American Horror Story: Freak Show - S4E6 - Bullseye

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Previously on AHS: Freak Show, ‘Pink Cupcakes’

Elsa has decided she’s going to incorporate her knife-throwing act into her new TV show. You know, the TV show that ain’t gonna happen. She has convinced everyone, including herself, that this will happen. She’s also convinced almost everyone that the twins ran off in the middle of the night. And she wants everyone to focus on her week-long birthday celebration. That’s right, Elsa gets a whole birthday week.

Elsa is also banging Paul, which is not as shocking as learning Paul is banging the candy striper who they all gang-raped in episode one. They’re in love, but he still has to hide under the bed when her father comes sniffing around her room.

Gloria presents Dandy with condoms because inbreeding is bad enough; he can’t go knocking up a two-headed freak. Dandy is determined to make honest women out of Bette and Dot, and has no use for those condoms. Also, Dandy is gay. Bette is completely enamored with Dandy’s act, and because he’s not acting like a complete psychopath, you kinda don’t blame her. Dot is offering up healthy side-eyes every chance she gets, but she tells herself she’ll go along with it because Dandy can afford the separation surgery. She even fantasizes about being a whole person, reunited with Jimmy, and not giving a single fuck that Bette died in the process.

Stanley pressures Esmerelda to turn on Jimmy (since the twins are missing), so she devises a plan to kidnap Ma Petite instead. She’ll lead her out to the barn where he’ll drown her in a jar. We see this via another fake-out scene like the twins’ demise in Pink Cupcakes, so as disturbing as it was, I wasn’t fooled.

Paul has a run-in with Dandy at a convenience store and notices his purchases: all women’s toiletries, but he’s kicked out before he can make his purchase of perfume for his secret love. Convinced that Elsa had something to do with the twins’ disappearance and pretty much sick of her shit, he calls her on all of it after she figures out he has a girlfriend. He goes a step further and tells her everyone in the freak show thinks she did something to Bette and Dot.

Enraged, Elsa wakes everyone up and cusses them out. Ma Petite and Esmerelda are absent from this tongue lashing, so at this point I was wondering if she wasn’t going to get drowned in the barn after all. They all try to calm Elsa’s fears, but she decides the only thing that will make her feel better is if one of them is strapped to the spinning wheel while she throws knives at it. Paul volunteers because he knows this is his fault and he also doesn’t think she’d risk hurting him in front of everyone. She’s actually pretty good - until she misses on purpose and gets him right in the gut.

She has him taken to her quarters and says she’s called an ambulance, but she’s full of shit. When Paul doesn’t show up to meet the candy striper, she tries to sneak out to see him, telling her father to kiss her ass on the way out. She finds him in Elsa’s tent, looking like he’s about to die.

Esmerelda wakes Ma Petite and takes her out to the barn for her “surprise.” Then she places her in a jar so they can play a game. Ma Petite is all, “Like a butterfly?” Aw, bless her gullible heart. The next morning, Ma Petite can’t be found, but all is well when Esmerelda appears with the tiny lady, very much alive. Esmerelda asks Jimmy to run away with her, and he agrees, but he has to do something first. She heads to her tent to pack and finds Stanley. He’s had enough of her stalling. She better lure Jimmy out to the barn or else.

No one feels like celebrating Elsa’s birthday due to Paul probably about to die, but Ethel has baked a cake and tells Elsa she should have a slice of her own cake. And she casually drops this little tidbit: If she ever learns Elsa did anything to the twins and lied about it, she’ll kill Elsa with her own two hands.

Welp.

Dandy wants to know what the twins are writing in their diaries, and tells them a secret in an effort to get them to spill one of theirs. He tells them he is the one who killed Twisty and rescued the kids. Since this would mean Jimmy is liar, Dot doesn’t believe it and refuses to tell him a secret. Bette is like, “Girl, is you stupid? Tell him anything!” But Dot is stubborn and Dandy loses the little bit of sanity he was pretending to have. Later, he reads Dot’s diary and learns that not only is she using him for the money, she can’t stand his ass. Dandy looks at this as a sign he should embrace his darkness because clearly he wasn’t meant to know love. Clearly this motherfucker is crazy. Unfortunately for Jimmy, he arrives there looking for the twins just after Dandy’s epiphany. And Dandy has a big-ass knife in his pants.