AHS Freak Show: Bullseye Recap

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American Horror Story: Freak Show –
Bullseye (4×06)

Synopsis: The twins spend some quality time with good ol’ Dandy who is elated to have them staying with him while Gloria continues to evade her son’s disastrous life. Maggie and Stanley hatch a plan on the other side to get some quick cash, and Elsa really loses her cool as Paul starts to piece everything together about the twins’ disappearance.

Rating: ★★★★☆

I wasn’t expecting this week to entertain me as much as it did.

Last week I played a little game of “Dammit Dandy, Stop!” where I just sat there and grimaced basically every time Dandy did something absolutely awful, and was expecting a lot more of that this week after Elsa dropped the twins Bette and Dot off with the Motts. I definitely got my fill of that as we’ll discuss below, but man was I not ready for this week’s new game of “Ewww Elsa, No!” Elsa’s desire for fame has grown out of control, and the rest of the circus is starting to take notice.

It’s Elsa’s birthday this week and now that the sisters have simply decided to leave the show (as she conveniently told everyone), she is in incredibly high spirits. Her optimism high about her future TV show, she purchases a spinning bullseye in order to bring some class to television. While she’s on cloud nine though, everyone else seems to be concerned about the twins and how they left without saying goodbye. Elsa’s anger gets the best of her and in a fit of rage she declares that if they won’t have fun on her birthday then she’ll strap one of the freaks on the bullseye, leaving Jimmy quiet and the others even more confused.

Afterwards though, we discover that she’s having a romantic affair with Paul, aka “Seal Boy”, and that she doesn’t want anyone to know what’s going on between them. He’s hiding his own secret from her – he’s seeing the candy striper from the first episode and they’re in love. I really didn’t get how this happened to be honest. In the first episode she was sexually assaulted and Elsa filmed it and now she’s back, but as a romantic interest. Paul and her seem incredibly serious about it too, as he’s out buying her gifts and declaring grand statements of love. I understand that showing townsfolk in love with one of the stars of the freak show is a great side story, but her return was jarring and left me feeling a little uneasy after what happened to her initially.

But the candy striper is going to have problems next week since her love is hanging on for dear life. You heard it, this week’s victim of attempted murder was Paul, who, after confronting Elsa about the twins, let it slip that he is seeing someone else, and without any sense of reality, Elsa gathers the troupe in the middle of the night for the ultimate game of trust fall. After he volunteers himself, she hurls two knives at him that miss him, but the third one stabs him right in his abdomen – the most calculated of moves on Elsa’s part.

He had right to be suspicious though – the twins are stuck at Dandy’s and his mother is incredibly nervous about what this will mean for the family name.

As Gloria sits down to eat with her son she hands him a present, which turns out to be condoms because he now has the twins around him all the time. Dandy is incredibly offended at the gift though, declaring that he would never violate the girls since he loves them and plans to marry them and be with them forever. Dandy’s obsessive behavior leaves his mother reminding him that they already have issues on their side of the family due to inbreeding, but Dandy is incredibly upset that she would even insinuate that he’d do something dirty with them.

Can we take a guess as to who’s completely loving this?

Yes, our romantic Bette is falling quickly for the devil while Dot is determined to use him for one thing only – money so that she can finally be separated from her sister and be with the one she really loves – Jimmy, who she defended after Dandy claimed he was the one to actually kill Twisty. Unfortunately for them, Dandy finds the diary posts she wrote in which she laid out her incredibly detailed plan and declared that he was destined to never fall in love, only to bring death to this world. Everything Dandy does is with a flair for the dramatic, and I’m really starting to wonder whether or not his murderous rages would have ever happened if his mom just let him be a damned actor. He’s wealthy enough that he doesn’t have to worry about money anyways, I mean – he was getting conned out of some serious cash! (Also, are we ever going to address the fact that the twins can apparently read each others minds and communicate telepathically but don’t seem to be aware of what the other’s doing?) As he walks past his mother with a dagger in his hand, he becomes distracted. Turns out Jimmy has arrived at the manor to bring the girls home.

But with one freak on his death bed, a couple of con artists itching to make some quick cash (seriously, the scene with Ma Petite – Victim of Attempted Murder #2! – and Maggie had me actively pulling away from the tv – these fantasy murders are getting out of hand and I’m worried for the real one), and some vengeful twins returning to the show, what will this mean for their future, and for Elsa’s? Ethel’s told it to her straight – if she finds out that she’s been lying to her, she’ll kill her herself, but will Elsa’s desire to be loved lead her to do even more violent and terrible things?

Next week promises to be filled with tension, violence, and a whole lot of power plays by the different women in the show! Who do you think will come out the star?

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