Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz, and Joe Baken’s Grotesquerie started in a rather unassuming fashion, but it was clear that a palpable darkness was brewing under the surface of its characters and setting, like a gaping chasm to Hell that could swallow the world at any moment. There’s been an emphasis on order ruling over chaos – particularly in the form of jigsaw puzzles – right from Grotesquerie’s first episode. Lois Tryon (Niecy Nash-Betts) and the rest of her family would innocently solve puzzles all season while she simultaneously tries to put together the pieces of a grander serial killer mystery where Lois can’t see the forest for the trees. To Grotesquerie’s credit, it’s a series that’s routinely kept its audience guessing regarding how all these pieces possibly fit together and what the finished picture is supposed to look like. Grotesquerie certainly hasn’t been lacking in ambition with a season that’s been full of Hannibal-esque murder tableaus and freakouts that are reminiscent of Isabelle Adjani’s iconic scene from Possession. At one point, Lois casually remarks that “the last piece is never as fun as the first,” in regards to her jigsaw puzzles. Grotesquerie’s finale is an episode that begs the question, “does that even matter if the puzzle has kept you busy for several hours?”
Grotesquerie has been all over the place and much of this series feels like Niecy Nash-Betts doing her best Dale Cooper impression, which works better in some episodes than others. Each episode has teased increasingly heightened material and the season’s fifth installment even showcases a 15-minute unbroken tracking shot that’s truly kinetic filmmaking. It’s a standout segment, but also one of the best and most impressive sequences to come out of any of Ryan Murphy’s FX productions. Grotesquerie is visually creative throughout all ten episodes, but it’s unfortunate that the whole season doesn’t feature this level of ambition.
Grotesquerie has been surprisingly well-paced. In fact, there are several episodes that clock in short at only 30 minutes, while others run for close to an hour. It’s actually appreciated that Grotesquerie doesn’t feel the need to superfluously pad out its episodes with filler and that they’re allowed to run shorter if they have less to say. It’s always better to get a tighter, focused narrative, rather than one that meanders and wears out its welcome. That being said, the series’ seventh episode features one of more audacious twists to ever appear in a Ryan Murphy production and it’s something that the season’s final three episodes – including this finale – continue to reckon with and attempt to reconcile. Grotesquerie revealed that the season’s first seven episodes were all Lois’ liminal state coma fantasy as her brain attempts to cure chaos and solve problems. In reality, Lois is the cause of the misery and mayhem that orbits around her. Lois’ liminal state was full of Biblical references, yet she’s unable to receive forgiveness and grace after she’s acknowledged her faults and attempted to atone.
Grotesquerie’s “dream specialist,” Dr. Witticomb (Santino Fontana), also provides a reasonable explanation regarding why Lois’ coma dream has been so dark and why these figures around her were recontextualized into these demonstrably different roles. It’s Lois’ proximity to vile serial killers that’s caused her mental health to head down such a destructive path, albeit one where she still has agency to some extent. All this material has certainly been interesting and akin to something like Lost Highway, though much less accomplished, layered, and deep. It ends up feeling closer to The Wizard of Oz than anything from Lynch’s oeuvre.
Grotesquerie has gotten a lot of mileage out of seeing how reality echoes Lois’ liminal state visions and if there is even something clairvoyant afoot as Lois’ subconscious wrestles with logic. The clairvoyance angle is further elaborated upon as Lois’ dreams appear to become reality and Grotesquerie teases whether history is doomed to repeat itself, or, if a more grounded explanation is in play, like somebody has been reading her files and using them for their own inspiration and a way to further unravel Lois’ mind. The final episodes have continued to reinvent themselves and mess with the audience’s perception of what this series really is and what it’s trying to do. This reaches a fever pitch in the finale.
“You can’t just erase people who make mistakes” is echoed as the finale’s recurring theme, yet Lois has done exactly this, so to speak, with how her liminal space coma dream has transformed people into contrasting versions of themselves. It may not exactly be erasure, but it’s not that far removed from it. Grotesquerie’s finale focuses almost entirely on Courtney B. Vance’s Marshall, who delivers a moving and gripping performance, even if his showcase in this installment feels slightly misguided. Marshall gets embroiled in a Me Too-esque scandal that seemingly comes out of nowhere and is the first indication that Lois may actually be steering “reality” and playing the role of creator. Ed (Travis Kelce) takes Marshall to the Mexicali Men’s Club where they debate the value of gender pronouns and man’s shifting role in society as increasingly persecuted individuals. This becomes a larger sermon on how men are presumed to be predatory and dangerous, regardless of what they do in life. Somehow this becomes the episode’s longest sequence and it spans two separate acts, which certainly feels excessive in a show that’s allegedly about a serial killer, religion, and chaos.
The most interesting element of Grotesquerie’s finale is Lois’ sneaking suspicion that everything that’s followed episode seven has actually been some deeper layer of her liminal space and that she still hasn’t actually awoken from her coma and is, instead, trapped in some “otherworld” purgatory. It’s a compelling thesis that’s consistent with Grotesquerie’s themes and something that’s potentially true. That being said, this finale could still reiterate the same mission statement in a simpler fashion that’s not bogged down in gender manifestos. It’s not necessary for Grotesquerie to endlessly circle around the drain before it finally follows through on Lois’ haunting hypotheses. What’s more frustrating is that the finale reaches a rather abrupt end once it finally starts to scratch the surface of some satisfying ideas that tease the series’ grander plan.
“The old ways don’t work. There must be new paradigms,” is something that Marshall tells Lois early on in the finale. Grotesquerie embraces this philosophy and the episode leaves audiences with many more questions than it does answers. Lois is apparently ready to drop in the last piece of this puzzle and apprehend a serial killer, for real this time, but Grotesquerie leaves its audience hanging and reserves any sense of catharsis or resolution for a second season. It’s a bold realization that the series will be a multi-season serialized narrative, rather than an anthology program or a one-and-done miniseries. This approach certainly reinforces Marshall’s speech to Lois. This may be exciting, in theory, but it doesn’t change the fact that this finale doesn’t represent Grotesquerie’s strongest material. It’s a meandering mess that’s akin to a fever dream for most of its runtime, which may be intentional, but it’s not exactly satisfying. It’s the equivalent of Lois pouring out a whole new box of puzzle pieces right when audiences expect her to slot in the final piece.
Grotesquerie warned audiences that “the last piece is never as fun as the first.” Not only does this finale prove this thesis, but it attempts to completely sidestep the statement by making sure that the audience never reaches the final piece…and perhaps never will.
See you in season two?
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