Mr. Jingles is quickly becoming American Horror Story’s most tragic character, and that means he’s clearing a pretty high bar. His post World War II backstory (with the not at all subtle reminder that even before Ryan Murphy and company splattered that quaint ‘40s tableau with blood, America after the war was already sitting in the shadow death) was one of the more horrifying moments of the season, because it was so ordinary and plausible, yet so bloody. I mean, the motorboat definitely shouldn’t have been in the lake where all the lightly supervised kids were, but that’s probably exactly where it would be in real life too.
The boat motor was most likely brought in because drowning doesn’t provide that cinematic cloud of blood poor Bobby produced, but because his grizzly end was just left of a complete tragic summer camp cliche his mother’s (yay, Lily Rabe is back!) need to blame everyone else seem particularly unhinged. While it’s never ok to put the burden of a child’s death on a teenage lifeguard or your prepubescent son, if Bobby had drowned because no one had been watching him, at least the blame game, however twisted, would have been rooted in truth. But even if he had people watching him like a hawk, that motor seemed to rip him apart almost instantly.
Rabe’s ghostly mother roaming the woods for decades, her rage powerful enough to keep generations of late-counselors trapped at the camp is an intriguing twist that works, for the most part. While it makes sense that little Bobby’s spirit isn’t hanging around (whether by the rules that govern those who die younger than ten, or by more Casper-esc, no unfinished business laws of the afterlife), where are the 1940s counselors that Lavinia slaughtered? And while moral ambiguity and the question of who is truly innocent and who is guilty when corruptible forces are in the mix is a key question present in every season of AHS, knowing exactly how much sway ghost-mom had over Margaret’s self-conscious would have been nice. While realizing, at the moment Benji cuts his hand Margaret might have been genuinely fond of him is properly sad, it’s left up to interpretation if Mommy Dearest’s whisper is what lead her to her bloody rampage, or only what lead her to frame Benji for the whole thing. And coming up on what will likely be Margaret’s very gruesome demise, having some clarity on her evil-level seems relevant.
It also doesn’t quite track that Benji, definitely the most level-headed victim of multiple murder attempts ever seen on TV, would be so wedded to the idea that the only danger to his son is Ramirez when his mother had just confessed to causing him so much pain. Plus, there’s the whole detail of the devil. The devil’s biggest fanboy might have been the last son of Satan Benji hung out with, but he signed a contract with the big man downstairs himself. Who’s to say if any plots against his son will stop just by killing one dude in a leather jacket?
The counselors’ (and Mr. Jingle’s impersonators’) newfound cool and calm attitude is a nice break from constant struggle and gore of the rest of the episode, but their need to move on was toothless because of it. Are they so sure there’s something better on the other side? Or that anything could be better for them than the murder/hook-up fest they’ve been enjoyed for the last few years?
Dylan McDermott pulls off a hat trick of common sense reminders, at least for women in ‘80s horror flicks —don’t trust a hitchhiker, don’t trust someone who talks about karma and don’t trust someone who pairs aviators with a mustache. His morality puzzle comes off as way too forced after his unceremonious killing of both the cop and the trucker unlucky enough to be the first car the in the multi-car crash. Would someone who was trying to match Ted Bundy’s body count try anything so fancy when he could have easily offed both Donna and Brooke while they were unconscious?
Next week, Brooke is introduced to the concept of the final girl, then is introduced to the idea that she is one, and then decides to see if she can really make it until the end of the movie.
Stray Observations
- Brooke forgives Donna really, really quickly considering she is the reason she ended up in jail for those five long years (she had a lot of time to think, so it stands to reason she would have worked out Margaret only felt comfortable going on a killing spree once she realized Mr. Jingles had escaped and was thus available to take the fall.
- Poor Benji is also too trusting too quick. When your ghost mother has explicitly told you she’s going to do everything in her power to make you suffer, you probably shouldn’t trust her to give you the real rules of the afterlife/purgatory.
- Some quick Googling seems to suggest that, despite the final scene of this week’s episode, all members of Kajagoogoo are alive and well. No way to tell if they have signed any contracts with Satan, though.
- Trevor adapts to the idea of hooking up with a ghost a lot faster than Brooke did.
- For those still playing ‘80s bingo at home, for this week’s episode — Doogie Howser, MD, “Too Shy,” The Neverending Story, and Donna’s violently blue eye shadow.
- Yes, there was a definite dip in roller rinks post-1984, but there’s more than one in the LA area as of 2019. Donna might have been blowing the roller rink crisis a little out of proportion.
57 Comments
I liked that the “origin story” here seemed to combine both the original Friday the 13th (vengeful mother, negligent counselors) and Sleepaway Camp (boating accident). If you’re going to borrow, might as well borrow from the icons. Rabe is always welcome on AHS, even if this wasn’t exactly her most nuanced character. Pretty much everything else felt like table-setting for the finale but it had a certain momentum and energy that AHS often lacks by this point of the season.
