“I was about to enter the inescapable gates of hell.”

Thus begins Season 4 of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk‘s annual feast of pumpkin-spiced crazy, American Horror Story. The premiere episode sketches out a few of our main characters, all of whom are somehow related to Fraulein Elsa’s Cabinet of Curiosities, a traveling carnival currently camped out (for a limited time) in Jupiter, Florida. It is 1952, and shit’s about to get freaky.

Freak Show is, at first blush, a small-town melodrama wherein the town happens to be made of tents and populated by outcasts of various shapes, sizes, and numbered heads. There are tiny people, big people, and people with gratuitous Newfoundlandian accents. The show’s pulse comes from all the secrets and scandals that any soap opera of this type would employ, only you are probably slightly less likely to be stabbed to death by a murderous clown on, say, Days of Our Lives. Slightly.

As in past seasons, style and setting are important – possibly more important this round than the various returning players and the words that spill out of their mouths (alongside other things, thank you vomiting nurse). The Douglas Sirk-approved pastel pall that hangs over the proceedings is delightful (for now, at least) – I found myself obsessing over a mint-hued candystriper trolley to the point where I was missing actual dialog. Other scenes – like one where a convertible full of unwelcoming townies throw bottles at some of the carnival folk – could be deleted scenes from Cry Baby.

Period gags like Lucky Strikes being a brand of smokes that are “good for you” and honest-to-God Tupperware parties are the order of the day.

Our guides into the story are a set of conjoined twins, Bette and Dot Tattler (distinctly played by the ever-amazing Sarah Paulson).  Dot is pessimistic and stand-offish, while Bette is the more eager to please – that is, until she stabs their mother to death for not letting them go to the movies. (Kids those days!) Dot oscillates between protecting her sister and trying to kill her in her sleep, which could describe pretty much any sibling relationship. The visual effects are stunning, with Paulson’s necks constantly straining under the weight of her off-kilter heads.

But thankfully her performances more than distract from the CGI highwire act. Oh – the twins are also telepathic (because why not) and are sometimes shot in a split-screen POV, which is actually wonderfully effective in a De Palmian sort of way (and a nod to his own twin horror story, Sisters).

We also meet Jimmy (AHS Boy Friday Evan Peters), a toughie with malformed hands that have earned him the stage name “Lobster Boy” and allows him to rent himself out to local ladies looking for the ultimate “shocker”. Ugh. While I thought that they would never be able to out-wrong Dylan McDermott‘s changing-table “tearjerk” from Season 1 or Gabourey Sidibe‘s minotaur booty-call from Coven, I think a lobster hand Tupperware fingerbang party might take the cake.

When he’s not digitally pleasuring housewives, Jimmy is busy defending his brethren (and… sistren?) from unpleasant locals, including a detective who comes to arrest Dot and Bette for killing their mother. Jimmy slashes the man’s throat in a moment of rage, and then he and the rest of the performers naturally tear the body to pieces.

As you do.

Jimmy’s mama is Ethel Darling (Kathy Bates), a tough but seemingly kindly bearded lady who was rescued from the drunk tank to become the surrogate mother to the other performers. Her accent (Baltimore?) is at this point her most notable feature. Yes, even more notable than her impressive facial hair. The camp is fleshed out by an assortment of other colorful characters, including Ma Petite (world’s smallest woman Jyoti Amge), tall drink of water Amazon Eve (trans actress Erika Ervin), tattooed Brit Paul the Illustrated Seal (Mat Fraser), and of course returning champion Pepper (Naomi Grossman). They all seem lovely enough, at this point.

Of course their ringleader is Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange), a hot mess of an aspiring German actress whose accent enters the room before she and her magnificent collection of marabou ensembles do. Despite the fact that the carnival circuit is dying (thanks in part to the dawn of television, ironically) she is convinced that Dot and Bette – whom she seduces into joining the show by posing as the world’s most seasoned candystriper – are the tickets to the show’s salvation.

We know that Elsa will go to great lengths to protect her brood and her business – up to and including blackmailing a good-time girl (Grace Gummer) by feeding her opium and filming her having an orgy with the entire carnival. But we don’t yet know exactly what brought Elsa to America, or what the story is with her legs (which end just below the knee), or who in God’s name taught her how to beat her face so that she looks like a melting Precious Moments figurine. What we do know is that she’s perfectly happy spending the carnival’s entire meager budget on glitter and the rights to David Bowie songs that haven’t even been written yet.

On the outside of the tent city live Dandy and Gloria Mott (Finn Wittrock and the fabulous Frances Conroy), a fussy man-child obsessed with the “freaks” and his doting, rich mother. They try to actually purchase Dot and Bette from Elsa, to no avail. They are horrendous.

And at this point I probably need to address the grease-painted elephant in the room: Twisty the Clown. I’m sorry, but the “scary clown” cliche is one of my all-time least favorites, because it’s virtually never scary. And while John Carroll Lynch is doing his damnedest to terrify us from behind a mask and with no dialog, at this point the character is as frightening as a kid handing out flyers for a Halloween sale at Party City.

I was more disturbed by some of the appetizers being served at the Tupperware party. Anyway, at this point Twisty is killing some people and kidnapping others, for reasons I’m sure will become clear soon enough. At this point, the less said about this character that seems to have wandered over from his shift at a nearby cornfield maze, the better.

After the premiere I’m not exactly blown away. Aside from a few details, it’s pretty much exactly what I was expecting… which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Will there be a plot or mystery at hand aside from the blatantly obvious? Will there be any cultural commentary other than the boldface “outsider” metaphors literally being lit up by the spotlights?

Even the fact that the show is starting to become self-aware this season (Pepper is back; a waitress asks Even Peters’ character, “Is this your mother?” in reference to Jessica Lange; Elsa refers to “rotting in some stinking asylum”) is a little concerning. I’m hoping that the human drama eventually becomes more important than the set dressing, that the central conflict becomes more than your garden-variety metaphor about celebrating difference, and that the horror becomes actually horrifying. Here’s hoping this is just a shaky start and not a full-scale trapeze accident.

Notably Dead: Mrs. Tattler, Troy, some random parents, a cop

Notably Absent: We haven’t met half the cast yet.

Freak of the Week: Grace Gummer. She’s a goddamn national treasure.

Quote of the Week: For some reason, Elsa’s “Let’s have a look at you, Lefty” to Dot really cracked me up.