Spoilers below

Honesty...the woman can't carry a tune that well, but when Jessica Lange takes center stage and sings David Bowie you kind of can't help but want to watch. "Heroes" is definitely not her strong suit, but she's not half bad when she covers "Life on Mars."

 

This season of American Horror Story was off and on dreadful, but the last fifteen minutes of the finale almost redeemed the entire thirteen episode run and not just because my favorite living actress sang my favorite song ever, David Bowie's "Heroes."

 

 

Jessica Lange is never better than when she plays sad and very tormented divas. As Elsa Mars in Freak Show she oddly veers between being the queen of mean and being a very insecure woman, sometimes both at the same time.

There's one particular scene in "Curtain Call" that shows just how powerful the actress is when she embraces emotion. Having waited all day for the head of tv network only to find out he slipped out the back, Elsa loses it and slaps the receptionist when she offers a bit of unsought advice: "If you ask me, change your act. Marlene did it better." 

Following that (and a tussle with a studio security guard) she falls onto the floor a crumpled mess of exhausted desperation. The look in her eyes, genuine and haunting (along with the way she says "My name is Elsa Mars" to the man who helps her), is one of the greatest moments in all of AHS's fourth incarnation.

Once Elsa's dreams come true after moving to Hollywood and getting "discovered," she realizes that dreams can quickly turn to nightmares. Soon, all she wants is for things to be the way they once were when she was happy with all her "monsters" and running her "freak show" in Juniper, Florida.

The last few minutes of "Curtain Call" are so easy to understand and just feel. The minute Elsa agrees to do her variety program live on Halloween (Elsa never performs on Halloween for interesting reasons made clear early on in the season) you know her life has gotten bad enough that she wants to die (or go to Hell)...either option is okay with her.

When she began singing "Heroes," I thought this is it, this is as good as my life gets. I wasn't being sarcastic, but for that moment felt the most bliss I'd experienced in weeks, as pathetic as that may sound. Freak Show might have mostly been bad this year but when it was good it was very good.

Elsa's performance is cut short because Edward Mordrake (it's a long back story, let's just say he knows his way around Hell) comes calling. Instead of punishing her, though, he sends Elsa back to when she was most herself, in Juniper, Florida, singing and being with her beloved "monsters."

It's kind of cheesy and might seem like way more than she should get, but considering Elsa's horrid past and few (but very sincere) attempts to be human (plus throw in this is probably Jessica Lange's last time on AHS), the lavish ending is kind of fitting.



"I just...I need to be with someone I love."-Elsa says to the man (Massimo Dolcefino, played by Danny Huston) she once hoped to be with before all her dreams crashed and burned.