly as soon as next week).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:12 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh my god! They killed Twisty! You bastards!

Twisty did have a very sad backstory, didn't he? I read in the run-up that there would be two shock deaths in the episode, but I thought it would be Elsa before Patti LaBelle.

So crazy clown murders continue so the townie/carnie love fest and brownie-sharing should be finished before it starts, really. Although I noticed poison cupcakes coming up.

I also love Elsa's line in the next episode: "I'd rather be boiled in oil than do television!"
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 4:25 PM on October 30, 2014


News! News! News!

Sister Mary Eunice will show up soon!
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 4:34 PM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hey, whoever said that Twisty would go to freak-hell and Dandy would take his place got it 100%!

I think that was me... but after the first episode I also predicted that Twisty would turn out to be the bearded lady. If you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, some of it is bound to stick.

I felt for Twisty. He seemed like such a sweet clown in the past. On the other hand, we were seeing his narrative filtered through his own recollection. I saw a commenter on some other message board complain that because Twisty was just a simpleton and not really an evil guy, Mordrake should have taken Elsa over Twisty. But I don't think that's quite right. Mordrake's second face was moved by Twisty's story not because Twisty didn't realize that he was hurting people, but because Twisty did not recognize the blackness in his own heart. His motivations were evil. Twisty claimed that he was only trying to help the children, but that must be the product of self-deception and delusion. He was kidnapped and killed out of rage and for revenge, but he convinced himself otherwise. (What's his internal justification for killing the toy store clerk and giving the head to his captives?) I wonder how accurate the flashback of Twisty before his fall was.

As always, here's the Price Peterson photo recap. (Best joke: this picture.) The stills of all the sexual deviance taking place at the German sex club are great. I completely missed the PJ.

Worst part of this episode: no musical number! Maybe because it's the second part of a two-parter so the song in the last episode counts?

The weirdest thing about a Sister Mary Eunice crossover is that Pepper and Sister Mary will have seen two different groups of people who look entirely the same. Sister Mary is probably my favorite character in all of AHS, but only after she was possessed. Unfortunately, that happened only after Pepper was at the asylum, so we won't get to see a demon-nun strutting her stuff this season.
posted by painquale at 1:53 AM on October 31, 2014 [2 favorites]




Huh... Interesting.

So in terms of the chronology, it's:

  1. Season 4 (Freak Show)
  2. Season 2 (Asylum)
  3. Season 1 (Murder House)
  4. Season 3 (Coven)
with the last two seasons set in the present day, so they can be interchangeable.

By setting shows in the past you can plant clues to seasons that have already aired, but I'll be damned if I can remember any connection between Murder House and Asylum. Or Coven, for that matter.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 10:36 AM on November 1, 2014


Well, Satan tried to come to Earth in Asylum and Murder House. I didn't finish Coven, so I'm not sure if he made an appearance there.
posted by codacorolla at 11:01 AM on November 1, 2014


with the last two seasons set in the present day, so they can be interchangeable.

I think the main events of Murder House and Coven explicitly take place in 2011 and 2013, respectively. Of course, every season has tons of flashbacks in it, which means that someone, somewhere, will probably assemble a timeline beginning with Roanoke (spoiler: not me).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:52 PM on November 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


(Like for instance: Most of Asylum takes place in the early 1960s, but the epilogue probably takes place in 2012 or 2013, meaning after the events of Murder House...oh, man, the rabbit hole this could turn into.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:55 PM on November 1, 2014


They must be making up the connections between the seasons as they go along. Ryan Murphy makes it sound in that interview as if this is something he has all planned out, but I don't believe that for a second.

I think I'd prefer the seasons to be independent, like Twilight Zone episodes. They should have the freedom to let a season end with a nuclear air strike apocalypse or all of humanity devolving into mice-like creatures or something similarly catastrophic. Now they're limited to what has been established in the other seasons.
posted by painquale at 6:35 PM on November 1, 2014 [4 favorites]


Well, Satan tried to come to Earth in Asylum and Murder House. I didn't finish Coven, so I'm not sure if he made an appearance there.

