“Evil has always existed in the world.”
As summer comes to a close and autumn gets into full swing, it’s typically the time of year when Spooky Season materializes. This year, however, television is bringing audiences a Murphy Fall as megaproducer and showrunner Ryan Murphy appears to be pumping out new shows every week this month. In addition to “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez” currently airing on FX, there’s a bloodbath taking place on Netflix with “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and a new medical drama starring Joshua Jackson called “Doctor Odyssey” getting ready to set sail on ABC.
But first, Murphy is welcomed back to the horror genre by unveiling the limited series “Grotesquerie,” which debuted on FX Wednesday with a two-episode premiere event.
“Grotesquerie” stars Murphy-favorite Niecy Nash-Betts (who also wears an executive producer hat on the series) as Detective Lois Tryon. Detective Tryon is a no-nonsense, cigarette-smoking, flask-drinking alcoholic detective whose life has clearly gone in a direction she wasn’t anticipating. Her world-renowned Philosophy professor husband (Courtney B. Vance) is fighting for his life in a coma while her adult daughter still lives at home and fights weight issues.
Detective Tryon is a curious woman by nature. She faces the wrath of her husband’s nurse (Lesley Manville) while contending with a series of gory murder cases increasing in severity and religious undertones. She’s approached by an even more curious character, Sister Megan (Micaela Diamond), a nun by day and reporter by night who offers insight into the possible serial killer plaguing Tryon’s jurisdiction.
What a jurisdiction it is, as the town could rival Gotham City in high levels of eccentric criminals running the streets. As the bodies pile up and the murders become more grotesque (at one point, they insinuate the killer boiled a baby in a pot while listening to Mozart and served a father’s cheek to his family like carpaccio), the more paranoid Tryon becomes. Leaning on Sister Megan for support while continuously drinking vodka gives Tryon the clarity she needs to figure out what’s going on.
“Grotesquerie” is filled to the brim with peculiar characters and a paranoia that consumes Detective Tryon from the jump. Initially presented as a typical police drama, the series progresses into a sociopathic study of the macabre. Tryon believes someone is following her, and by the second episode, flashbacks provide context as to where some of her own psychosis began.
Sister Megan’s unorthodox obsession with true crime and satanic cults makes her relationship with the youthful Father Charlie (“Monsters” star Nicholas Chavez) even more strange as the two are seen in the second episode gabbing at a diner about their shared morbid fascination with serial killers. He’s a sin-filled priest who flogs himself after masturbating, so it’s clear that we are dealing with an array of strange individuals in every scene.
But Manville’s Nurse Redd is the strangest by far in the first two episodes. Wearing high-heels and sporting a retro hairdo, Nurse Redd might be taking on the mantle of Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” but without the subtlety and grace the latter gave to her patients. Hers is a character that feels out of place in a modern-era hospital, confusing both the audience and Detective Tryon.
Having a stereotypical police officer role imbibing on liquor in order to get through the harshness of reality isn’t groundbreaking, but Niecy Nash-Betts is more than qualified to take on the cliche. A gifted actor whose promotion to leading lady in this series is much deserved, given the wealth of talent she brings to such an unseemly character.
There’s definitely more than meets the eye in the first two episodes of “Grotesquerie” as series creators Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz (“Feud”) and Joe Baken (“American Horror Stories”) build a world full of odd creatures and even more odd theological motives. Though Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s role is yet to be clarified, the show moves along like an investigation into the mind of Detective Tryon and the serial killer she pursues to no end.
“Grotesquerie” airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX and streams the next day on Hulu.
