Is Grotesquerie Just Another American Horror Story?

Photo: Prashant Gupta/FX

The first two episodes of Grotesquerie, yet another new fall series from executive producer Ryan Murphy, debuted on FX on Wednesday night and managed to evoke multiple seasons of American Horror Story at the same time. The presence of nuns, priests, and religious imagery — the serial killer in this series, whose name is Grotesquerie, is very into biblical references — echoes American Horror Story: Asylum (not to mention Evil, the first season of True Detective, and the movie Se7en). The season’s allusions to cults and its emphasis on the apocalyptic — “The end is fucking near,” shouts an unhoused man in the first episode — call to mind the Cult and Apocalypse seasons. Its lurid fascination with creatively disgusting ways to torture and kill other human beings is similar to what we’ve seen in every American Horror Story entry so far and in, for that matter, at least 75 percent of Murphy’s television oeuvre.

But even though it is rolling out in the weeks leading up to Halloween, which is traditionally AHS season, Grotesquerie is not another installment of the anthology series, though you’d be forgiven for thinking so: The 12th AHS season, Delicate, was split in half and concluded earlier this year, so Grotesquerie, along with American Horror Stories, plural, which debuts on October 15 on Hulu, are filling in a programming gap of sorts. (American Horror Story was renewed through a 13th season back in 2020, and a new one is expected next year.) So for those wondering whether Grotesquerie is just a seasonal replacement for American Horror Story, the answer is “no” but also “yes.”

While it’s too early to say whether the show really jells, based on the first couple of installments — critics were not given additional episodes for review — Grotesquerie distinguishes itself by being, first and foremost, a cop show. Detective Lois Tryon, played by Niecy Nash-Betts, is the main character and the primary prism through which we view the Grotesquerie world. She’s assigned to determine who’s behind the grisly murder of a Christian family of four as well as two similar, subsequent crimes. She’s written in the vein of practically every cop in every vaguely prestige crime drama in recent history: an alcoholic, workaholic obsessive who uses her police responsibilities to escape her painful family life, which includes caring for a husband who has been in a coma for nearly a month.

In keeping with a procedural approach, Grotesquerie is very clearly a whodunit, which is a slight detour from the typical AHS structure. In another departure, while almost every fine actor in the main cast has appeared in at least one Murphy project — Nash-Betts was in Scream Queens and Monster; Courtney B. Vance, who plays her husband, was in The People v. O.J. Simpson; Nicholas Chavez, a priest with a true-crime fetish, was Lyle Menéndez in Monsters — none of them have appeared in a season of American Horror Story. (Lesley Manville, who plays a nurse with a retro ’do and a very nasty temperament, looks like she was in Ratched, but she wasn’t.) Grotesquerie also promises to deliver a highly (I guess?) anticipated performance from Super Bowl–champion tight end and boyfriend of America’s Sweetheart Travis Kelce, though he does not make an appearance in the first two episodes. I am betting he shows up as a member of whatever cult may be associated with the killings in a role that winks at his connection to Taylor Swift by commenting on the dangers of hero worship. Either that or he’s in this thing for five minutes before getting brutally mutilated.

The presence of Kelce feels like another echo of American Horror Story given the franchise’s love affair with stunt casting. (See Adam Levine in Asylum, Stevie Nicks in Coven and Apocalypse, Lady Gaga in Hotel and Roanoke, and Kim Kardashian in Delicate.) Actually, AHS’s most consistent selling point has always been the caliber of its performances, and Grotesquerie has that going for it, too. The material is consistently elevated by the actors, most notably Nash-Betts, who brings a grounded understatedness to Lois that saves her from falling into a river of clichés. Manville is great, too, quite literally licking her lips over the prospect of portraying a domineering, perverse caretaker.

In addition to being well acted, Grotesquerie is, like most Murphy joints, compelling and graphically violent out of the gate. Whether or not it really needs to exist, especially in a two-week period that is giving us three additional new Murphy-produced series (American Sports Story, Monsters, Doctor Odyssey) and the return of another (9-1-1), remains, just like Travis Kelce, to be seen.