- A traveling salesman named Chester convinces Elsa to hire him as a magician for the show. The twins set their sights on the newcomer, while Dell and Eve help Jimmy escape.
- After Dot's has her heart is broken by Jimmy, the twins decide the time has come for them to find a lover. They take an immediate interest in a new arrival, traveling salesman Chester, who also fancies himself a magician and a ventriloquist. Elsa takes him on as a bookkeeper but it's clear that Chester has serious problems, especially with his ventriloquist's doll which seems to have a life of his own. When Dandy learns that Chester and the twins are lovers, he pays the young man a visit. Jimmy meanwhile takes Stanley up on his offer but pays a far higher price than he expected. Desiree and Maggie return from the museum and Dell now has to face the consequences of his actions.—garykmcd
- Two Days Ago
In his jail cell, Jimmy gets an offer from Spalding: cut off his hand ("just the left one") to sell to a collector for money to hire a lawyer. Spalding lays it on thick, reminding Jimmy about Meep's death in custody and saying he has no choice. (From the previous episode, we know two lobster hands end up at the American Morbidity Museum.)
Jimmy drinks the poison Spalding gives him to make him sick. An ambulance hired by Spalding comes for Jimmy.
Jimmy wakes up in county hospital. There are bloody stumps where his hands used to be.
Back at the show, Dot admires the courage and resolve of the freaks who live for the moment. Bette is back to her natural brown and they both feel like they belong. And their top priority is sex.
They burn their diaries as a symbol of the fact there's nothing to hide from each other anymore.
In the big top, they meet Chester (Neil Patrick Harris), a traveling salesman (and are delighted by the rumors of traveling salesmen's sex drives). He's peddling chameleons as a way to calm himself after storming the beaches at Normandy. And he has a bit of a magic act. Dot and Bette are both smitten, although he's picturing other women on their heads.
Dell goes to visit Jimmy in the hospital and learns what Spalding convinced him to do. Dell knows Spalding is a liar and up to no good, but doesn't let Jimmy in on it. Dell sits down to feed his son and tells him about good prosthetics nowadays. They decide to go in together to buy the show from Elsa.
Back at the show, Elsa is not impressed with Chester's basic magic acts, so he breaks out his ventriloquist dummy. He seems a little too attached to "Margery."
He tries to convince Elsa to let him sell his lizards before the show and shows her his ledger. She offers to let him warm up the crowd if he helps with their bookkeeping. He thanks her a little too tearfully and profusely, referencing Margery again.
Later, as Chester gets ready for his show, he hears Margery badgering him about caving too easily to Elsa.
Dell returns to the show and tells Elsa what Spalding convinced Jimmy to do. They both realize the urgency of getting Jimmy out of jail since he can't defend himself without hands. Amazon Eve tells Dell she wants to help.
Chester visits the Tattler twins in their tent with a thank you present for vouching for him. He reveals a box with two dancing ballerinas inside. He tells them about finding a magic box in the show's storage and wanting to use it for the old saw-a-woman-in-half trick. He asks them to be his assistants, to distract the audience during his routine. He goes on about their beauty and says seeing them was like seeing old friends.
Cut to the "old friends" he's referencing -- the two women whose heads he imagined on the Tattlers, in bed together making passionate love as Chester watches, in his uniform with Margery the doll on his lap.
Later, the show goes off without a hitch and Dot and Bette think Chester seems smitten with them.
Police come to transport Jimmy from the hospital. They run into Eve on a dark road, blocking their path. She throws a rock through the windshield then waits for Dell to come out and bash one on the head with a crowbar. The other fires at him, hitting him, but he keeps charging, then Dell tackles the cop to the ground, beating his head into soup.
Back at the show, the Tattlers put on their best lingerie and throw themselves at Chester (interrupting him arguing with Margery). The girls suggest he be the one to deflower them and plate in his head starts bothering him. He contemplates their offer as Margery taunts him.
Flash back to the two women in bed, trying to convince Chester to join them, provided he doesn't touch one of them. But instead he takes Margery to the garage to "work on his magic."
Back with the Tattlers, Chester isn't sure whether their offer is real or he's imagining things. Then he grabs Margery, saying she relaxes him. The girls are unfazed and they get down to business, losing their virginity on the carpet.
Cut to Dandy Mott tearfully looking at photos of the liaison taken by his PI. He laments that "they were supposed to be mine."
Back at the show, Chester locks Margery in a crate -- against the doll's wishes -- saying the Tattlers make him happy. Margery threatens to tell everything.
Flash back to Chester with one of the women, Alice, discovering she's hidden Margery. She points out he's still wearing his uniform four years after the war ended and people think he's sick in the head. Suddenly Chester sees a life-sized Margery urging him to get rid of both women.
Cut to Elsa announcing to Chester her intentions to sell the show to him for $1,000. She saw in his ledger that he had more money than he let on. The deal comes with caveats: no one can be fired and all acts have to remain the same. Chester agrees. He tells Elsa his hope that Margery can move into Elsa's tent, as the headliner of the show.
Chester goes back to his trailer with his exciting news and finds Margery is gone.
Later that night, cops stream onto the show grounds looking for Jimmy. Chester interrupts, distraught over Margery's disappearance and begging the cops to find her. The cops shove him aside and ransack the show looking for Jimmy.
Chester roams the grounds, looking for Margery. He finds Dandy Mott instead. Dandy plays on Chester's psychosis, telling him that Margery ran away because of what Chester did with the twins. And, using information from his PI, Dandy says that Margery told him what Chester did to his wife, Lucy, and her friend Alice. In a note, Chester said that Margery did it, then he went on the lam.
Cut to Chester coming home to see Alice battered and life-sized Margery beating Lucy to a pulp with a hammer. ("What a sicko," sociopathic Dandy says upon learning about the deaths from the PI.)
Dandy tells Chester to find Margery in the big tent. Life-sized Margery is waiting for him there. She tells him to get rid of people keeping them apart. "You're a magician, you're going to saw those twins in half," she says.
Maggie Esmerelda, returned from her trip to the American Morbidity Museum with Desiree, comes for Elsa to show her something.
Meanwhile, Dell comes back to his trailer to find Desiree holding a gun on him. "Who have you killed since we got here, Dell?" she asks.
"No one who didn't have it coming," he says, admitting he killed the cops, but no one else.
She accuses him of killing one of his own.
Cut to Maggie unveiling Ma Petite in a jar to Elsa.
Dell breaks down to Desiree and confesses to smothering Ma Petite, saying he was being blackmailed. A shot rings out and a bullet flies through Dell's head from behind. Elsa lowers her smoking gun. "That's all I needed to hear," she says.
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