Grotesquerie Season 1 Episode 7 Review

Grotesquerie Season 1 Episode 7 turns everything on its head. This episode features two storylines that take place in alternate realities, implying that the series’ events up to this point may not have been real.

Episode 7’s treatment of the duo narrative is confusing enough that it’s hard to understand what is supposed to be real. While plenty of that is by design, it doesn’t fully work.

At first, Episode 7 seems to be dealing with the fallout of the previous episode when Lois Tryon shot the killer dead. However, rather than focus on the immediate fallout, the episode instead skips to Tryon having dinner with her daughter and Travis Kelce’s Ed Laclan.

It’s a very disorienting way to begin an episode, putting audiences in Tryon’s shoes as she essentially scorched Earth her life in a drunken haze. Grotesquerie reveals the person Tryon shot is Father Charlie, but the revelation is done in the most anti-climatic way ever.

There was no grand unmasking or climatic exposure. Father Charlie was shot dead by Tryon in Grotesquerie Season 1 Episode 6, and we don’t find out about it until ten minutes into an episode when a magazine cover reveals he is the killer.

The anticlimactic reveal of the killer adds to Episode 7’s off-ness throughout its runtime. Right away, everything is off, from the cinematography to the acting.

Even though the show always has an over-the-top tone, the performances in this episode feel even more heightened. Micaela Diamond is more wide-eyed in her performance as Sister Megan. Niecy Nash-Betts can barely stand as a drunk Tryon.

The dialogue also feels more cliche, with Tryon’s boss talking about Artificial Intelligence and forcing her to retire. The cinematography is softer and lax, creating an almost dream-like atmosphere.

The dream-like tone has been apparent in the series since Grotesquerie Season 1 Episode 4, when the leads take a trip to the desert. The surrealism has never really left the show since then, so the dream-like nature of Episode 7 doesn’t feel out of place at first.

But it becomes apparent that the episode isn’t what it seems when Tryon sees visions of the hospital. A major criticism about the series has been the overuse of the hospital setting, which made it look like the same hallway and hospital room everywhere the characters went.

However, it appears that was by design. During a tense scene between Tryon and Sister Megan, where the former accuses the latter of being the true murderer, audiences are suddenly thrust into a scene between Marshall Tryon and his daughter that mirrors the opening scene.

From there, we witness a parallel world where Lois is in a coma rather than Marshall. The new parallel storyline is confusing at first. Yet as the episode nears its end, it’s implied that the entire events of the show beforehand are a dream Lois is having in her coma.

The “everything’s a dream” twist has a long history in television, most noticeable on St. Elsewhere. However, these kinds of twists happen at the end of the series or at least at the end of a season.

Grotesquerie instead dared to seemingly reveal its big twist in the seventh episode of the season. Now, the series has at least three episodes left to deal with the fallout of Tryon waking up.

While it is an interesting idea, the twist also feels incredibly cheap. It makes the previous six episodes of the show feel pointless. It turns out all those killings don’t matter because it all happened in a dream.

With Father Charlie’s anti-climatic death, it’s apparent that Grotesquerie never cared about the killer at all, and for a show as advertised as a detective and nun hunting down a serial killer, it feels as if we were tricked.

Having the rug pulled right under you can be a fun experience, especially if you’re able to stay on your feet. But when it is manipulative and not earnestly done, as in Grotesquerie, you feel like you hit your head on the floor for no reason.

It’s very possible that both storylines are in Tryon’s imagination. It may even be possible that only Episode 7 is in Tryon’s mind, whereas the rest of the series is real.

What’s ultimately the point of anything if it’s all in Tryon’s imagination, to begin with? Maybe the last three episodes of Grotesquerie can explain it, yet for now, it feels like a weak twist that undermines everything else the series has established.

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Grotesquerie airs on Wednesdays at 10/9c on FX.

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