[Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for Grotesquerie.]
The Big Picture
- Episode 7 of the FX series ‘Grotesquerie’ provides a surprising twist that alters the entire trajectory of the season.
- Series co-creator Ryan Murphy discusses dropping clues, symbolism, and inspiration behind the mind-bending plot.
- Murphy praises the cast, ‘Doctor Odyssey’ fan theories, and teases the upcoming ‘All’s Fair.’
If you’ve been watching FX’s Grotesquerie for the past few weeks, following Detective Lois Tryon (Niecy Nash-Betts), as she tries to identify and understand the motive of a serial killer committing heinous and sinister crimes, you’ve also likely had that nagging feeling that something else is going on. Well, Episode 7 has now provided the answer to that question, and what’s most amazing about that is the fact the twist reveal didn’t get spoiled ahead of time. While we went into the episode thinking we might just be learning more about the serial killer’s identity, what we got instead was flipped over like a snow globe, shaken around a bit, and turned back over to have an entirely different path revealed. And now, I know I have even more questions about where things are going and how this will all end up.
Thankfully, after watching the episode, Collider was able to chat with series co-creator Ryan Murphy, who wrote the series with Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken, about the huge shift in the season and how they’d been dropping clues the whole way. He also talked about how this project reeled Nash-Betts in, the symbolism of the cherries, how viewers intrigued by the nun-father dynamic should stay tuned, staging how the incredible kitchen sequence would play out, drawing inspiration from Scanners, collaborating with Travis Kelce to create his role, and that he’d also create a role for Taylor Swift in a heartbeat. Beyond that, he discussed his surprise at how early fans started theorizing about what’s really going on with Doctor Odyssey, and what he’s most excited about with the upcoming All’s Fair legal series with Nash-Betts, Sarah Paulson, Naomi Watts, Glenn Close, Teyana Taylor, and Kim Kardashian.
Ryan Murphy Says That ‘Grotesquerie’ Twist Was There All Along
Collider: This show has been warping my brain from the beginning. When I spoke to Niecy Nash-Betts at the start of the season, she said you had sent her several scripts for different projects and told her to take a look at them and see what jumped out, and that Grotesquerie is the one that she wanted to partner with you on. When you gave her those projects to look at, did you think this would be the one that she chose?
RYAN MURPHY: Actually, what happened was, I’ve been friends with Niecy for so long and she’s actually my longest collaborator because I’ve worked with her since 1998. So, after Dahmer, we had a dinner at the Chateau Marmont and I didn’t physically give her scripts. It was last fall, right around Halloween, and she said, “What are you working on?” I said, “I’ve got this, and I’ve got this, and I’ve got this. I don’t know what I’m gonna do next, but I’m working on it.” The three things that I was interested in exploring were Grotesquerie, All’s Fair, and The Beauty, and Niecy was really, really drawn to Grotesquerie and to All’s Fair. So, we talked about it, and I had been deep enough in the writing of it for a couple of weeks that I was able to say, “And then, this happens . . .” I pitched her the whole thing, and then when I told her, “And then, in episode seven, you wake up from a coma and the whole thing was in your subconscious,” she was like, “Wait, what the fuck?! What?!”
Robbie (Jon Robin Baitz) and I and Joe Baken wrote [the scripts] in a fever dream. So, I sent her all the scripts – I think nine of the 10 – at the top of the New Year. I said, “Read all of these. You know what’s coming, but you’re not gonna really know what the execution is like.” A day later, my phone rang and it was Niecy, and she said, “Where do I sign? Where’s my contract? I’m in.” She was very, very quick. She loved it. I’m amazed that the secret never got out because a lot of people knew about it, with the crew and the actors, but people loved it so much. Every day, I would wake up and say, “Is it gonna get out today?” But it never did. At the beginning, it was very under wraps. You had to come to my office to read it. I wouldn’t share it. We were thrilled to be working on it because this moment has now come where people are gonna be like, “Wait what?!” And now you can go back and watch the episodes from episode one, and you will see all the Easter eggs and be like, “Oh, that’s what that was,” from the first frame. The hospital curtain on fire and the gauzy curtains that she’s always surrounded by, that’s the curtain from the hospital bed. The cherries that Lesley Manville eats in that pilot – people have mistakenly said they were strawberries, but they were cherries – in the writing, it was a fear of blood clots. That’s what those cherries were about. There are 10 to 12 things in the first six episodes that were coma Easter eggs.
