Summary
Travis Kelce’s presence lights up “The Bender” and “Coordinates”, but this is still a deeply weird and sometimes horrifying show.
Travis Kelce is a handsome fellow, isn’t he? I bring this up since his much-advertised presence in Grotesquerie is the rare light spot in what is otherwise a deeply weird and occasionally horrifying show. Of course, there’s a good chance he’s a serial killer, and Episodes 3 & 4 clearly want us to mistrust him, but for now, he gets to remain Travis Kelce, the handsome suitor. The role fits like a glove.
But if you thought things were odd in Episode 1 and Episode 2, you haven’t seen anything yet. There’s all kinds of stuff to unpack here, from more grisly killings to profound Catholic self-loathing to almost biblical escalations. But despite all the very quintessential Ryan Murphy flourishes, this really does strike me as ideal October viewing.
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Grotesquerie Episode 3, fittingly titled “The Bender”, begins with a very drunk Lois making a very hungry Merritt a turducken dinner. And yes, it’s weird.
It’s weird in several ways. One is that it’s framed in a slightly off-kilter style, almost like a dream sequence, which one supposes is designed to reflect Lois being half-cut. But it’s also weird because it’s about two deeply damaged women agreeing to enable each other’s worst impulses simply to be left alone in their self-destruction. Lois is happy to cook Merritt elaborate meals and keep feeding her up to outsized proportions if Merritt agrees not to draw attention to how many martinis are getting poured.
This sequence also provides a bit of backstory to Lois and Marshall’s relationship, which was once evidently happier than it is now. Lois’s admission that she misses “some things” about her husband doesn’t mean much when she can only confess to loving Merritt “most days”. The fact that on the days that she doesn’t she at least wants to is small consolation. This is a broken woman, make no mistake.
More Killings
Another crime scene doesn’t do much for Lois’s mental state. This one seems tame at first, only a single corpse comprising a goat’s head for dramatic and presumably symbolic effect, but Lois, even in her addled state, recognizes quickly that the body is comprised of various sewn-together parts, all from different victims. She even recognizes some of them from their tattoos.
Some things are becoming increasingly clear. The victims all being unhoused people personally known to Lois implies a personal connection between her and the killer. Whoever’s cutting them up and sewing them together must be someone with substantial anatomical knowledge and surgical skills. And Lois is very drunk.
Her drinking hasn’t gone unnoticed. She’s heavily inebriated at the crime scene and launches into an angry monologue about the victim and the general uselessness of her fellow officers that is quite funny – Niecy Nash plays a great drunk – but also a bit worrying. Later, Lois’s colleagues agree to cut her a bit of slack given she’s demonstrably a great detective and is going through a lot with Marshall.
Father Mayhew and Sister Megan
Charlie Mayhew is also funny – but not really. The self-loathing sex-mad priest has a vision of a thoroughly modern version of Catholicism that doesn’t endear him to the church’s elder statesmen, but the sight of him cutting around the church in assless leather chaps got a big laugh from me, as well it might.
But he can’t be good for Sister Megan, who is near-enough obsessed with him. This doesn’t go unnoticed by Charlie, who contrives reasons to be topless around her and flirts heavily, clearly to get her to publish more salacious true-crime material to increase the readership of the paper. A creepy moment between them wherein Megan washes the wounds on his back almost gets full-on, but Charlie backs out at the last moment. In Grotesquerie Episode 4, the two finally give in to their temptation and have sex.
Anyway, let’s talk about Travis Kelce.
Pictured: Travis Kelce. CR: Prashant Gupta/FX
What’s Travis Kelce Up To?
Kelce’s character, Eddie, is an orderly in the hospital where Nurse Redd is trying to clean Marshall’s bedsores and convince Lois to hand over power of attorney. He immediately takes a liking to Lois, whom he flirts with openly, and later when she wraps her car around a pole while drunk-driving, he helps her escape from the hospital where she has been temporarily locked up.
Eddie is almost like Lois’s guardian angel. After the escape, he tricks Lois into attending an AA meeting and shares some more of his backstory, which includes being an alcoholic, homeless male stripper. This is enough for Lois to enlist him as Merritt’s babysitter and personal bodyguard.
Merritt finally managed to open that puzzle box and inside found some coordinates written on a piece of paper. Lois and Sister Megan head out there, so Merritt will be on her own for a couple of nights. Since the killer seems to be targeting Lois specifically, it makes sense that Merritt might be in danger. But drafting in Eddie for protection detail is so ill-advised that it borders on hilarious. Lois barely knows this guy and there’s simply no chance that he’s as well-meaning as he seems.
A Musical Road Trip
Ryan Murphy is going to Ryan Murphy, so Grotesquerie Episode 4 features a completely out-of-place musical diversion for no reason at all. While they drive to the coordinates hidden inside the box, Lois and Sister Megan belt out a duet of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from Jesus Christ Superstar.
I have no idea why this is here. It’s the kind of oddball flourish that Murphy is prone to, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when I realized that we were going to be treated to a full rendition, but it doesn’t reveal anything about the characters or inform the plot. It’s just a weird thing that happens for the sake of being weird.
Then again, the entire trip is weird. The coordinates lead to a sinkhole over a natural gas deposit, and the environment seems so apocalyptic that Sister Megan thinks her doing the dirty with Father Charlie has literally brought about Hell on Earth. She’s clearly exaggerating, but the sinkhole does seem to be widening, so she and Lois try to get out of Dodge as quickly as possible.
On their way they almost run a woman down, stopping just long enough to bundle her into the car. She warns that “he’s coming”, which at this point could refer to anyone from the devil to a man of the cloth to a hospital orderly. Either way, it doesn’t bode well.
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