Grotesquerie Episodes 5 & 6 Recap: Lois' Attack & 7 Other Reveals

Grotesquerie Episodes 5 & 6 Recap: Lois’ Attack & 7 Other Reveals


Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Grotesquerie episodes 5 and 6



After a couple of chaotic episodes with few new insights, Grotesquerie episodes 5 and 6 suddenly brought the show’s main mystery back into focus. Grotesquerie’s story follows Niecy Nash’s Detective Lois Tryon and her unlikely partner Sister Megan. Lois is a hard-drinking detective whose illustrious career has taken a toll on her personal life, leaving her a burnt-out, bitter alcoholic. Sister Megan is a quirky nun whose tawdry reporting on the eponymous religion-obsessed serial killer brings the duo together. After a few episodes, it is clear that Grotesquerie knows Lois and is toying with her due to their shared history.


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Grotesquerie Cast & Character Guide

Ryan Murphy’s new horror TV series, Grotesquerie, reunites him with some frequent collaborators and also stars some new but familiar faces.

For all of Grotesquerie’s high-minded Biblical references, its villain’s motives appear to be much more human than spiritual. The killer is trying to destroy Lois’s remaining faith in humanity by convincing her that people have lost their way. Grotesquerie often feels like American Horror Story, another show by creator Ryan Murphy, but its police procedural trappings also have a lot in common with True Detective season 1. Like that show’s iconic antihero, Rust Cohle, Lois has already admitted she is close to losing any lingering faith in people due to the horrors she has seen in her years of work.



8 Lois And Sister Megan Became Stranded At A Strange Desert Motel

The Motel Was Full Of Odd Characters And Strange Situations

In Grotesquerie season 1, episode 4, “Coordinates,” Lois’s daughter solves the puzzle box that Grotesquerie left at an earlier crime scene. Once opened, the elaborate puzzle reveals a small note containing the episode’s titular coordinates. Sister Megan and Lois head out into the desert to find the location listed, only to discover a literal fire pit. This gaping hole in the earth is filled with fire and, according to a helpful geologist, is a result of a natural gas bed burning through the earth’s surface. Whether this is true or not, Lois and Sister Megan leave the scene shaken.


This was where episode 5, “Red Haze,” picks up, as the two characters came across a woman soaked in blood who desperately begged them to take her to safety. The woman, named Andrea, leads them to a nearby motel where they can shelter from the worsening weather conditions. However, things are not quite right in the desert motel. The desk clerk is badly beaten but refuses to name her assailant, the pool is a bright purple hue due to some sketchy explanation involving airborne copper, and bloody paper towels fill the overflowing bathroom bins. Lois and Sister Megan investigate.

7 Sister Megan Got Shot At the Desert Motel

Grotesquerie’s Wild Long Shot Episode Paid Homage To True Detective


Before the pair can even start to work out what is going on, they are accosted by a gun-toting motel worker named Nick. After almost drowning the desk clerk, Nick turns his gun on Andrea. Lois and Sister Megan try to defuse the situation, but a pickup arrives and its inhabitants abduct Andrea before the pair can stop them. In the chaos, Sister Megan realizes she has been shot in the torso and is rushed to hospital. Grotesquerie episode 1’s gruesome pot plot proved that the show’s characters are capable of anything, but Sister Megan’s shooting remained shocking.

The opening shot of
Grotesquerie
episode 5, “Red Haze,” lasts for 15 minutes.


The twist arrived at the end of a bravura sequence that appeared to be shot in one continuous, extremely ambitious take. From the moment that Lois, Megan, and Andrea arrive at the motel until the end of the standoff, there are no visible cuts. Not only is this an impressive filmmaking feat, but the sequence specifically calls to mind the similar opening scene of True Detective season 1, episode 4, “Who Goes There.” While that outing opened with a six-minute shot that chronicled a standoff between the FBI and villains, Grotesquerie’s opening shot was more than twice as long.

6 Father Charlie and Lois Faced Off In The Hospital

Tori Gave Lois Some Leads On The Case

Upon Sister Megan’s arrival at the hospital, Father Charlie and Lois finally face off. It is strange to think that the two characters haven’t interacted much before this, with Lois’s brief attempt at a confession in episode 4 being their lone earlier conversation. Father Charlie blames Lois for the nun’s near-death experience and, as the duo sit beside Sister Megan in her hospital bed, it is clear that they won’t be working together anytime soon. Father Charlie insults Lois’s drinking and accuses her of failing in her duty to protect Sister Megan as a citizen and journalist.


A human trafficker named Glorious McKall, Lois’s former nemesis has recently been released from prison.

