"Mr. Jingles" – American Horror Story S09E02 Review

Another week, another episode of American Horror Story.

There are a few bits of minor humor and taking the mickey out on 80s horror movies. The choice of music, mostly, particularly playing "Black Wedding" during a wedding massacre. There's a few other musical cues that evoke a grin. But that's about it.

The rest of "Mr. Jingles" is, if anything, even more dead-serious than last week. Gone are the jabs at aerobicize and 70s style and the LA Olympics. We get a minor plot twist or two, but it doesn't add anything new or unique to the series. I'm not sure if it's supposed to or not. There's one ghostly revelation, and we get some back story on Richard Ramirez, aka The Night Stalker. But that's it.

Starting off the episode is Dr. Hopple (Orla Brady) arriving at Redwood. She manages to avoid everyone as she comes in, finally finds Margaret, and has a conversation where Margaret acts all spooky and weird. When Margaret takes out a gun and vows not let Mr. Jingles terrorize her, Hopple walks out and drives back to the asylum. A tire on her car blows out, Jingles pulls up, and reveals he spread metal spikes on the road. Jingles then drags Hopple out of her car and kills her. But she's in the preview for next week, so prepare for some hot flashback action.

After all of the counselors sneer at Brooke's story of seeing Jingles, Margaret orders the guys out. Brooke tells Montana about how she's already seen the worst, and we get a flashback to her wedding a year ago. Her groom, Joseph (Spencer Neville), goes jealous-crazy at the altar, accuses Brooke of sleeping with her friend and Joseph's best man, Sam, and shoots first Sam, then Brooke's father, then himself. All while the aforementioned "Black Wedding" plays in the background.

I stand corrected: there's a little bit of humor with Montana comparing how a man grabbed her breast at Sam Goody's to what Brooke has been through. That's before the flashback story. After it, Montana kisses Brooke because that's what you do after your would-be romantic partner tells you about her wedding-day massacre. Brooke pulls away and walks out.

Ray, Chet, and Trevor go off to have a shower in what seems to be a parody of all those summer-camp horror movies with naked women taking showers. Or *ahem* so I'm told. Meanwhile, Xavier gets grabbed by Blake (Todd Stashwick), who is a producer of gay porn movies starring Xavier. He wants Xavier to make some more, and when Xavier refuses, threatens to send copies of the movies to Xavier's family and friends. Xavier offers to give Blake someone more "talented" than he is ("Bigger than John Holmes" is the phrase used, aye aye, nudge nudge, say no more). When Blake agrees, Xavier takes him to the shower so Blake can get an eyeful of the naked Trevor. Xavier slips away, and this gives Jingles time to kill Blake by impaling him through the head with a spike.

Things go south from there. Eventually, the counselors find Blake's corpse, panic, and try to drive off. Rita stumbles out, and Xavier slams the counselors' van into Margaret's car to avoid her. They split up to go to both the infirmary cabin to get the keys for Rita's car, and the keys for Trevor's motorcycle.

Before this started, Brooke found a corpse in the lake. Then Richard shows up and terrorizes her. She manages to get away thanks to the intervention of the "Hiker" (Lou Taylor Pucci) from last week. In a rather confusing sequence, Richard kills the Hiker but a few seconds later, the Hiker is unharmed so Richard kills him again. The serial killer then takes a lanyard badge from the Hiker's neck and wanders off.

Margaret goes to her cabin and finds Richard waiting for her. In the most terrifying/creepy sequence so far, Margaret bonds with Richard. Although we've been hit over the head with the fact she's a religious nutcase, she is apparently okay with Richard professing he follows Satan. Richard tells her about how his mother breathed in paint fumes when she was pregnant and it turned him into the fine upstanding citizen he is. Well that, and the seizures, his cousin Miguel showing him pictures of the women he murdered while serving in Vietnam, and Miguel killing his wife in front of a 12-year-old Richard.

When Richard mentions killing the Hiker twice, Margaret goes out and finds him. She recognizes the Hiker as Jonas, and realizes he's a ghost. In 1970, Jonas was a counselor who fled the Jingles massacre, was run over by a truck, and trapped on that stretch of road until the counselors hit him and brought him to Camp Redwood. The funniest part of the episode is probably Jonas' astonishment at being a ghost (albeit one that can be disemboweled? and has a removable lanyard?), and Margaret's non-reaction to it. As if her meeting up with ghosts is an everyday occurrence.

Back with Richard, Margaret convinces the killer to kill Jingles, but makes him promise not to kill anyone else until he does.

At the end, the two groups in their respective cabins hear someone pounding on the walls. One pounder is presumably Jingles, and the other one is... Richard? Who promised not to kill anyone, but didn't promise not to pound on walls. Big loophole, Margaret. Get it in writing next time.

As noted, there are a couple of bits of humor. But otherwise "Mr. Jingles" is a dead-straight 80s horror movie. The title has nothing specific to do with what's in the episode, and that sums up Season 9 so far. There's nothing to differentiate one episode from another. Even with the new elements they introduce this episode--Ghost Jonah and Richard the Not-Very-Friendly Serial Killer--it's hard to imagine they can keep the season running for eight more episodes. It's just people screaming and running around in the dark. it has Murphy & Falchuk touches like not-so-subtextual gay subtext. But do we need eight more episodes of people yelling and Montana kissing Brooke occasionally?

If the show doesn't take a left turn or two, I may drop into "Review episodes in a bunch" mode. There's just not much to say about AHS: 1984. It's an 80s horror movie. I don't want to sound jaded, it's just there's not much else to say about the season if it goes like the first two episodes. And the second episode went a lot like the first. I've got to hope they're going to toss in some major twist: eight more episodes of the same basic thing seems like something Murphy & Falchuk (and the other members of the creative team, like James Wong) just don't do.

There are certainly some elements that could be twisted. Margaret acts very nervous about the doctor seeing her bedroom when Hopple enters her cabin. And if she's bonding with Richard, she's probably not playing with a full deck. Brooke seems to be almost too virginal a virginal Final Girl. Since they've established ghosts can be unaware they're ghosts and be completely solid (as with Jonas), anybody here could be dead and not know it. Like Rita, who escapes from Jingles with surprising ease. And some of the spooky stuff at the camp started happening before Jingles escaped the asylum.

But with any or all of these elements... so what? Margaret turns out to be a third serial killer. Brooke is a nutcase, or goes psycho. Rita is a ghost. That doesn't seem to add the kind of twist most seasons of American Horror Story had in the past. Nor do they seem like the kind of thing that can make a 10-episode season sustainable. Any or all of these revelations can pad the season out, but they don’t add anything.

And if there at least one major plot twist, there isn't much to say about it. If a review of episode 7 sounds like a review of episode 2... what's the point? So we'll see what happens. But if something doesn't get shaken up next week, that may be it for weekly reviews. If we do get a big shake-up, I'll be the first to admit I was wrong. Murphy & Falchuk have surprised me before: hopefully they can do it again. Right now I'm bored: I've liked AHS, I've disliked AHS. But I've never been bored by it. Until now.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?