American Horror Story: Freak Show Finale Recap With Spoilers: Curtain Call

The American Horror Story: Freak Show finale opens while the freaks prepare for their new show, now owned by and featuring Dandy (Finn Wittrock), who doesn’t understand why they aren’t selling tickets and takes it out on the others. He declares their “mediocre oddities” boring, saying that audiences need a “new kind of freak,” but when he threatens them – they fight back, led by Paul the Illustrated Seal (Mat Fraser), who declares Dandy “boring” and speaks for the others. They all quit.

Meanwhile in Hollywood, a tired receptionist refuses, once again, to let Elsa (Jessica Lange) meet with the head of a television network. The receptionist eventually insults Elsa, prompting a slap and a fight with security – which gets conveniently broken up by the junior vice president of casting, a German sympathetic to Elsa’s claims.

Back at the circus, Dandy puts on some make-up and declares “show time,” before going on a shooting rampage through the tents, shooting the likes of Paul, Penny, Suzi, and more to their deaths. As the gunshots are heard, some freaks are able to arm themselves, such as Eve (Erika Ervin), while others are able to hide themselves, such as Desiree (Angela Bassett). 

Just as it seems that Dandy will find Desiree, Eve appears, inciting a brawl and wrestling him away, before he ultimately shoots her in the leg and then the head, putting her down too. The fight allows Desiree to escape, but Bette and Dot (Sarah Paulson) won’t be as lucky. Dandy heads to the twins’ tent, where the two are tied up and gagged. He tells them to follow him.

Jimmy (Evan Peters) visits the camp in the middle of the night to find the entire place in disarray, seemingly abandoned. He searches for Elsa until he gets to the main tent, where he finds the bodies of the dead laid out in a path from the stage and through the audience. Desiree finds him, and the two mourn together.

Next, Bette and Dot are shown in a wedding dress, walking down the aisle for Bette to meet groomsman Dandy. Bette enthusiastically agrees, though Dot is a bit more reluctant about the scenario. At their dinner feast, Dandy imagines their thrilling future of freak babies, when suddenly he gets a bit woozy. Their “chef” has been Desiree, and they’ve conspired against him, poisoning his drink.

He raises a knife to Desiree, shaky as he is, but Bette shoots him in the upper arm. Jimmy “the butler” enters, and in a brief flashback, it’s revealed how the twins distracted him to let the others into his mansion. The twins, Desiree, and Jimmy tell Dandy he’s finally going to be the star of a show, just as he loses consciousness.

Dandy wakes up in Houdini’s escape tank, a life-size plastic box, a few feet taller than him, with a bit of water in the bottom. He’s naked, wearing only his underwear, chained to the ground. The twins adding that he’ll be home soon, home in Hell, and Jimmy starts to slowly raise the water in the tank. The freaks watch, eating popcorn, as the water slowly goes over Dandy’s head. His final words are “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

Next, the episode cuts to Elsa in Hollywood, in the year 1960. She ultimately married the man from the episode’s opening, making him her manager. Elsa became a huge star for “The Elsa Mars Hour,” even getting a star on the Walk of Fame. She’s shown filming a commercial for instant coffee with her husband, when the two begin to argue. Elsa refuses to perform her show on Halloween.

Elsa later goes home, where she meets Massimo Dolcefino (Danny Huston). She tells him how badly she wants to be loved, and he reminds her that he loves her. Elsa asks him to run away with her, but he tells her that he’s simply visiting to say that he is dying. He only has one month left to live.

Later that night, Elsa is drunk when her husband comes home with the head of the network. The old film of the attempted snuff film where Elsa’s legs were cut off has been found. A reporter is going to publish a piece on it, and as if that wouldn’t ruin her career, her freak show past was discovered. He tells her that all the freaks are mysteriously dead now, and the morality clause in her contract has officially been broken. Elsa finally decides to perform on Halloween.

Cut to Halloween, when Elsa is performing her show. A happy Desiree is shown with her husband, Angus (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), when they pass a television screen with Elsa’s show airing. Jimmy and the twins are shown living together happily as well, with a baby on the way, also watching Elsa.

Behind Elsa’s stage, Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley) and Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch) appear, who have been summoned by her Halloween performance. Mordrake approaches her, saying he never forgot her. She requests that he take her now, and he agrees to accept her suicide. Twisty says it “only hurts for a moment,” and then Mordrake stabs her. As Elsa falls, Mordrake says, “your place is not with us.”

Elsa’s spirit seems to float back in time, back to the circus, where she sees all of the dead freaks, alive and well. Ethel (Kathy Bates) is there, and she reveals that Elsa will never have to “pay for her sins.” She will get to spend eternity in this form of the afterlife, where she’ll continue to headline Fraulein Elsa’s Cabinet of Curiosities forever – as “the brightest and the best that ever was and ever will be,” Elsa Mars.