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''American Horror Story: Freak Show'' is the fourth season of the FX horror anthology television series ''American Horror Story''. It premiered on October 8, 2014 and concluded on January 21, 2015. The season is mainly set in 1952 Jupiter, Florida, telling the story of one of the last remaining freak shows in the United States, and their struggle for survival. This is the first season of the series that is not strictly anthological, with Lily Rabe, Naomi Grossman, and James Cromwell reprising their roles from the series' second cycle, ''Asylum''. Other returning cast members from the previous season of the series include: Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates, Jamie Brewer, Frances Conroy, Grace Gummer, Danny Huston, Jessica Lange, Denis O'Hare, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Emma Roberts, Gabourey Sidibe, and Mare Winningham. Ben Woolf also makes a return to the series. Like its predecessors, ''Freak Show'' was met with mostly positive reviews, and consistently strong ratings, with the premiere episode attracting a then series high of 6.13 million viewers. It ultimately became FX’s most-watched program ever, surpassing its previous installment. The season garnered a total of twenty Emmy Award nominations, the most for any season of ''American Horror Story'' to date, including nominations for Outstanding Limited Series, and six acting nominations for Lange, O'Hare, Finn Wittrock, Paulson, Bassett, and Bates. In addition, Paulson won for Best Supporting Actress in a Movie or Limited Series at the 5th Critics' Choice Television Awards. ==Plot== The fourth season is set in Jupiter, Florida in 1952, and follows the lives of a troupe of people belonging to one of the last remaining freak shows of its time. Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) is the owner of Fräulein Elsa's Cabinet of Curiosities; and her performers, who she calls her monsters, include the bearded lady Ethel Darling (Kathy Bates), her lobster-handed son Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters), the strongman Dell Toledo (Michael Chiklis) and his three-breasted hermaphrodite wife Desiree Dupree (Angela Basset), as well as the newly recruited conjoined twin sisters Bette and Dot Tattler (Sarah Paulson). After their mother is found stabbed to death, Bette and Dot are discovered stabbed themselves at their farmhouse. The news makes headlines, and soon Elsa discovers the twins' existence. Believing the sisters to be her troupe's saviors, she brings them back to camp. They meet their fellow freaks Paul the Illustrated Seal (Mat Fraser) who has seal-like flippers for hands, Amazon Eve (Erika Ervin) who is the largest and strongest woman of the show, and finally the tiny performer from India, Ma Petite (Jyoti Amge) who is the smallest woman in the world. Bette sees the show as their haven, finally having escaped the confinement of their former lives. But Dot, who is more cynical towards the world, believes that they are being exploited for their appearance. Meanwhile, danger lurks in the sleepy hamlet of Jupiter; one of them being the serial killer Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch), who is responsible for recent murders and kidnappings that plagued the town. Tensions rise when a detective arrives at the freak show to arrest Bette and Dot for the recent string of murders. After calling them all freaks and threatening to drive them out of town, Jimmy slices the detective’s throat with a razor and the freaks dispose of his body. After a performance, which was bought out by a wealthy widow named Gloria Mott (Frances Conroy) and her emotionally stunted son Dandy Mott (Finn Wittrock), Dandy demands to buy the twins, offering Elsa $15,000, but the offer is declined. Enraged by his boring life, Dandy sets out to join the freak show, but Jimmy turns him down, setting him into a fit of rage. Hoping to cheer her son up, Gloria finds Twisty on the side of the road and brings him home to surprise Dandy. Dandy searches inside his bag and finds a severed head, causing Twisty to knock Dandy out and run away. Dandy follows him back to an abandoned school bus in the middle of the woods, where he discovers the kidnapped children and realizes the two can work together. New to the troupe are Dell and his wife Desiree, who fled Chicago after Dell murdered a man having sex with Desiree. Elsa allows him to be the shows bodyguard, but he soon becomes more than she can handle after he degrades her and beats up Jimmy for taking the freaks out in public to a diner. Ethel is less than happy about Dell's arrival; it is revealed that he and Ethel were once married, and after trying to kill his own son Jimmy, Ethel made him leave. When she learns that her liver is failing, Ethel makes Dell promise to look after Jimmy when she dies, though he is never to tell him of his true lineage. After visiting the Museum of Morbid Curiosities, con artists Stanley (Denis O’Hare) and Maggie Esmerelda (Emma Roberts) set their eyes on Elsa's troupe, hoping to make some money by selling the freak's corpses to the museum. Posing as a fortune teller, Maggie joins the troupe and soon falls for Jimmy. On Halloween, Ethel tells the urban legend of Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley), a man born with a face on the back of his head, who, if summoned on Halloween, will take a freak to hell with him. Elsa performs Gods and Monsters on Halloween night, unknowingly summoning Mordrake; who goes around camp learning the sad tales of its performers. Coming to Elsa's tent, she reveals her past life in Germany, where she worked as a dominatrix. Mordrake asks about her missing legs and it is revealed that Elsa was a victim of Hans Grüper, also known as Dr. Arthur Arden (James Cromwell), who amputated her legs while filming a snuff film. Mordrake is about to choose Elsa to take to hell, but he hears music and realizes Elsa is not the one. Jimmy and