When did Satan try to come to Earth in Murder House? I don't remember that season so well.

Papa Legba was a major character in Coven. He could have been Satan. The witches visit Hell, and he seemed to be in charge of that place. Hell might be the one thing that all the seasons have in common.

If Twisty and Mordrake return as Ryan Murphy says they will, I could see Papa Legba making a reappearance with them.
posted by painquale at 6:42 PM on November 1, 2014


They should have the freedom to let a season end with a nuclear air strike apocalypse or all of humanity devolving into mice-like creatures or something similarly catastrophic. Now they're limited to what has been established in the other seasons.

I wouldn't be surprised if somehow parallel universes are brought into play. The ending of Murder House loses some heat in a world where two years later the coven has become a worldwide thing, for instance, and of course after Coven the world knows of the existence of magic, so...yeah, this can't really work as a single continuity.

(It works fine as long as you leave out Coven. It's kind of hard to imagine the world going on exactly as normal after that.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:12 AM on November 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh jeez, I forgot about what happens at the end of Coven! Yeah, that's problematic.
posted by painquale at 6:28 AM on November 2, 2014


Yes, All of American Horror Story's Seasons Are Connected!

Should I take this opportunity to binge-watch the rest of previous seasons? And should I follow potsmokinghippieoverlord's chronology or watch them order?

Every time I see that user name I think I'm playing Kingdom of Loathing: "You are fighting a Pot Smoking Hippie Overlord."
posted by Room 641-A at 9:43 AM on November 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well, my timeline isn't necessarily canon -- I've not poked around to read the other fan theories online. I'd watch them as they were produced.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 12:30 PM on November 2, 2014


Maybe I'm wrong about Satanic birth being a plot point in S1... I thought it was something like Tate impregnating Violet would lead to a conduit between Hell and Earth. Did I make that up out of whole cloth?
posted by codacorolla at 3:27 PM on November 2, 2014


I thought it was something like Tate impregnating Violet would lead to a conduit between Hell and Earth.

It was pretty heavily implied that Vivien's baby (who ended up with Jessica Lange's character at the end) was the Antichrist. Maybe that's what you're remembering?

So yeah, between the baby Antichrist and the ending of Coven the near-future of the AHS universe looks pretty....grim.
posted by mstokes650 at 7:39 PM on November 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Rest in peace, Twisty the Clown: this season's first victim of Murphy's attention span. But not to worry, because he didn't leave without being involved in a couple classic moments of AHS whatthefuckery, including the fact that his flashback involved knowing about the secret motivations of the dwarves owing to a conversation between them he is recalling but could not possibly have heard, and the way he recounted abducting a child and then abducting a babysitter for the child even though we saw these events and are aware that they happened in the reverse order.

But the clown, being murdered by a magic Halloween ghost, was still not the most ridiculous death this week. On a show in which three out of four episodes thus far have featured a musical number, Patti LaBelle was enlisted to play a maid for two rich white people, did not sing at all, and was murdered four episodes in. God, this wonderful, insane show.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 9:55 AM on November 3, 2014 [5 favorites]


So yeah, between the baby Antichrist and the ending of Coven the near-future of the AHS universe looks pretty....grim.

We have those friendly aliens who are waiting to save / experiment on us
posted by codacorolla at 10:32 AM on November 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


It was pretty heavily implied that Vivien's baby (who ended up with Jessica Lange's character at the end) was the Antichrist. Maybe that's what you're remembering?

Yeah, basically, Tate put on the Rubber Man suit and took advantage of Vivien (who thought Tate was her husband), and the resulting baby was a human/ghost hybrid that should have been impossible and was foretold in Vatican prophecy (!) as the Anti-Christ. Which is fucking ridiculous even by the standards of American Horror Story, which is a compliment. Of course, an American Horror Story Expanded Universe means that the Coven could ultimately battle the Anti-Christ, presumably while aliens look on, and...I mean, this is all probably a bridge too far and a sound argument against an American Horror Story Expanded Universe but here we are.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:50 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh my lord. Is Tommy Westphall going to show up?
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 4:47 PM on November 5, 2014


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