Yea, this is the most solidly consistent season of AHS in years. I keep on waiting for things to go totally off the rails like they normally do.
There’s always the finale!
It’s an odd feeling being this late into an AHS and its still holding itself together. I’m not really sure what to do with myself
The scene where Young Benji is watching the counselors make out in the woods is almost a shot-for-shot remake of one from Friday the 13th Part V where a drifter does the same right before he’s killed. I was waiting for yet another killer to pop out of the woods and handle all of them.
I’m still holding out hope we get to see some serious old timey masacre
I thought last week was a bit of a mess… so was this week (*another* serial killer, as others have said) but I’ll grant it, like you said, it did have a certain momentum and energy that we rarely get past the half way point of a season (at least any recent season).
As for Brooke forgiving Donna so quickly (something the reviewer mentioned) and them buddying up–isn’t this *very very very* typical of AHS? Are only questioning it now?
I’m not even sure how quickly this was meant to be. Time clearly passed, since you know. Richter got from Alaska to California and also *Brooke’s hair grew longer*.
YES! The Montana Trevor make-out we’ve been waiting for since their sassy pool banter is here!
MY GOD, does Montana get to have the half ghost demon baby?! <3. If ghost man juice works, ghost lady good china should work.
The boat thing is maybe (?) from Sleepaway Camp, a classic slasher with a notable special effect at the end. In the opener, siblings are playing in the lake when one watches the other get motorboated with their Dad, who is out and about with his gay lover. We can assume the two men in this scene in AHS are gay, because I’m high.
There’s that scene:
Lily Rabe! Hooray. Weird choice to make her angry before sad upon the death of her son. Maybe we’ll get to see this other massacre Mr Jingles talked about? Or was it just her son? It left me wanting a 50’s themed Mrs Voorhes/Serial Mom killing spree
Very heavy handed on the music cues giving the kid the comic.
Not-Rita’s character is still awful but at least her wig is marginally better and good god that bawdy.
John Carroll Lynch is really good despite typecasting.The Satanic deals make no sense because the audience doesn’t know what both parties agreed to.
They should’ve killed Dylan McDermott to ensure he doesn’t implausibly escape & attack them at the music fest.
Limahl was an inspiration for X-Men’s Longshot.
I like to think “I’ll never play The Neverending Story” line was a play off that Stranger Things just very successfully used it right around when this was being made, so ripped that out of a music choices for AHS.
Really. Oh good, another serial killer.
Wasn’t there a line in the trailer like that? Did they cut for the episode?
I don’t know, losing your thumbs is really going to limit your murder options
He’ll get them replaced with tiny ice picks.
So instead of calling the cops on an evil serial killer or even killing him, they just…. cut off his thumbs? You can still kill people without thumbs.
Try opening a bottle without using your thumbs. It’s very difficult to grip anything, then thumb plays a major role in grasping and manipulating objects.
Can you, though?
…I mean, he lost a lot of blood, so probably not? Not…sure Brooke and Donna can call the cops. 1 ) It’s the late 80s, and no one has a cellphone and 2) Brooke is technically an escaped death row prisoner…
If they called the cops, they would have been obliged to tell them their identities for the police reports. Presumably, it wouldn’t be too hard for the cops to figure out that Brooke was someone who was supposed to have been executed (and subsequently that Donna helped her elude that fate).
Not very well. And they don’t have time to hang around for the cops.
Those plot gaps and odd digressions are what makes it feel like an actual 80’s summer camp slasher B-movie, to me. Unfortunately that’s probably what I find so unendingly dull about this season too.
Not sure how much murder you can do with no thumbs
I presumed Bobby wasn’t there because he died before his mother – and it was her rage and anger that subsequently bound everyone there.Likewise, that’s why there are no 1940s counselors.
*gets cooked alive inside an oven*ok ill show you where your mom is 😀
I can’t believe I’m explaining a part of the Murphy/Falchuk logic, but Molly wrote in her review: “While it makes sense that little Bobby’s spirit isn’t hanging around
(whether by the rules that govern those who die younger than ten, or by
more Casper-esc, no unfinished business laws of the afterlife), where are the 1940s counselors that Lavinia slaughtered?”
This DID make sense to me. The counselors were all slaughtered, it seems, before pre-Jingles killed his mom. It was his mom’s blood seeping into the soil that caused spirits to be trapped there. So, I’m thinking that means people who are killed AFTER her blood seeped the land are the ones trapped there.
That’s exactly it. Lavinia even said as much!
I’m with the reviewer, so this is helpful. thnx
Exactly.
