4.5 Pink Cupcakes That search for easy targets allows Dandy to pop up in the strangest places, or rather what’s going to be one of the show’s unifying places: an underground gay strip club where Stanley apparently picked up Matt Bomer and where Dell is actively cozying up to his boyfriend—while being in no big hurry to leave his wife. It’s really a great series of transitions. We follow Dandy through the bar, run into Dell and his hustler acquaintance, Dell storms off, and then Dandy moves in for the kill. Not literally, of course; he actually kills the guy after paying him $100 and bringing him back to Twisty’s trailer. However, even that moment is disappointing to Dandy, as the person he keeps trying to kill just refuses to die, even after bits of him are sawn off. Dandy is living his sick dream, and he’s unsatisfied. It parallels nicely to Stanley’s recurring fantasies about how he’ll secure a bunch of cool oddities (via murder) from Elsa’s show and sell them to the museum for all the big-wigs and high-rollers to gawk at. Stanley’s dreams end up being unsatisfying. Gloria’s delusions are smashed not once by dead Dora, but twice by her half-naked son stumbling home, covered in the blood of his unsatisfying failure (which ruins Dell’s vision of living the San Francisco lifestyle with Andy). However, there’s another interesting moment in story, and that’s the humanization of Dell. Michael Chiklis hasn’t been given a great character thus far, all bluster and bombast and impotent rage (and impotence, for that matter). Yes, Dell is still a horrible person, but smashing faces and shattering fingers is the only way he can exercise control over his own life. It gives the character an instant dimension, a humanizing touch that’s been lacking this whole time, and Chiklis is great at playing big guys with some sort of damage like this. Dell’s still not likable, but Chiklis is definitely able to make him pitiable. Between the serial killing, shattered dreams, and the standard AHS odd sex scenes, there was a lot of fun character and dialogue moments this week from Jessica Sharzer. Dandy’s inner monologue was really fun stuff, and I loved the blatant rip-off of American Psycho that was happening as Dandy honed himself into the dangerous, powerful US Steel of murder. It was blatant, and it was wonderfully amusing, if only because Dandy’s as witty as Patrick Bateman, but in a more genuine way sans Mary Harron’s irony. Finn Wittrock is awesome on this show, and if the fifth season can do one thing for me, it’s get him and Dylan McDermott in the same scenes at the same time. The TV screen cannot contain that much awesome craziness at the same time, and it would be a great way to bring Dylan back into the AHS fold. Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, Edward Mordrake (Part 2), here. US Correspondent Ron Hogan has spent entirely too much time in the darkness in recent days, thanks to the electric company inefficiently replacing utility poles. Still, at least he got to see the death of Twisty and the rise of Twisty 2. Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