I absolutely did not see this coming, so it took me by surprise.
MURPHY: It was a very fun thing to work on because we always wrote to it. We always knew what it was. When I sent it to John Landgraf, my partner in it, he called me after episode four and was like, “It’s really interesting.” And I was like, “No, keep going.” Of course, then when he got to episode seven, he was like, “What the fuck?! Okay.” It has the ability to shock you, and it was designed to do that. We wrote it because it’s about how I feel in the world now, which is like, “Wait, is this a dream? Is all of this shit that’s happening, really happening? Is no one doing anything about global warming? Is no one doing anything about women’s reproductive rights and freedoms?” If you look at it, every one of those six episodes before she wakes up is about an existential crisis that I, as a person, feel we, as a culture, are going through. For example, episode four, you think watching it that it’s a Thelma & Louise road trip through the desert. No. That entire thing, if you go back and look at it, everything is about the fear of global warming and how it’s too late and we’re caught in this fire state that we will never get out of. It was thrilling to craft something like that.
One of the things I was disappointed about with the shift in the story is the fact that it takes away the relationship between the nun and the father, which was such a standout for those first episodes. What did you most enjoy about that relationship and the way that dynamic evolved? And were you also sad that that had to come to an end?
MURPHY: Well, keep watching because that’s not over. It just becomes a different thing. The casting of those two parts was interesting to me. Micaela [Diamond] was the last person cast. I could not find the actor to do that, that I really liked, so she was the last person cast. She’s a brilliant actress and a brilliant Broadway performer. In our meeting, where we were just in a room reading it, she said to me, “Hey, have you heard about this serial killer nun?” And I was like, “Wait, what?!” She told me about the nun, and actually in the scene in the diner with her and Nick (Nicholas Alexander Chavez), she talks about, “This is my favorite serial killer.” Well, that’s from that. And so, then I was like, “Well, it’s you,” and I rewrote it for her. And Nicholas, I had obviously thought was amazing because I had just been working with him on the Menendez Brothers show. Both of those actors, Micaela and Nicholas, you could throw anything at them anything and they would do it, and they were very trusting. Every actor knew that they had a duality, but they didn’t know when it was gonna come up or how. I loved working with both of them and I loved that relationship, but that’s not over. I’m glad that you like it because it’s there.
‘Grotesquerie’s Kitchen Sequence Is the Real Turning Point in the Season
The best part of this episode is everything in the kitchen between Lois and Sister Megan. Was it always very clear what that would be and how that would play out, or did that evolve?
MURPHY: When we wrote it, nothing in the plot ever changed. That was always what it was. What did change is that we went back in and did character passes because when you get Niecy Nash, you wanna do work with her on what it is. That was a very interesting scene. When I watched that episode, I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked, and nothing shocks me anymore. Max Winkler directed that episode, and Max and Alexis Martin Woddall were the showrunners of the show. What was important to me was that we’d written it and I wanted somebody to visually interpret it. Max and Alexis spent months coming up with what the visual style was, with me. For that episode, Max came to me and said, “Okay, so she’s waking up from this coma and when you wake up from the state, it’s like you’re moving through a black tunnel towards a white light. That’s the trope. So, let’s build two to three different versions of that set, so that we can visually sell that.”
That was Max’s idea to build different scale sets of that. We shot the real kitchen. We had been shooting in that, but then Max did two other versions of it that were very different, smaller and bigger. If you watch it, suddenly you do feel like the person is being enveloped in it. That was all designed, and I will give Max and Alexis total credit for that. It was a really smart idea because the visuals meant something. When you’re watching it, you think you’re watching a fight scene, and you’re concentrating on the fight scene. You’re not realizing yet that what we’re trying to tell you is you’re in a limbic space and you’re moving through it. So now, when you get to the end and you get to that twist, if you go back and watch that scene, that scene is about Lois fighting to come back into the real world from her unconscious state and the set is the vernacular that’s informing you of that.
What inspired the exploding head because that was just perfection?
MURPHY: Max and I are both Cronenberg nuts and I think Scanners had a lot to do with it. It also needed to be shocking. It needed to shock you. It was really fun to do.
