American Horror Story: Freak Show Recap “Edward Mordrake Pt 2”: The Clowns in Town

On the latest American Horror Story: Freak show recap, Edward Mordrake finds out how Elsa lost her legs and what made Twisty a murderous, rampaging clown before choosing the soul he will drag back to hell with him…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

It turns out Twisty the Clown wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

Like a carnival version of “Dark Night of the Scarecrow”, Twisty was just a clown who loved to entertain children but when the mean freaks at the circus he was working at just couldn’t stop tormenting him, he was finally forced to run away.

The latest episode of “American Horror Story: Freak Show” delved into the background of Twisty the Clown as well as a few more freaks as Edward Mordrake’s mission to steal a soul to take back to hell with him continued. Edward Mordrake’s return on Halloween means he’ll speak in an awful British accent and then ask his potential victims to tell him their life story, the worst things that ever happened to them and in the end he will decide if they should join him on his journey back to Hades.

He’s already quizzed Ethel and she wasn’t the one meant to accompany his troupe of dead freaks to hell but this week he’s turning up the pressure going after several members of the carnival. He starts with Legless Suzy and Paul the Illustrated Man. Suzy was born with a spinal defect so to “fix” her, doctors removed her legs and it seems her parents didn’t want half a child so they dumped her on the doorstep of a children’s home. Years later she killed a man because she was jealous of his legs. As for Paul, he was ashamed of his seal like arms because all he really wanted was a shot at Hollywood (doesn’t everybody on this show?). In the end he tattooed his entire body — well everything but his face — because he has such a handsome face. He says to imagine his face on a normal body. Why he could rule the world!

He’s not the selection either as Mordrake then moves on to the queen of the carnival although if Elsa busts out with a Beyonce tune this week, I quit.

Hell Bent for Leather

When Mordrake arrives at Elsa’s tent, she’s good and lit up from her most recent trip to Opium Town and she believes he’s there to whisk her away to the bright lights and the big stage. He explains “no lady, I have a mutant fucking head on the back of my head and I’m here to drag you to hell if your story is screwed up enough”. She tries to tell him she’s not a freak, but his minions pull off her prostetics to prove otherwise.

So Elsa finally confides in Mordrake the horrors of her life.

In Germany just a year before Hitler took over, Elsa was a prostitute but more so she was a dominatrix, who never allowed her clients to touch her, but was the ‘star’ of the show as she punished people with impunity and they thanked her for it. She got so good at her craft at one point a group of men paid just to see her “perform” and she called them the watchers. Well it seems one day ‘the watchers’ decided they wanted to get involved so they offered her a bunch of money to star in a movie. Elsa agreed, but after being drugged and fed copious amounts of alcohol, she realized this was no Hollywood feature.

The men brutally attacked her and ultimately sawed off her legs with chainsaws for the purpose of making their own snuff film. They decided to let her live, although with her leg chopped off she was probably going to bleed to death anyways. Thankfully, a soldier she saw regularly was lurking outside and he saved her from dying and now here she is today.

The little head on the back of the big head tells Mordrake this is the one he chooses and just as he’s ready to finish the job the snuff filmmakers started, he hears some music off in the distance and he’s drawn away by the tones.

Sawed Off

On their way back to the carnival, Jimmy and Maggie (Esmeralda) run out of gas. She thinks it’s a ploy to get in her skirt, he’s just concerned about hiding out so they don’t get busted by the cops for being out past curfew. Before they can make it back to camp, they see a girl run out into the road panicked and screaming for help. Jimmy is ready to jump into action, but out of nowhere a giant clown appears from beyond the treeline and he grabs the girl to bring her back to his camp of horrors.

Jimmy wants to save the day and help the girl and Maggie follows, but before they can do much of anything psycho Dandy appears and knocks them both unconscious.

