American Horror Story, Season 4: Freak Show

Dot Tatler:
Dear Diary, It was a Saturday, the 3rd of September, that the world as I had known was forever doomed. The shadows that had sheltered me were banished by the blinding light of scrutiny. I knew I was about to enter the gates of Hell. But like the inescapable pull of gravity, there was nothing I could do about it.

Elsa Mars:
So, you're virgins? Sad for you. But do you at least pleasure yourselves?

Bette Tatler:
She never wants that.

Dot Tatler:
I hate you.

Bette Tatler:
If I touch myself, she closes her eyes and pretends she doesn't feel anything. She told me she leaves her body. I think she's lying. [whispering] I think she likes it.

Dot Tatler:
Oh, shut your disgusting mouth, you slut!

Bette Tatler:
Dear Diary, I have seen my future. It is pink and wrapped in silk. I never thought my escape from darkness could be so complete. I found myself in the middle of a movie star's palace. Elsa's tent is the epitome of glamour. There is only one law here-- the bigger the star, the bigger the tent. Glorious freedom. For the first time in my life, I dare to imagine myself surrounded by beauty.

Dot Tatler:
Dear Diary, my soul plumbs new depths of despair. I long for the quiet of the farm. The warmth of my bed, the smell of flowers outside my window. I'm surrounded by a cesspool of activity. No words can do justice to the depravity that permeates the grounds.

Jimmy Darling:
You're not worried?

Elsa Mars:
Why should I be? I survived the Stasi. I think I can deal with the simpletons of the Jupiter Police Department.

Jimmy Darling:
I tell you, sometimes I can't take it. The way they look at us. The way they treat us. It ain't right.

Amazon Eve:
That's showbiz.

Elsa Mars:
I'll tell you who the monsters are! The people outside this tent! In your town, in all these little towns. Housewives pinched with bitterness, stupefied with boredom as they doze off in front of their laundry detergent commercials, and dream of strange, erotic pleasures. They have no souls. My monsters, the ones you call depraved, they are the beautiful, heroic ones. They offer their oddity to the world. They provide a laugh, or a fright, to people in need of entertainment. Everyone is living the life they chose. But you you undoubtedly will be one of those soulless monsters. Perhaps you already are.

Dandy Mott:
Where are the freaks? I'm getting bored.

Ethel Darling:
Ladies and gentlemen, everything you've heard is true. All that has been advertised is here, under this tent. Wonders, curiosities! A plethora of the strange, the weird, the bizarre, the unusual! From jungles untamed to forests enchanted. From the Dark Continent to the spice-laden lands of India. Astounding mistakes of nature are gathered here for your amusement and edification. What you're about to see will astound your very senses and harrow yes, harrow your souls. And tonight, for the first time anywhere, the Spectacular Siamese Sisters! But amidst the terrifying and the tragic a voice and beauty. Ladies and gentlemen, direct from the cabarets of prewar Berlin, the enchantress who holds sway over all of nature's mistakes: Elsa Mars!

Elsa Mars:
You see, we are a troupe of entertainers. A family. And you will not split up our family.

Jimmy Darling:
Friends, this lawman was supposed to protect and serve the innocent. But instead, he judged us guilty before he even set foot into our camp. All we've ever wanted was a place where we could feel safe and be just the way we are. But no one is going to hand it to us. We're going to have to rise up and take it! Don't we deserve to be happy? When bad things keep happening to good people, you start to question what is right and what is wrong. Well, I say it's time we make our own right and wrong! I say it's wrong for them to treat us like shit and kick us around like the scum of the earth! They want to call us monsters? Fine, we'll act like monsters!

Elsa Mars:
Those girls, I didn't bring them here for us, to save us. I brought them here for myself. So people would come and they would see me and I would finally become a star. It's what I've always wanted, nothing else. Is it too late for me? Is it wrong?

Dell Toledo:
Dell Toledo the Stupendous Strong Man! You probably heard of me.

Desiree Dupree:
Three titties, proper girl parts and a ding-a-ling. I'm a full blown hermaphrodite. Put that on your banner.

Elsa Mars:
Show me your hands.

