American Horror Story: Freak Show Recap “Pink Cupcakes”: Dandy Bateman

On the latest American Horror Story: Freak Show recap, Dandy goes full on Patrick Bateman while Stanley dreams of a world filled with cash after selling the Tattler twins dead bodies…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Following a two-part Halloween episode that saw Twisty the Clown exit “American Horror Story: Freak Show” in rapid fashion, there’s a fresh start this week with a new batch of psychos dreaming of pink cupcakes and selling off corpses while the ringleader is thinking of the stars and how to eradicate anyone who dares step in her spotlight.

It’s been an up and down season of “American Horror Story” this year first focusing on the killer clown popping up around town and randomly stabbing people to death only to have that entire plot evaporate by the fourth episode when we found out Twisty the Clown was really a mentally challenged circus worker who just wanted to make kids laugh. It was more sad than scary by the time he met his end.

The real terror has been over privileged sociopath Dandy Mott, who goes from a foot stomping brat into a smooth talking killer all after getting his first taste of blood. He will eventually clash with our carnies, but that probably won’t be for at least a few more episodes. Until then let’s get into our recap for this week’s “American Horror Story: Freak Show”

A Star Is Born

Stanley aka Hollywood agent Richard Spencer is determined to bring a pound of flesh back to the American Morbidity Museum to collect his 40 pieces of silver. His eyes are as wide as saucers when he lands in Jupiter, Florida and sees all of the prize specimens walking around the fairway like lambs ready to be led to the slaughter. Stanley’s partner Maggie (Esmeralda) is a bit more squeamish about selling body parts for cash, but for an extra five percent of the take she be convinced to go through with the deed.

His mission appears to be distract the queen while all over her worker bees are picked off like flies. Stanley goes to work on Elsa straight away this episode as he promises her all the fame she can handle as the star of her own hour-long variety show on television.

Television? The fuck did you say to me?

Elsa’s reaction is equivalent to that statement because she has no desire to live on a small box in living rooms. She’s a star and stars only shine on the big screen. Movie screens. With Elsa’s brush off, Stanley decides to just move onto his real targets — Bette and Dot Tattler. They are the prize he dreams about selling to the museum as the money just flows into his pocket. After his sales pitch, he convinces the twins to go on a picnic with him where he will douse them with compliments and discuss the format of their own hour long variety show on television. Bette is ready to sign the dotted line, but Dot as always is the pessimist. It’s a good thing one of them has a level head because while the twins’ eyes are dancing in the sky, he can’t stop thinking about feeding them poison pink cupcakes. His twisted vision even goes as far as watching one of the twins die while the other cries in despair until he finally suffocates the life out of her.

Thankfully when Stanley offers up his tainted concoction, Dot has the smart sense to tell him thanks but no thanks — if they’re going to be on TV, they must maintain their figure.

Back at the freak show, the packed house is clamoring for more after a night filled with oddities. The final act of course is Elsa and she’s ready to bring the show to a close with her grand performance. But instead of applause, she’s met with indifference at first and then a look of boredom. Even when she hits the chorus for “Life on Mars?”, the crowd is disinterested and eventually grow tired of her caterwauling and begin chucking popcorn at her just to get her off the stage.

Embarrassed and ashamed, Elsa knows that the stage is no place for her. Maybe television isn’t so bad after all? She goes running back to Stanley to say she’s in for his deal, but he’s already moved onto the main attraction — the Tattler twins. Enraged, Elsa has a plan to make sure these spotlight stealing bitches don’t ever see the inside of a living room via the hum of a 1950’s television set.

Where is the Love?

Jimmy continues to get close to Maggie (Esmeralda) as she offers to read his palms and tell his fortune. She warns him of a strange man coming to the freak show and he should avoid him at all costs. This man means to harm him. Clearly, Maggie sees something in Jimmy and doesn’t want his lobster hands to end up as morbid reminders in the Florida freak show wing of the Morbidity Museum thanks to her partner Stanley. Jimmy takes her words of advice as more than just a friendly warning and tries to swing in for a kiss. When he gets shut down, he says he’s good enough to save a town and good enough to be a hero, but he should have known better than to think he could get a girl like her.

Following his rejection, Jimmy is back in the show when he discovers the barker is nowhere to be found. In other words, Dell the Strongman is missing. So he goes to his trailer to look for him but only finds his sultry wife Desiree inside, neck deep in a bottle of whisky. She’s lonely because her husband doesn’t make her feel wanted any more and at this point she doesn’t really feel anything at all these days.

Jimmy wants to feel something so he goes in for a kiss on her because apparently any almost woman will do! She shuns his advances at first, but soon let’s the lobster boy go to work. Remember he knows the pleasure zones. Unfortunately, when Desiree starts to shriek in pain, he pulls his hand back and sees it covered in blood. Like the broke a damn, Desiree just keeps bleeding and so he has to drag her out of the trailer and scream for help.

Ethel comes running and helps Desiree get to the same kindly doctor who gave her a grim diagnosis a couple of weeks back, but was nice to her and treated her like any other person on his examination table. When the doctor starts looking over Desiree he figures out a few things really quickly. First off, she’s not a hemaphrodite. Second, the blood was caused by a miscarriage because she was pregnant that lead to the biggest revelation of all — she’s 100-percent all woman. The problem is she was born with an oversized clitoris and because of the excess testosterone in her blood, Desiree’s estrogen center went into overdrive and gave her the third breast. All she needs are a couple of cosmetic surgeries and she’ll look like any other woman walking around on the streets.

