American Horror Story’s fourth season, Freak Show, will be the last to feature actress Jessica Lange, who has played a major part in the series since its premiere in 2011. While her departure will be a huge loss to the show, it seems Murphy and his co-creator Brad Falchuk are giving her a fitting send-off by making Freak Show one of their most polished seasons yet, which should help to lure back viewers who may have gone off the series after the mixed success of its third season, Coven. Lange plays Elsa Mars, the owner of one of the last remaining freak shows in 1950s America and a bitter failed actress, whose mix of campy charm, sinister threat and occasional poignancy seems to perfectly encapsulate the tone of the episode.

I was wary of a horror story featuring a freak show, assuming that it would exploit the shock value of its physically disabled cast members at the expense of good writing, but the show mostly avoids abusing this cheap and offensive cliché. While a couple of moments felt like a veiled excuse to gawp at the weirdness of deformed bodies, the real horror of the episode comes from outside the confines of the freak show, in the form of the murderous Twisty the Clown who, despite the scary clown trope being overused, manages to be genuinely terrifying. In this episode his motivations seem inexplicable and his storyline separate from that of the freak show, apart from a few small, tense scenes which show him lurking on the fringes, which set the stage for what promises to be an interesting confrontation. The fact that Twisty seems to be a totally human menace makes a change from previous seasons of American Horror Story, which focused on supernatural terror, and so far it’s paying off massively.

The spectacular musical performance of David Bowie’s Life on Mars halfway through the episode proves that American Horror Story is far from giving up its trademark over-the-top extravagance or willingness to suspend realism for the sake of effect. However, in contrast to the fast pace of previous seasons, this first episode of Freak Show concentrated on slow build-up, with a few recurring actors such as Emma Roberts yet to make their appearance. This not only means the show relies less on jump scares – good news for twitchy viewers – but also meant the characters and their relationships to each other could be explored in depth. The close bond between the freak show performers, which is depicted both in endearing subtle moments and some far darker scenes in which the outside world threatens to impose, is a particular highlight. Another success of the show is the character of Dandy, played excellently by new actor Finn Wittrock, who proves that the “normal” people of Jupiter are often far more disturbed than the “freaks” they marginalise.

Overall, the episode was a fantastic, visually excellent foundation for the rest of the season, which combined horror, black humour and social commentary without spreading itself too thin. If Freak Show maintains the precedent set here, it might be the best season of American Horror Story yet.

Victoria Munro