Dell Toledo:
What, are you gonna read my future?

Elsa Mars:
Your past. Come on, show me.

[Dell extends his hands to Elsa]

Elsa Mars:
Strong hands. Calloused. And not afraid of hard work.

Dell Toledo:
Not afraid of anything.

Elsa Mars:
Maybe what this place needs is a strong male presence. Do you bark?

Dell Toledo:
Hell, I'll even howl if you like.

Jimmy Darling:
[to Dandy] You know what I wouldn't give to have real hands like yours? To be able to touch a girl without scaring her? From where I'm sitting you got the world on a string. So, you go home to your mansion on the hill, and you thank God for all you got.

Dell Toledo:
[on seeing Ethel] Well, I'll be dammed. If it ain't old Honest Abe herself. Ethel, you look good. How's the old soup catcher? I would've expected to see some gray in it by now. You been dyeing it? You can tell me.

Elsa Mars:
People don't come to see freaks in the heat of day. They come in the evening. When the darkness moves in and speaks of mystery. The unknown. When logic loosens its vice grip and the imagination comes out to play. The night allows the stars to shine and we come alive.

Dell Toledo:
There will be paying asses in these seats tomorrow! Curtain goes up at 3:00.

Elsa Mars:
That man is going to be a problem.

Dandy Mott:
[to Twisty] Your silence is utterly provocative.

Jimmy Darling:
Uh, what are you having, Pepper?

Pepper:
Meat loaf. Meat loaf! Yeah! Meat loaf!

Jimmy Darling:
She'll have the meat loaf.

Dell Toledo:
Tragic, isn't it, when a plan breaks down?

Ethel Darling:
You know what, Doc? I ain't crying 'cause you told me I'm gonna die. I'm crying 'cause you're the first doctor ever treat me with respect. I just c-can't help thinking my whole life might have gone different if I'd met you sooner.

Dell Toledo:
You know what I was wondering this morning? What it would've been like if I'd have stuck around, seen him grow up. Seen him put on his little Halloween outfit. What did he like dressing up as?

Ethel Darling:
He always wanted to be the same thing. He wanted to be a soldier.

Stanley:
Nobody cares what happens to a freak. The only proper question is how we display the body: under formaldehyde or vacuum-sealed?

Edward Mordrake:
It is not in my heart to make you or anyone else a victim, my good woman. But the visage is unrelenting. I am its slave. [suddenly, to his second face] Silence! We have intruded upon this lady uninvited. Show some courtesy.

Edward Mordrake:
Thank you for your pains, dear lady. I'm sorry you had to relive any of this.

Ethel Darling:
I relive it every day.

Paul the Illustrated Seal:
The world hated me. But no more than I hated myself.

Elsa Mars:
My talent has been known to render men speechless, but you'll have to get over it if we are going to work together.

Edward Mordrake:
It is not your talent that renders me speechless. It is your delusional ignorance.

Elsa Mars:
Excuse me?

Edward Mordrake:
You are a tattered waste of oxygen who bolsters herself with contempt for others. I am not here to take you on to greatness, woman. I am here to take someone with me to the other side, perhaps you.

Twisty the Clown:
[to Edward] I was the special children's clown to Rusty Westchester's Traveling Carnival. I made 'em laugh. I love the children. But not the freaks.

Twisty the Clown:
I'm a good clown.

Edward Mordrake:
[to Twisty] I have met many a craven killer, many a sniveling coward in my time, but every one of them could admit the blackness in their own hearts when the hour came. You have caused the demon to weep.

Stanley:
Fraulein Elsa's Cabinet of Curiosities is about to have a terrible run of bad luck.

Gloria Mott:
You have the sickness like your father had before you. He stifled it the only way he could. These mental perversions are an affliction of the extremely affluent. Cousins marry cousins to protect the money, to keep the estates whole. Inbreeding. Becomes a right of passage to have a psychotic or two in the line.

Dandy Mott:
One door closes, another opens. And this body is America, strong, violent and full of limitless potential. My arms will hold them down when they struggle. My legs will run them down when they flee. I will be the U.S. Steel of murder. My body holds a heart that cannot love. When Dora died, she looked right into my eyes, and I felt nothing. The clown was put on earth to show me the way. To introduce me to the sweet language of murder. But I am no clown. I am perfection. I am greatness. I am the future, and the future starts tonight.

