Mark your calendars now – the premiere date of FX’s American Horror Story: Freak Show, the fourth outing for Ryan Murphy’s creeptastic campfest, has been announced as October 8th.
Though a lot about the upcoming season has been kept under wraps, we do have some information about Freak Show. Murphy muse Jessica Lange will be returning for what she’s said will be her last season (although the lineup of actors has changed from season to season, Lange’s presence has always been a given for the series). She’s joined by returning stars Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Sarah Paulson, Gabourey Sidibe, Frances Conroy, Denis O’Hare, Jamie Brewer, Evan Peters and Emma Roberts.
Freak Show will take place in Jupiter, Florida, during the 1950s, inside one of the last freak shows in the United States. Lange portrays its manager, a German ex-pat named Elsa Mars. She’s faced with a changing popular culture in the U.S. and also finds herself competing with O’Hare’s character, called “a collector of freaks.”
Within the freak show, Bates plays performer Ethel Darling, who was once married to the freak show’s resident strongman Wendell del Tolito (since remarried to Bassett’s performer, named Desiree Dupree). Peters plays Jimmy Darling, Ethel and Wendell’s son, while Roberts is portraying a love interest for Peters named Maggie. Paulson has the juiciest role by far as conjoined twins Bette and Dot.
The villains of the season include John Carroll Lynch (as Twisty, a “clown killer” who menaces the freak show and the surrounding town) and Wes Bentley as a “dark tormentor” who returns from Ethel’s past “hell-bent” on getting revenge. Sidibe plays a preppy Barbizon School grad who comes back to town to deal with a family matter, Patti LaBelle will play the mother of Sidibe’s character, who investigates Twisty, and the world’s smallest woman, Jyoti Amge, also has an unknown role in the series, as does Finn Wittrock.
Sound good? Let us know whether you’ll be heading to the Freak Show on October 8th.