Things hardly improve for Lois as she leaves Sister Megan’s side. Her boss, Tori, comes close to taking her off the case due to her erratic behavior and heavy drinking, but instead provides Lois with the name of a suspect who might have something to do with the killings. A human trafficker named Glorious McKall, Lois’s former nemesis has recently been released from prison and the detective immediately assumes she might be behind the mysterious, gruesome killings. When Lois wakes up the next day, another killing has been uncovered. Like Travis Kelce’s Grotesquerie character Fast Eddie, Glorious McKall will have to wait.


5 The Killer Struck Again At A Maternity House

Lois and her fellow police officers discover the mutilated bodies of numerous pregnant people arranged in a monstrous menagerie in a maternity house. Lois visits a pair of kids who claim that their pregnant mother was picked up by an unknown man the night before. After receiving this tip from what Lois assumes is the child of one of the killer’s most recent victims, Lois walks to an orange grove near the episode’s end. There, a hysterical older woman cradles a newborn baby. Like the blood-soaked woman in the episode’s opening scene, she frantically warns Lois that “He” is coming.


4 Lois Interrogated Maisie And Got No Clear Answers

Lois Caught Up With Her Old Nemesis Glorious McKall

Grotesquerie episode 6, “Good Caesarean Work,” begins by introducing this mystery woman properly. Like Andrea in “Red Haze,” she becomes much more closed off and less compliant after Lois removes her from immediate danger. Unlike Andrea, this older woman, Maisie, is outright unsettling and threatening. She repeatedly insists that the baby is her own despite her advanced age and insistently repeats the term “Glorious.” It doesn’t take much hinting for Lois to realize Maisie is leading her back to her enemy, Glorious McKall. The former human trafficker now lives in what seems like a cult compound, where she taunts Lois.


When Glorious’s trigger-happy protectors try to shoot at Lois and her companion, the cop kills the three of them and Glorious is led out of the compound in handcuffs. As she is dragged away, Glorious rants about bizarre religious revelations that she says are forthcoming, claiming she was saved from a life of sin by getting involved in a baby trafficking ring. Lois gets no straight answers from Glorious, but her next interrogation of Maisie does at least reveal that she was also tangled up in this ring. This is likely how she got the baby at the episode’s beginning.

3 Nurse Redd Told Lois About Her Affair With Maxwell

Lois Pulled A Gun On The Nefarious Nurse


Seemingly, both Glorious and Maisie are accomplices of Grotesquerie and follow the serial killer as a religious cult leader. As if this isn’t enough, Grotesquerie’s American Horror Story influence begins to show when Lois returns home to find Lesley Manville’s absurdly hammy Nurse Redd on her doorstep. Bringing a bottle of liquor as a peace offering, Nurse Redd finally explains why she is so heavily invested in the recovery of Lois’s husband. It turns out that she is a former student of his and had been involved in a lengthy affair with the Philosophy professor long before his coma.

A terrified Nurse Redd leaves and Lois finally has time to take a deep breath.


Until now, it was never entirely clear whether Lois was imagining the worst of Nurse Redd’s unprofessional actions. Manville’s character sometimes seemed to be airlifted in from a campier, more comedic series, and this soap opera twist reinforced that feeling. Lois reacts poorly to the news, pulling a gun on Nurse Redd and telling her she will shoot her if she ever sees her near her husband again. A terrified Nurse Redd leaves and Lois finally has time to take a deep breath. However, the heroine doesn’t have much time for relaxation before she is en route to her next crime scene.

2 Maisie Hinted At Lois’ Connection To The Killer

The Killer’s Unhinged Convert Explained His Plan


As “Good Caesarean Work” wraps up, Lois picks through Maisie’s bizarre comments and pieces together the location of Grotesquerie’s strangest setup yet. Unlike all the killer’s earlier displays, the victims found in the abandoned baby formula plant are still very much alive. Four pregnant people are trapped in a bizarre contraption that milks their breasts to feed babies via a series of tubes, shocking the police as they begin to dissemble this macabre creation. While Lois is relieved to find some victims who are still alive, the episode still has more surprises in store for her in its final moments.

1 A Black Masked Killer Tried To Attack Lois

Lois Shot And Unmasked Her Assailant


Lois stares at a wall of photographs of herself, some taken without her knowledge. It seems clear that she has entered Grotesquerie’s lair and, almost immediately, a masked figure sneaks up behind her brandishing a knife. In a dramatic slow-motion sequence, Lois turns around and shoots the masked assailant who tried to cut her throat. The last scene of “Good Caesarean Work” sees her slowly unmask the killer, though viewers will need to wait until the next episode of Grotesquerie to find out whether this really was the titular killer that Lois took down or just another accomplice.

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