American Horror Story: Freak Show, “Pink Cupcakes” opens with Stanley (Denis O’Hare) dreaming about the “Night of Discovery” at the American Morbidity Museum (aka Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum). Though it’s his dream, he’s still not singled out for recognition, which Maggie (Emma Roberts) tells him not to be too surprised about.

American Horror Story: Freak Show Recap

In real time, Stanley and Maggie are still in Jupiter. He’s scheming about how exactly he’d be able to pull off transporting the freaks up to Philadelphia. Maggie doesn’t want to have any part in murdering anyone, though she promises to stay on the inside. Maggie also advises Stanley to “put some lead in your loafers. The only thing people hate more in Jupiter than freaks are poofs.”

At the Motts residence, Gloria (Francs Conroy) comes downstairs to the dining room to find Dora (Patti LaBelle) dead. Dandy (Finn Wittrock) shouts, “Someone’s broken into our home and murdered Dora,” but his mother immediately knows it was him. Dandy and Gloria ultimately burry Dora in the back yard and plant bulb plants over top. "It’s 1952 you can’t just go around picking up vagrants and killing them," she informs Dandy. Gloria is more right than she knows as she gets a call a few days later from Dora's daughter Beatrice (Gabourey Sidibe), who noticed her mother missed their weekly phone call.

At the Freak Show, Stanley pays Elsa (Jessica Lange) a visit in her decked out tent. Over booze, Stanley tries to win Elsa over by pretending he works for a TV company. Elsa, however, is a moving picture purist. It’s all about the silver screen, the cinema. Elsa eventually has a change of heart after her performance that night is met with a lukewarm reaction from the audience. Instead of succumbing to a nervous breakdown, she asks Stanley, "Tell me more about this television," and eventually decides to primp for taking pictures to promote her faux TV show.

Prior to the show, Maggie had caught Jimmy the “Lobster Boy” (Evan Peters) rehearsing by the carousel, suffering from stage fright because it’s the freak show’s first full house in a very long time. Maggie gives him a palm reading and encourages him to leave. She tells him he’s handsome and smart and can do anything he wants. He goes to kiss her, but she rebuffs him, dispiriting him. When Edith (Kathy Bates) can't find Dell (Michael Chiklis), she sends Jimmy to get him from the trailer since he's their carnival barker. Inside, he finds a sad Desiree (Angela Bassett). The two swap sob stories and end up fooling around. Before it goes much further, Desiree starts to bleed. Edith ends up bringing Desiree to her compassionate doctor, who informs her she had a miscarriage and is physically and genetically all woman. He also offers to perform a cosmetic surgery to remove her excess sex organs.

Meanwhile, Dell sat down for drinks with a charming young male prostitute (Matt Bomer) at the local gay bar. Apparently, he's been seeing him for the past month and has fallen head over heels in love with him. The thought of his boytoy being with other men deeply upsets Dell, who wants to set him up in his own apartment so he can focus on his drawing. When the prostitute tells him it's all work to him, Dell leaves in a rage. Dandy, who aspires to be the "U.S. Steel of murder" then approaches the prostitute and pays him $100 to come back to his place. He brings him to Twisty's cabin and tells him to turn around and strip. Dandy strips too, and puts on Twisty's frightful clown mask. He then proceeds to stab his victim and hack off his arms while he's still breathing. After burning the remains in acid, Dandy returns to his house covered in blood.

All ready to get her picture taken, Elsa sees Stanley taking off with Bette and Dot (Sarah Paulson) in the car instead of her. Per Stanley's plans, he's going to poison cupcakes and feed them to the girls. Bette takes a bite, but Dot doesn't, leading to a distraught Bette surviving next to her dead sister until Stanley kills her too. He then brings the twins’ heads floating in a glass case to the Morbidity Museum. In actuality, the girls decline to eat the cupcakes. When they return to the grounds, a jealous Elsa tells them that Stanley wants her to mentor them and convinces them to go for a ride with her. She drops them off at Gloria and Dandy Motts' house.