When they awaken, Maggie is in box, Twisty’s playing the xylophone, the kidnapped children along with Jimmy are tied up and forced to watch while Dandy shows how to really saw a woman in half. Before he can get too far into the box with his rusty saw, Jimmy breaks free, knocks him off the stage, and frees the other hostages telling them to run away. Before he can escape, Twisty is ready to finish off Jimmy when Edward Mordrake appears and asks the clown to tell his story. When he removes his mask and reveals a pretty disgusting mess of teeth, tongue and cheek parts, Mordrake returns his ability to speak so he can tell exactly how he got to this point.

Twisty tells the musty old Englishman that he was once a proud carnival clown who loved children and wanted nothing more than to make them laugh. The little people working the show were envious of Twisty’s appeal and decided to ruin the interloper. Twisty was simple minded and when they first try to befriend him, he wants nothing more than to be their pal. When they accuse him of touching the children he’s entertaining, Twisty is disgraced and forced to leave the show.

He returns home to Jupiter, Florida to be with his mother, but she’s already dead. So he decides to tackle a new endeavor — he’s going to take the junk other people discard and turn it into toys (the boat on the moving “water” trick was actually pretty awesome). When he tries to sell the toys to a local store, he’s laughed at and mocked again and finally Twisty snaps. He goes back to his trailer, puts both barrels of a shotgun into his mouth and pulls the trigger. And you know what? He couldn’t even do that right.

So now Twisty is still determined to entertain the kids. Unfortunately their parents get in the way so he kills them, doesn’t make the kids do a damn chore and he even snagged a babysitter for their trouble (thus the three kids he kidnapped). Mordrake is so moved by this poor, sad and lonely clown that the head on the back of his head weeps for the creature. This is the one who will accompany them back to hell. He kills Twisty and when he’s reborn Star Wars style, he’s whole again and he joins the whack pack of the undead.

Twisty the Clown is dead, folks. At least he made it five episodes. That’s something I suppose although it’s really our fault (the viewers) for believing Ryan Murphy when he identifies anyone before the season starts as the ‘big bad’. There’s always a bait and switch coming and now we’ve seen what’s going to happen next. More on that in a second.

A Hero’s Welcome

When the cops arrive on the scene, they find Jimmy nearby, a dead murderous clown and a witness — the beautiful Maggie, who corroborates the story that her lobster handed friend stopped the deadly clown and saved the town. The cops thank him, but Jimmy is quick to shun their praise after they chose to kill his friend Meep.

While he’s not endearing himself to any of the local law enforcement, the townspeople are looking at Jimmy and his band of freaks in a totally different way now. They show up in droves to shake his hand and thank him for stopping the clown from killing anyone else. Elsa sees this as an opportunity to sell some tickets and sure enough before you know it, they’ve got a packed house. She summons Bette and Dot to the tent where she informs them that they won’t be the main act tonight. In fact they are opening for the pinhead twins.

To further Elsa’s cause, at just the right moment a man wanders in and identifies himself as Richard Spencer, a talent scout from Hollywood and despite the sold out show he’s hoping for a way to find a seat. In reality it’s Maggie’s partner Stanley and he’s got eyes for Bette and Dot already. Elsa is more than happy to accommodate because she’s ready to put on a show for the ages. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen this week so we get reprieve from another performance.

A New Clown in Town

When Dandy wakes up and finds his clown buddy dead, he’s despondent and lost. Where does he go from here without a psychopath to lead him down the right path? He snatches Twisty’s freaky clown mouth mask and heads back home. When he arrives, Dora the maid is fixing dinner and demands that he straighten up because his mother is worried about him. When he stares her down, Dora taunts him once again and states over and over that she’s not afraid of this over privileged good for nothing pompous asshole. Except this time she should have been afraid.

Dandy makes one swipe with Twisty’s killer scissors and Dora’s throat is slit. Dandy looks down at his prey as if to say ‘job well done’. A new clown killer has arrived and he’s far scarier than Twisty could ever be.

What did you think of the latest episode of American Horror Story Freak Show? Did the Halloween double feature live up to past seasons?