Ryan Murphy's Grotesquerie Is Here: What Is It About & Is the Show Even Good?
It's not the kind of show you can watch with your kids.
FX has launched a new series from Ryan Murphy, Grotesquerie, in which the number of victims already exceeds the number of characters in the second episode.
The frighteningly prolific producer and showrunner Ryan Murphy appears in the credits of high-profile projects every week: on FX – American Sports Story, on Netflix – Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, on ABC – the medical drama Doctor Odyssey, Grotesquerie for FX, is, as the title promises, the most excessive and perverse project of the season.
What Is Grotesquerie About?
The main character, Detective Lois Tryon, is investigating a series of horrific murders with religious overtones, while gradually sinking into depression and alcoholism.
Things are not going well in Lois' family: her husband, Marshall, was admitted to intensive care a month ago and is still in the hospital; her daughter, Merritt, suffers from an eating disorder and rarely leaves the house. Hoping to escape her domestic troubles, Lois plunges headlong into the search for a madman whose bloodthirstiness seems to grow with each new attack.
One day, nun-journalist Megan Duval suddenly joins Lois' case, convinced that the killer is somehow connected to the local Christian community because his murders are religious in nature. Duval is not your typical nun: she loves fast food and stories about serial killers, and also has a soft spot for the young pastor Charlie.
Grotesquerie Is an Excessive and Dark Show with Brilliant Leads
Everything in Grotesquerie is too much: if there are mistresses, there are three at once; if there are murders, they are theatrical. Lois' flask is too small, the nurse's lipstick is too red, the nun is too knowledgeable, the cops are too impressionable, and the town itself is darker than Gotham and Silent Hill combined.
Excellent acting saves this extravaganza of cruelty from vulgarity and bad taste. Niecy Nash revives the tired image of the alcoholic detective. In most thrillers, such characters are obvious misfits. Lois, on the other hand, seems the most sober and adapted to life in a world of madmen and monsters. With such a guide, the journey into the dark abyss seems even more tempting.
No less impressive is her partner – played by Micaela Diamond. Her Megan is exalted, unrestrained in expression, with maniacally burning eyes.
Enchanted by evil, Sister Duval says with a smile that she only believes in God sometimes, and that is better than never – we have never seen a nun like that on screen. In the end, it is her fascination with the bloody installations of the maniacal artist that is the most frightening thing about Grotesquerie.
Grotesquerie Is a Perfect Series for Fans of Gore and Violence
Overall, if you accept the rules of the game and look at what happens through the eyes of the slightly crazy Sister Duval, the show actually becomes fascinating. All these crazy people who inhabit Grotesquerie can be good company for Halloween.
The rest should listen to the urgent recommendations of Tryon's younger colleague and not get involved in these crimes in the strange world of Grotesquerie.