Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Grotesquerie episodes 8 and 9
AlthoughGrotesquerieepisodes 8 and 9 didn’t feature any bombshell twists that could compare to episode 7’s revelation, the double bill did explain a lot of lingering mysteries from the world of the series. For its first six episodes,Grotesquerieseemed like a riff onTrue Detectiveseason 1 with someAmerican Horror Storyingredients thrown in for good measure. Niece Nash-Betts’ alcoholic homicide detective paired up with a quirky nun reporter, Sister Megan, to solve a string of gruesome, elaborate killings committed by the eponymous serial killer. ThenGrotesquerieepisode 7’s ending came along, and the outing changed everything.
Grotesquerie Cast & Character Guide
Ryan Murphy’s new horror TV series, Grotesquerie, reunites him with some frequent collaborators and also stars some new but familiar faces.
Grotesquerieepisode 7, “Unplugged,” revealed that Lois had been in a coma for the entirety of the show’s first six episodes and the show had been her dream while she was unconscious. In reality, things were a little different from how Lois viewed them. Father Charlie wasn’t a priest turned serial killer, but rather a mild-mannered young doctor. Sister Megan wasn’t a nun at all, but instead the detective who replaced Lois as the chief of police. Meanwhile, Lois was the one in a coma, not her unfaithful husband Marshall. This twist meantGrotesquerie’s serial killer mysterytook a backseat.
7Grotesquerie Episode 8 Revealed Lois Has Been In A Liminal State
Merritt Met With A Fellow Medical Researcher
AsGrotesquerieepisode 8 began,Lois was struggling to come to terms with reality after waking upfrom her coma. Her daughter, Meritt, was visited by Santino Fontana’s dream specialist, who explained that he wanted to study her mother’s case. This meant exposing Merritt to her mother’s coma dreams and their dim view of her weight. Merritt was disgusted by her mother viewing her as a shut-in obsessed with reality television when, as Merritt noted, she was an esteemed medical researcher working on cutting-edge cancer treatment. Despite her distaste, Merritt took part in the experimental study of Lois’s dream world.
6Marshall Decided To Leave Lois In Grotesquerie Episode 8
Nurse Redd and Marshall Tried To Start Their Life Together
Episode 8 then cut to Marshall and Redd, who were still struggling with establishing the terms of their romantic relationship now that Lois was awake from her coma.Marshall decided to divorce Lois since she finally woke up, but an unexpectedly warm Redd told him to do this solely for her sake. Surprisingly, the episode’s dream specialist later revealed that Marshall’s mistress was one of the only people actively advocating for Lois during her coma. WhenGrotesquerieepisode 6saw Lois learn about Marshall’s infidelity, it seemed as if she would never forgive Redd. Now, Redd was her unlikely ally.
Travis Kelce
Fast Eddie
Still, all was now far from rosy for Marshall and Redd in their new life. Marshall remained worried by his lingering financial and legal commitments to Lois, while everyone was understandably shaken by how they were portrayed in the detective’s vivid, universally unflattering dreams. Marshall even admitted that he had told Lois to die while she was in a coma, assuming she couldn’t hear anything he was saying. He thought a clean break would be the best way to maintain civility between them, but episode 9 proved that this was a wildly optimistic assumption on his part.
5Grotesquerie Episode 8 Reveals Megan Duvall Is In An Abusive Relationship
Lois Really Was Retired Before Her Coma
Grotesquerieepisode 8 then revealed that, in reality,Megan replaced Lois as the chief of police before Lois’s retirementafter Lois badly fumbled a murder case. Megan was also revealed to be in an abusive relationship with her previously unseen partner, Justin. A brutally violent attack by Justin saw Megan take refuge in the desert motel previously seen in episode 5, “Red Haze.” Back then,Grotesquerie’sAmerican Horror Story-esque plotwas still following Lois and Megan’s attempts to identify and apprehend Grotesquerie. The duo briefly holed up in a desert motel after picking up a bloodied woman on the road.
Megan’s arrival at the motel oddly mirrored that episode’s events, wherein Sister Megan and Lois met an abuse victim working at the motel. In “Red Haze,” Lois tried to get the desk attendant to seek help out of her toxic situation. However, she was rebuffed by the motel’s host, and the same dynamic played out again when Megan picked up Lois to take her home from the hospital. Their conversation soon devolved into a squabble about Generation X and millennials, and Lois ended this fight by telling Megan that she already knew that she needed to end her abusive relationship.
