Ryan Murphy says he is surprised and excited that Grotesquerie‘s Episode 7 plot twist did not get out in advance. Better yet, he says there are more turns to come.
Spoilers ahead for Grotesquerie’s first seven episodes.
On Wednesday night, it was revealed during the episode “Unplugged” that Lois Tryon (Niecy Nash-Betts) — the hard-on-crime detective who has been investigating a series of horrific murders at the hands of a serial killer named Grotesquerie — has been musing the whole situation in a dream scenario.
Yup, that’s right, it was all imagined.
In reality, Lois has been the one in a coma this whole time — not her husband Marshall (Courtney B. Vance) as we were led to believe. In her slumber, Lois has cast those around her as characters in a psychological thriller In fact, the episode flips the narrative on its head at around the halfway point after Lois drunkenly argues with her daughter Merritt (Raven Goodwin), calls out Eddie (Travis Kelce) for flirting with her and unmasks Sister Megan (Micaela Diamond) as being an accomplice in the Grotesquerie murders, helping the true killer, Father Charlie (Nicholas Alexander Chavez).
The plot twist comes as Lois is fighting against Sister Megan for her life when the camera quickly pans out and resets the timeline, this time seeing Marshall on the other side of a dinner table with Merritt and Eddie. The shot mirrors the opening sequence in which Lois had a dinner date with Merritt and Eddie where they professed their love for each other and Merritt announced she had been cast in the fictional reality series she was chasing after in the first six episodes.
The plot twist relies on a dichotomy, now casting Eddie as Meritt’s loser husband who has a mullet and works at Cinnabon, rather than the suave hospital nurse we believed him to be. Sister Megan is actually the police chief who Lois butted heads with in life, Father Charlie is a doctor at the hospital and Nurse Redd is really Marshall’s mistress who also happens to be a content creator a la OnlyFans.
Talking with The Hollywood Reporter about the major twist in Episode 7, Murphy — joined by John Landgraf, Chairman of FX Content & FX Production — said that while the reveal about Lois’ liminal assertions is a big one, it’s certainly not the last.
“Yes, there’s a big reveal here in episode seven — and then there’s another one in eight and nine and 10 [the finale],” he told the outlet, adding that they tailored the twists to the weekly release model that the show is following. Grotesquerie Episodes 8 and 9 are scheduled to drop on Wednesday, Oct. 23 and Episode 10 will release on Oct. 30.
“Forthcoming, I will just tell you that nothing is at it seems,” Nash-Betts told Decider on Thursday. “Expect more twists and a few more turns.”
With three episodes (and purportedly many more twists to come) many are already starting to ask about the future of the show, and whether or not there could be a second season. Murphy and Landgraf told THR they are hoping to do more with the Grotesquerie cast and crew and that it’s just a waiting game to make it to the end of season 1.
“Well, it was conceived as a drama series,” Murphy said, referencing his plans for the show to not follow the limited or anthology categorization that several of his other series have followed. “That’s what it is. So it’s a multi-year approach.”
For her own part, Nash-Betts told Decider that she is just as open (and available) if Landgraf and FX are kind enough to greenlight a follow-up season. And if there are more plotlines to explore at the end of the first season, of course.
“Yes, I would love to continue,” she said. “I have been hearing some things and so, if we are lucky, we’ll get another go around. And we’ll see what happens.”
The first seven episodes of Grotesquerie are now streaming on Hulu. New episodes air on FX Wednesday nights and drop on Hulu the next day.