Maggie try to rescue the kidnapped children after discovering Twisty's hideout, but Dandy knocks them out and he and Twisty put on a show for the kids. The pair soon escape and Mordrake visits Twisty, asking to learn his tale. He learns that Twisty worked as a clown at a freak show, and after two dwarves convinced him the police were after him for molesting children, Twisty made a failed suicide attempt, that left his jaw blown off. After revealing his misdeeds, Mordrake stabs and kills Twisty. Now that his mentor is dead, Dandy gets more curious about killing and starts by killing his maid Dora (Patti LaBelle), soon followed by a prostitute named Andy (Matt Bomer). Dora's daughter Regina Ross (Gabourey Sidibe) later visits Mott Manor looking for her mother. After learning of the murders, Gloria asks Dandy to see a therapist by lying to him that the doctor wants to measure his IQ, but he refuses to go anymore after the first visit. Gloria attempts to end the madness, but Dandy steals her gun, shooting his mother in the head and bathing in a tub full of her blood. While staying at the camp posing as a Hollywood talent agent, Stanley pressures Maggie to murder Jimmy and Ma Petite, but when she can't go through with either one, he turns to Dell. After he blackmails him with the knowledge of his homosexual tendencies, Dell kills Ma Petite by snapping her neck. Overhearing Elsa's plans to help get rid of the twins with Stanley, Ethel confronts Elsa, accusing her of killing anyone who steals her spotlight, including Ma Petite. Ethel shoots Elsa in her wooden leg, finally finding out her secret. Elsa begs that before she dies, she wants schnapps, to which Ethel agrees. However, Elsa throws a dagger through Ethel's eye, killing her. After she and Stanley make her death look like a suicide, Jimmy sinks into a drunken despair over his mother's death. Dandy offers a detective one million dollars to kill Regina, which he does. Afterward, he visits Jimmy's Tupperware party women and kills them all, framing Jimmy for the crime. Elsa prepares for her move to Hollywood after Stanley promises her a career in television, but when Dell soon tells her of Stanley convincing Jimmy to sell his hands to afford bail, she realizes he isn't to be trusted. Traveling salesman and magician Chester Creb (Neil Patrick Harris) soon visits the freak show, falling in love with the twins. Bette and Dot become fond of Chester and offer their virginity to Chester. Although he is hesitant, he takes their virginity. Elsa sells the show to him to go with Stanley to Hollywood, but has little idea that he is a psychopath that believes his doll Marjorie (Jamie Brewer) is alive. Distraught with the murder of Ma Petite, Dell tries to commit suicide by hanging himself but his plan is thwarted by Desiree. When he admits his act of killing Ma Petite to Desiree, Elsa shoots Dell in the head and kills him. During a feast to welcome the new owner, the freaks reveal they know of Stanley's true intentions, after Maggie confesses to Desiree. Desiree kills the curator of the museum and gives her head to Stanley. Pleading for his life, Stanley is chased around camp by the freaks, who later amputate his limbs and turn him into their own version of Meep. The next day, the troupe is rehearsing under Chester but Bette and Dot refuse to be his assistants and leave. This upsets Chester. Maggie volunteers and insists on going inside the box. However, Chester hallucinates and sees Maggie as his wives who criticize him; he saws Maggie in half, killing her. He then chases Marjorie into his caravan and kills her also, believing Marjorie had put him under a hallucination. Chester leaves the freak show and turns himself in to the police. After careful consideration, the troupe believes Stanley's word about Elsa killing Ethel, and they plan to kill Elsa the same night. Before they can, Elsa is warned by Bette and Dot that she will be killed next, and is told to leave. Elsa sells the show to Dandy and moves to Hollywood. The freaks turn on Dandy due to his vicious harassment and quit the show, but this proves fatal, as Dandy goes on a killing spree. Desiree manages to survive by hiding during the rampage while Jimmy is away from the grounds, and Bette and Dot are tied up in his tent. Jimmy comes back to see the corpses of his family in the performing tent, and finds that Desiree is the only survivor. The twins marry Dandy back at his mansion, but this is all revealed to be an act of vengeance for murdering the freaks, as Desiree drugs Dandy at dinner. He awakens to find himself chained in Harry Houdini's Chinese torture tank, and drowns while the remaining freaks watch, after being told he was the true freak. In 1960, Elsa is now a household name with her very own TV show and multiple hit songs, yet she is not entirely happy with her life. When asked to perform for Halloween, Elsa refuses and meets with her old flame Massimo Dolcefino (Danny Huston). Massimo refuses to run away with her, no matter how much she begs, instead telling her that he is dying. That night, the president of WBN tells Elsa that a copy of her snuff film has surfaced and that it will ruin her career and marriage. He tells her that all of her freaks have died. She then agrees to perform on a live telecast on Halloween, summoning Edward Mordrake and his troupe, who kills her. During the telecast, Desiree is married with two children, and a pregnant Bette and Dot are happily married to Jimmy. Instead of taking her to hell, Mordrake banishes Elsa to a reincarnation of her freak show, where all of her deceased freaks now reside. In this incarnation, Paul and Penny are married; Ethel and Elsa bond again, and the rest of the freaks set up the stage for Elsa to perform. She finally finds happiness with her true family. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「American Horror Story: Freak Show」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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