Dell Toledo:
[to Andy] I got a heart, you know? I do feel things. When I'm bending those steel bars or I got a stack of three acrobats standing on my head, it hurts like hot lead in my fingers and shoulders. Most people can't take the pain. But not me. The pain don't define me. But I still feel it. Every time I leave this place, every time I can't go in because you're with some other guy, giving yourself to him even though I know he doesn't give two shits about you. There is nothing worse than the hurt of loving someone you can't have.

Gloria Mott:
[about Dandy] He called for me once when he had a raging fever. I didn't go in his room. I was afraid I didn't know how to comfort him. So I sent his governess in. [voice breaking] He never called for me again.

Elsa Mars:
Fate. Destiny. Luck. The prisons of man. People pass the time, enjoying the choices life provides-- coffee or tea, right or left. As if it matters. We are all just spinning on the wheel. There is but one way to keep off the wheel. It's not youth. It's not beauty or true love. I know how to stay off the wheel. I control my fate. I have survived because I know one must be willing to destroy anyone, anything, even the things you love, to keep the gods in check.

Dandy Mott:
[about the Tatlers] I didn't think I could feel love until I met them. My heart was lost. And it took a woman with the vision of four eyes to find it, and the love of two hearts to give it back to me.

Paul the Illustrated Seal:
[to a shopkeeper denying him service] This place is overpriced anyway. I'm going to take my business to Woolworth's! They've got ice cream!

Dandy Mott:
[to Gloria] I was never destined to feel love. The desert knows no mercy. Anything you try to plant out there dies. I must accept this emptiness as a blessing, not a curse. I know why I was put here, Mother. My purpose is to bring death.

Jimmy Darling:
I'm here to see your son. I'm a friend of his.

Gloria Mott:
My son has no friends.

Stanley:
The screams of the men who have been nut-shot are so specific.

Amazon Eve:
[after beating up Dell] Who's the strong man now?

Ethel Darling:
Truth is-- all goodness guarantees ya is an early grave. But the biggest joke of all-- the thing that'll sink ya every time is hope. Hope that the world will right itself. That the just will be rewarded and the wicked punished. Oh, once you buy into that horseshit, you're dead in the water. The only way to survive in this disgusting godforsaken world is to take control. Ain't nobody gonna take care of our people but us.

Jimmy Darling:
I don't do liquor. I seen what it did to my ma. I'm scared, once I start, I won't be able to stop.

Dell Toledo:
Come on. You're not gonna become a drunk in one night, it doesn't work that way. You gotta commit to it.

Penny:
I'm your only child. The only record of your sorry life once you're gone. You're too vain to picture a world without a piece of you in it.

Vince:
I think you mistake my pride for vanity. I'm an electrician. Strangers welcome me into their homes and leave me there alone to ply my trade. A man like me is dead if he doesn't come with a sterling reputation. You are my blood, but if you do something to shame me, to shame this family, I will do whatever it takes to make sure no one ever knows you belonged to me.

Gloria Mott:
Dandy's always been a willful child. I often thought of him as a foreigner. A perfectly groomed aristocratic boy who could play the part but didn't quite understand the language.

Ethel Darling:
I've brought you your tray, washed your hair, listened to all those tall tales about what was, what could have been. I heard those stories ten times over, Elsa. I know you better than you know yourself. I always wondered why I loved you so much, it gave me such pain to be around you. How when I'd leave here at night I'd just felt like I lost something. A woman shouldn't dread spending time with her best friend. Why'd I feel so uneasy? Now I know.

Elsa Mars:
Who am I, if not your savior, huh? And this is the thanks. You call me a murderer on a night when I have already lost so much? Damn you for this! Goddamn you for this! Damn you!

Ethel Darling:
You were our mother. There's people around here who never even met theirs. You understand the pain of being rejected by your own mother? Of course you do. That's how you sucked us all in here. Come one, come all, suckle at Elsa's bosom. All are welcome. Just don't ask for top billing.