This of course pleases Desiree to no end. A few snips and cuts and she won’t be a freak anymore.

So where was Dell during this entire time? He was at the local gay bar trying to convince his male prostitute, artist friend Andy (played by Matt Bomer) that he was in love and wanted to take him away from all of this. Apparently, Dell has been seeing Andy quite a bit lately. He’s even been missing work to sneak away for a little play time. Andy seems slightly enchanted by the strongman even getting snippy at one point telling Dell that he still hasn’t left his wife despite promises to the contrary. All the begging and all the talk about a better life are lost on Andy, however, because this was always just a job for him.

Dell leaves enraged and when he returns home things only get worse. Desiree is leaving him after learning from Ethel that he already fathered a son — his name is Jimmy and he’s the lobster boy. Desiree has had it with his lies and disinterest in her so she’s leaving, she’s staying with Ethel and she’s going to have that surgery to turn her into a normal woman.

At this point there’s no talking Dell down from the edge. He shows up at the doctor’s office and brutally snaps all the man’s fingers, thus shutting down any chance he has of actually performing surgery. Dell also warns him that if he tries to call the cops or tells Desiree what he did, he’ll go after the doctor’s family.

Talk about repressed rage.

I Simply Am Not There

The day after Halloween is over brings Gloria Mott downstairs where she discovers the slain body of her housekeeper Dora. A frantic Dandy joins her and briefly tries to play it off as if a burglar broke in, but she sees right through his rouse. Gloria is a moron, but she’s not THAT big of a moron. Dandy’s punishment? He has to spend the day in his room!

Being rich and powerful has its perks because Gloria orders the lawn crew to dig a huge hole in the back yard for some special bulbs she’s going to plant. The bulbs are apparently called Dora because that’s where the dead housekeeper is going. Once she’s down in the ground, Dandy tries to explain himself but his mother has heard this all before. His father was stricken with the same kind of bloodlust. As she explains it, families with extraordinary wealth would rather marry cousins as opposed to some of their fortune slip away to a non-blood relative. Through decades of inbreeding, there are going to be a few anomalies. Dandy and his father are one and the same.

After the unceremonious burial of the family housekeeper, Gloria is back at her regularly scheduled gardening when she receives a call from Dora’s daughter Regina (played by Gabourey Sidibe), who is concerned when she didn’t hear from her mother during their weekly scheduled call. Gloria’s moron button gets pressed here because the best thing she can come up with is to tell Regina that her mother is busy for the next month and she probably shouldn’t call again. Smooth operator that one.

Meanwhile, upstairs Dandy is going through a workout routine while his voiceover tells the story of a boy who wanted to be an actor, but mother wouldn’t allow him to live his dreams. Now he has this finely tuned body with no one to show it off to on stage or screen. What else could he do with it? Oh that’s right — go on a murderous rampage around Florida!

The voiceover scene was ripped right from the pages (or movie) “American Psycho” as if Dandy was channeling his inner Patrick Bateman. He had everything except the sticky facemask at the end of his “routine”.

“This body is America. Strong, violent and full of limitless potential. My arms will hold them down when they struggle. My legs will run them down when they flee. I will be the U.S. Steel of murder. My body holds a heart that cannot love. When Dora died she looked right into my eyes and I felt nothing.

“The clown was put on Earth to show me the way. To introduce me to the sweet language of murder. But I am no clown. I am perfection. I am greatness. I am the future and the future starts tonight.”
~ Dandy Mott

So it’s clear that Dandy will be the real killer this year now that Twisty is gone. To satisfy his bloodlust and get better at his craft, he goes off to the local gay bar to find a victim. Thank goodness Andy is still there after turning down Dell’s promise of better life. He’ll wish he had taken him up on that offer in a few hours.

Dandy lures Andy (oh it rhymes) back to the bus once inhabited by Twisty the Clown. He tells Andy to turn around and he’ll do the same. They will both strip and then on the count of three they turn and let whatever happens happen. The stripping part goes down but when Andy turns, Dandy jabs a knife into his chest. When he falls to the ground, Dandy continues to stab, stab, stab and stab some more. He thinks the job is done but this goddamn Andy guy just won’t die. A few more stabs and then he starts hacking up the body to put into acid to ensue no one finds any evidence of the murder.

Oh yeah, Andy is still fucking alive!

I just assume as Dandy continued to saw off body parts he eventually died. When he returns home, mother finds Dandy standing in his tighty whiteys, still covered head to toe in blood. The situation will only get more dire when the doorbell rings and Gloria is forced to answer the damn thing herself! Oh the horror!

Just kidding — Gloria answers the door and finds Elsa on her front step. She’s got something Gloria so desperately wants — the twins, Bette and Dot Tattler. Remember that $20,000 offer? It seems Elsa is ready to sell and it’s a buyer’s market.

Tune in next Wednesday night to see what happens when Dandy gets some new playmates in his life when “American Horror Story: Freak Show” returns at 10pm ET on FX