John J. Gray

Of course Freak Show would end this way. It makes perfect sense that a season that’s never been totally willing to invest in a particular character as a hero or a villain figure would be brought to its conclusion by someone who the audience had known previously through just a two episode mini-arc before the season’s halfway point. Freak Show has flirted with protagonists (Jimmy, Bette and Dot, etc.) and antagonists (Twisty, Stanley, Dandy, etc.), some better and some worse, but none of them have fit particularly well in the roles they appeared to be slotted for. Accordingly, the death of an entertaining but emotionally inconsequential character (Elsa) at the hands of an even less important character (Edward Mordrake) seems to be a fittingly anti-climactic conclusion for the finale, “Curtain Call.”

American Horror Story: Freak Show hasn’t had the slightest bit of subtlety when it’s come to conveying its themes and images, and this week’s episode, “Bullseye,” is no different. Though this heavy-handed dramatic approach has yielded uneven emotional results, “Bullseye” makes it work through its successful combination of shocking imagery and character development, as well as its clever connections between seemingly disparate elements.