For better or worse, there is no new season of American Horror Story this spooky season. But don’t for a moment think that’s because Ryan Murphy is out of ideas. Not at all. In addition to the second season of his true crime series Monster on Netflix and the upcoming fourth season of micro anthology American Horror Stories, Murphy has a new FX show. Called Grotesquerie, it’s about a troubled detective who investigates a series of disturbing murders, where each crime scene is highly staged with increasing religious symbolism — so, it’s basically Ryan Murphy’s take on David Fincher’s Seven.
Based on the first two episodes, it’s mostly working. Sure, there’s some cringey dialogue and a whole lot of hmm plot points that in typical Ryan Murphy fashion might just be thrown on the wall for funsies and not really handled properly. But damn it, if the setup and characters aren’t intriguing. If there’s one thing Murphy can do really well it’s hook you in with just a few episodes.
[Ed. note: This post contains some spoilers for the first two episodes of Grotesquerie.]
Grotesquerie opens with a hard-boiled detective named Lois (played by Niecy Nash) called to a crime scene. And honestly, it’s not all that promising when she and an officer have this gem of a dialogue exchange:
“If this isn’t a hate crime, I don’t know what is,” says the officer, all steely.
“Hate against what?” asks Lois.
“Everything.”
It’s over-the-top and overdramatic, but you know what? When the crime in question involves feeding a dead man to his family and them literally dying of shock, maybe that makes sense. It roots us in the genre right away: This is an over-the-top and overdramatic sort of show, and the murders can be completely unrealistic (in a grossly fun way).
Lois has all the hallmarks of a troubled detective: she’s an alcoholic, her husband is in a coma (and their marriage was rocky even before), and there’s clearly some tension between her and her daughter. It’s a stock archetype but because she’s not a middle-aged white man, it’s already more compelling than seeing the same sort of character juggle his raging alcoholism and sad dead wife over and over. We don’t get to see that sort of dysfunctional female character a lot! Still, one thing remains true: she can’t quite crack this murder or put together the pieces, so even though it hurts her ego, she seeks the help of an unlikely partner.
Enter Sister Megan (Micaela Diamond), a nun who’s also an investigative reporter with a morbid fascination with true crime. There’s absolutely something more going on with her — from her flirtatious banter with the new hot (and possibly into sadomasochism?) priest, to her encyclopedic recall of the most disturbing Bible passages. And Diamond just nails the part of someone so wide-eyed and seemingly innocent, but way more in tune with the macabre and the darker side of human nature than her outward demeanor would suggest.
The first shocking murder scene is only the beginning. There are several more throughout the first two episodes, and each time, Sister Megan notices a nod to some sort of Christian symbolism. That, coupled with the copious references to the archetypical Seven Deadly sins in Lois’ life (her husband’s extramarital affairs point to lust, and the constant fixation on her daughter’s eating habits and her own alcoholism hint at gluttony) basically scream Seven, with all the promise of this case coming much, much closer to home than Lois is prepared for.
The funny thing is that Ryan Murphy tried to do this before in the fifth season of American Horror Story, subtitled Hotel. That season was so chock full of extra schlock — ghosts, vampires, demons, oh my! — that it’s incredibly easy to forget that the central plot was about a detective solving the case of the Ten Commandments killer (who, as the name suggests, would brutally kill victims who went against the Ten Commandments). But AHS: Hotel was frankly a mess, and if there’s one thing Ryan Murphy loves to do, it’s take something he’s done before and give it another go (i.e., how the first episodes of American Horror Stories was basically Murder House: The Redux).
Grotesquerie gives him a chance to do that Biblical-inspired murder plotline again. And by keeping the focus tightly on the crimes, he could possibly pull it off. After all, the mystery is intriguing; the crime scenes are so over the top elaborate and disturbing that I can’t look away; and as someone who imprinted on Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons at a stupidly early age, the religious throughline is incredibly compelling.
If there’s one thing I’ve taken to heart as an American Horror Story fan, though, it’s that while the setup is almost always good, Murphy rarely sticks the landing. But man, considering me totally on the hook for Grotesquerie for now. Let’s see where the hell this fishing line will drag me.
New episodes of Grotesquerie premiere on FX on Wednesday at 10 PM EDT, and hit Hulu the next day.