Elsa Mars:
Your descent into madness can cross over my corpse, but you will not kill my children. They are innocents.

Ethel Darling:
It's all over, Elsa. For all of us. No one's innocent anymore.

Maggie Esmerelda:
That's your father, isn't it?

Desiree Dupree:
Well, goddamn. You really are a mind reader.

Dandy Mott:
I was born of deadly sin. You knew what father had done to those little girls. You knew the risks of breeding with your cousin. You're no better than the Roosevelts.

Gloria Mott:
How dare you say that name in this house!

Dandy Mott:
[to Jimmy] I'm your god, Jimmy. And I've decided that you need to suffer. I'm going to destroy you and everything you love. Oh, it will be so much fun!

Regina Ross:
Is this my mother's blood?

Dandy Mott:
Oh, no, no, no. We buried her weeks ago. Mother and I. Recently, I killed her as well, and that's when I discovered the power of bathing in blood. This is fresh blood from some lovely ladies I killed earlier today.

Dot Tatler:
I am so tired of this life of ours, Bette. This infinite intolerable arranged marriage. Aren't you tired of it? And I don't want you dead. I don't. I just never dreamed it might be possible for one of us to live a normal life.

Bette Tatler:
Mother refused to buy us lace-up shoes 'cause she insisted we would never be able to tie them. But we spent hours working it out till we finally cracked it. Same with needlepoint. There was nothing we could not work through when we put our heads together. No one can understand our burden. You and I have endured a life that would've driven most people mad, but to me, it's been a gift, really. We've been given the opportunity to really love another person. To love them as you love yourself. And love is about sacrifice. It's answering the question how much would you give for the health and happiness of the one you love?

[Bette touches Dot's hand]

Bette Tatler:
I have the same longings as you. Same dreams of a normal life.

Dot Tatler:
You could never survive without me.

Bette Tatler:
I know. I would like to think I could. But I don't think I could actually stand being alone. And we're not bad people. We're good people, good girls, and we've seen so much suffering. We deserve a chance. And I know now that neither of us can have that if we stay like this. I would rather, one of us, truly live than both of us withering away together.

Dot Tatler:
What are you saying?

Bette Tatler:
Just that any man would be lucky to have you. And the Tatler sisters will not be defeated. And if it comes to it if they had to make a choice, during surgery, that only one of us would live I want to give my life to you, sister. I want to give my life so you can have one.

Dot Tatler:
[breaking down into tears] I love you, Bette!

Bette Tatler:
I love you, Dot.

Dell Toledo:
I am a coward. Just can't take the shame of it no more being...what I am.

Ethel Darling:
A freak.

Dell Toledo:
As it turns out, yeah. I swear to Christ, Ethel, I don't know how you and the others manage it.

Ethel Darling:
We manage it because we have to. We wear our shame on the outside. There's no hiding it. It's just who we are. Now, you you carry your shame on the inside. You keep it trapped in there. It eats away at you, feeding on you like a living thing, till there's nothing left but the rot.

Dell Toledo:
I've been fighting it for so long. I just don't have any fight left in me.

Dandy Mott:
I have seen the face of God, and he is looking at me from the mirror.

Maggie Esmeralda:
Go to Hell, triple tits.

Elsa Mars:
We all fear that we will end up alone, that love will be pulled from us.

Paul:
Chinese water torture. Which for me is five minutes with Dell.

Jimmy Darling:
Imagine that. Being a freak for being normal.

Desiree Dupree:
Steal her jewelry. And bury the bitch.

Dandy Mott:
Mother always told me, never argue with a woman when she's angry.

Desiree Dupree:
[to Dandy] A lot of freaks died on these cursed grounds. Some by your hand and some not. A man came through here and started putting our kind in glass jars. Filled up a museum with our kind. Saw it with my own eyes! That's where you think freaks belong-- powerless, behind glass, a human car crash to stare at and remind you how lucky you are. Well, maybe that's true. Maybe that's all we are, but let me tell you this, pretty boy. You may look like a motion picture dreamboat, but you are the biggest freak of them all.

Elsa Mars:
[to Edward Mordrake] I am the biggest freak of all!