Travis Kelce Collaborated With Ryan Murphy To Develop the Layers of His ‘Grotesquerie’ Role
You put these great casts together and you work with incredible actors, but you seem to also like to throw in wild cards, whether it’s Lady Gaga or Kim Kardashian or Travis Kelce in Grotesquerie. You’ve said that you crafted this role for Travis, but what did you want that character to be? What did you see in him that inspired the role?
MURPHY: The thing I would say about that is, a star is a star is a star. If you are a star in one area, you will be a star in another because you just have something. You have personality, charisma, and an aura about you. You just have something. That role was written for Travis, and we really couldn’t talk about it until now. But if you go back and look at his introduction, which I directed, he is a guardian angel to her. He is dressed in white. I spent hours on the lighting. His skin is glowing. He is an idealization of somebody that you want to rescue you and protect you. I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Travis Kelce is, with Taylor Swift, America’s sweetheart couple, and they are arbiters of something very particular and shiny and interesting. I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool.” What I loved about it was that I knew Travis could do that. I knew he could be the angel. But then, when we gave him the mullet and he works at Cinnabon, that was also him coming up with like, “Hey, man, I wore this mullet once. Let me show you this picture.” He really helped design the look of the second character, and he loved that. He loved going from being this William Holden-looking to this trashy guy who works at Cinnabon. I love it.
I’m working with Kim Kardashian on something now. Nobody is better. Nobody works harder. Lady Gaga, when she did that thing with me, a lot of people were like, “Wait, what?!” And look what she’s done with her acting career. It’s been an amazing thing. I believe in people. I love pop culture. I like the cult of celebrity. And I like to also show people what I think people can do or aren’t expecting them to be able to do. That’s always a thrill. I’ll never hire somebody unless I believe in them. And you know, I do have final cut, so I’m able to make sure everything is right. I promise people a certain experience, and I pretty much think I’ve always delivered on that . . . When you sign onto one of my shows, you’re on a train blaring down the tracks towards the destination. The fun of it is you sometimes don’t always know, but I know. That’s a very thrilling thing because it’s a tight rope experience and you can feel the electricity in those performances. That’s really fun to do and thrilling to do.
I would love to see what role you might create for Taylor Swift because I think you’d come up with something compelling that we haven’t seen her do before.
MURPHY: Well, I love her, so yeah, in a heartbeat, I would.
I’m also having an absolute blast watching Doctor Odyssey every week and having this ongoing conversation about show theories. How do you feel about theories that people have been coming up with since the beginning and that they’re talking about how maybe the doctor never recovered from COVID? Are you surprised theories started so soon or were you expecting that?
MURPHY: All I will say is, I was surprised. I love stuff like that. I love it when the audience takes ownership of a show and has ideas and theories, and they’re putting together clues along the way about something. With Doctor Odyssey, that’s all I’ll say. With Grotesquerie, I don’t think people will have seen this coming, which was the fun of it and why I wanted to do it. But I love that. I love that you’re talking to your friends about it the next day. Josh Jackson and I, when we were making it, talked about things like this. He and I were like, “Wow, have you been reading what people are saying?” So, we are very aware of things.
Ryan Murphy Thinks His Upcoming Series ‘All’s Fair’ Is the Show We Need Right Now
What are you most excited about with All’s Fair? What do you think will be the fun in those women together, as actors and as characters?
MURPHY: It’s me, as a fan. I’ve worked with all of the five women, except for Glenn Close and Teyana [Taylor], but I’ve been fans of them forever. I will tell you this, the All’s Fair text chat is so gripping. There are all these iconic women – Niecy and Sarah [Paulson] and Naomi [Watts] and Glenn and Kim – and I’ve been directing it the past week, and sometimes I just look at the frame where they’re all in there and I’m like, “I cannot believe all of these icons are in one room talking about issues that are controversial.” The fun is in seeing Glenn have a scene with Kim. Everybody in the cast loves Kim so much, and everybody loves Glenn. I had a dinner the other night, and it was me and all the ladies, and everybody had too much to drink. I was just like, “Okay, this is what America needs, and not just America, but the world.” These women were talking about issues and supporting each other. What I love about this cast is that they support each other. They are in it to help each other and have ideas. It’s a very collaborative show. I can’t wait till people see it because it’s so fun and so good.
Grotesquerie airs on FX and is available to stream on Hulu. Check out the Episode 7 trailer:
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