Jingles shouldn’t have killed himself. I bet his mom lied to him about protecting his brother by doing it. The earlier scene when he met her revealed how much she hates Jingles and would never forgive him. That should have been his clue not to believe what she says.Now she will torment him for the till eternity now that he can’t leave.
I feel like there must be some significance to the hotel room number (127) that Donna and Brooke stayed in based on the way they lingered on it. As far as Brooke deciding to trust Donna, she really didn’t have much choice. There was also an element of cult deprogramming (a very 70’s/80’s thing) in that whole process.
Room 127 is a Shining reference.
Not it’s not that’s room 237.
Ah shit, you’re right.
Room 127 is the evil room from the Shining.
Room 237 is the room from the Shining. Is this possibly the same room as Ramirez and Benji were staying in when he tried to kidnap the German woman?
It’s not the same motel, so unlikely.And youre right, but it is a shining reference. 127 is the number of takes the director forced shelly duvall to do on a particular take.
While everyone seems to catch the Friday The 13th reference, I also got vibes of 1986’s The Hitcher. The “run her over or I’ll kill you” game feels a small nod to the death game seen in that film.
You are correct.
Wasn’t Dylan McDermott’s character a reference to THE HITCHER?
He was indeed.
I think Benji and the 40’s counselors aren’t ghosts because it was Benji’s mother’s death that caused the curse. So if you died before that, you weren’t stuck. And I think that there is a combination of time and some sort of conditioning that usually is just used on enemies in movies (but Donna does appear to be using this for good) and kind of what happens in rehab happening there that at least gets Brooke to what appears to be a more level headed sense of things that she needed a lifeboat. But while Donna might be familiar with the Final Girl theory that she is familiar with the best friend role in said horror movies and maybe that becomes part of the plan that what Donna will do is steal a car and leave it just past the grounds of the camp, so she doesn’t fall into that trap that didn’t seem to get noticed until Scream that the best friend makes it pretty far but is usually the death that propels the Final Girl to her final stand. I am going to go with some Supernatural (the TV show here) that don’t they just have to set fire to the cabin and some area outside of it? I mean, its risking a forest fire, but, still.
You kind of missed a lot of stuff here. For one thing, we know that this season follows the same ghost rules as previous seasons, so yes. There can be ten year old ghosts. Also, she said Bobby’s ghost IS there, he just won’t appear to her. The implication seems to be that he’s haunting the lake. She also DID give him the real purgatory rules, because what she said would happen to him DID happen. It was kind of implied that learning he was trying to protect his son and that he named his son after his brother changed her mind. She also specifically stated that she gave Margaret a “push” to kill, not a push to blame. Bruce’s creativity with Brooke and Donna vs the cop/trucker is…easy: all of his known victims are women. He gets creative with the women, so he has a set pattern that people are seeing for his ‘kill count’. He clearly doesn’t want to be seen as a killer of men, so why get creative there?The roller rink resurgence isn’t really….something that started in the 90s. That’s a recent thing. No reason for Donna to know about it.As an aside, have no reviewers even NOTICED that the character Jonas Shevoore’s name anagrams to Jason Voorhees?
Nice call on the anagram.
Thanks!
I’ll do ya one better – I didn’t even know that character *had* a name. I definitely come back to these reviews once a week to see your comment because of stuff like this. I think you’re the person who told me the lake guy was an Olympian too. I wish Tasha and Scott from the AV Club I loved were covering it.
Heck I’d take someone reviewing it who was paying attention! And I’m so glad to know that, re: why you come back and read the reviews! Sometimes I worry that I’m being too brusque!
As an aside, have no reviewers even NOTICED that the character Jonas Shevoore’s name anagrams to Jason Voorhees?HOLY FUCK.Mind Blown. GREAT CATCH!
Thanks!
Next week: “KAJAGOOGOO ARE DEAD!”
For the ghosts it really is a Neverending Stoooooorrrrrrrryyyyyy.I’ll show myself out.
Brooke forgives Donna really, really quickly
Girl loves her a nice roller rink and who can blame her
Was it even that quickly? It’s been at least 2 weeks if not a month, and Donna saved her!
Ghosts still have bodily functions, i.e., the Mr. Jingles imitator trying to pee when Mr. Jingles comes upon him?
Yes, that was bad rule-breaking writing.
This was more of what I expected from this “slasher” season of AHS. Blood and guts and gore and a more stripped-down writing style, yet still touching on the social & societal excesses of the 1980’s. It was also a welcome surprise to see Lily Rabe as the bizarro version of her annoying Stevie Nicks persona of seasons past. And the Kajagoogoo spin was the icing on the cake. Here’s to hoping for a successful slaughter at the music fest!
While it makes sense that little Bobby’s spirit isn’t hanging around The reason why he and the 1940s counselors are not hanging around is pretty clearly because it was the death of Rabe’s mother character that began the curse.