4Grotesquerie Episode 8 Explained Why Lois’s Dreams Were So Dark
Lois’s Bleak View Of Her World Was Explained By Shame
Next, Fontana’s specialist tried to interpret Lois’s dreams in a way that would help them make sense for her. The doctor proposed that Lois turned her imagined version of Megan into a nun since she viewed her replacement as a holier-than-thou figure, that Marshall was in a coma since Lois felt no control over her marriage, and the dream version of Merritt was so self-destructive because Lois was ashamed of her parenting decisions. This same scene revealed that Lois really did have an affair with Merritt’s husband, Eddie, before her coma. Meanwhile, Maisie was revealed, in reality, to be Lois’s live-in housekeeper.
Merritt unequivocally condemned her mother’s betrayal of her, saying that the sheer intimacy of the taboo misdeed still stunned her daily.
Maisie was extraordinarily understanding about why Lois saw her as a child killer in her coma dream, arguing that dreams weren’t necessarily projections of internal views. In an attempt to make amends, Lois spoke to Merritt about her affair with Fast Eddie. However, the confrontation went disastrously. Merritt was as disgusted by her mother as Lois was by her dream interpretation of Merritt. Merritt unequivocally condemned her mother’s betrayal of her, saying that the sheer intimacy of the taboo misdeed still stunned her daily. She argued that Lois’s adjacency to serial killers must have had an adverse impact on her mental health.
3Grotesquerie Episode 9 Began With Lois Confronting Marshall
Redd and Marshall’s Idyll Was Disturbed By Lois’s Return
As episode 8 wrapped up, it seemed as though Lois was no closer to receiving absolution. For all ofGrotesquerie’s Biblical references, the show’s heroine wasn’t able to receive redemption simply by admitting her faults and asking for forgiveness from her loved ones. Despite this, Lois forged ahead. Maisie and Lois’s redemptive road trip continued with a trip to Marshall and Redd’s home. There, Marshall confronted her with a fiery speech wherein he claimed that working on homicide cases made her little more than a human ball of anger and fury whose spark of humanity had long since petered out.
Lois maintained a stoic disengagement as Marshall berated her, but her next visit to her daughter was another story entirely. Merritt tried to defend her affair with Eddie, eventually slapping her daughter to get back at her for their earlier confrontation in the preceding episode. Lois announced her plans to move to Tarpon Springs, Florida to both her ex-husband and Merritt, saying that she no longer wanted to be associated with any of the drama or ugliness of her life before the coma. Both Marshall and Merrit found this laughable, saying that Lois was the cause of all the misery around her.
2Grotesquerie Episode 9 Proved Lois’s Dream Weren’t Entirely Imagined
Police Chief Megan Encountered The Family Murders From Episode 1
As episode 9 continued, Megan woke in the motel to discover that something terrible had happened during the night. Lois realized the gas station attendant from episode 4, “Coordinates,” was a representation of her father, but further study of her dreams required help from an expert, Dr. Milton Smith. Smith theorized that Lois’s dreams might somehow be predicting the future, but even this world-renowned expert was unable to explain how this could possibly be the case. Unsure of what it all meant, Lois bid farewell to her doctors and prepared to head for Florida.
Lois joined Megan at a crime scene where she was horrified to discover that the events depicted in episode 1 had become a brutally violent reality.
Shortly after, Redd visited Lois to admit that she didn’t want a relationship with Marshall now that she had him. Redd announced that she wanted to join Lois in Tarpon Springs, saying that she longed for the freedom she had while Marshall was still caught between two women. Lois wished her the best of luck but, before she could leave for Florida, she received a call from Megan. Lois joined Megan at a crime scene where she was horrified to discover that the events depicted in episode 1 had become a brutally violent reality, complete withGrotesquerie’s disturbing pot plot twist.
1Grotesquerie Episode 9 Ended With Lois Killing Justin
Grotesquerie’s Original Detective Duo Megan and Lois Were Reunited
Megan and Lois began to wonder what this all meant, as it appeared that Lois’s dreams had started to bleed into reality. Lois theorized that someone must have read her files, and they were recreating the murders contained in her realm to mess with her. This implied Father Charlie’s seemingly harmless doctor might still be guilty after all. However, Megan was unconvinced. Eventually, Megan cut Lois’s arm at Lois’s insistence, so the detective could prove she was no longer in a coma. This worked and Looks successfully confirmed she was existing in reality, but there was another twist on the way.
Justin arrived at the motel and began attacking Megan. Lois emerged from the bathroom pointing her gun at him but, much as he had done earlier with Megan, Justin refused to back down. Eventually, he even placed his mouth on the gun, goading Lois to shoot him and repeatedly saying that she wouldn’t dare to do so. After he confronted Lois, she shocked Megan’s abusive partner by shooting him in the head at his insistence. The episode ended as Justin died instantly and a shocked Megan stared at Lois, leaving viewers to wonder whereGrotesqueriecould go next.
