THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS POST. DON’T READ FURTHER IF IT MATTERS TO YOU.

I finally binged Grotesquerie on Hulu. I had no idea of what the show was about before starting it. I was drawn in by the “gothy” color scheme and religious imaginary, deep reds and purple hues over Christian crosses hung over a nun in a white habit, running into frame.

I did know, however, that it was a Ryan Murphy show. Despite the critics, I like the American Horror Story series and its companion anthology, American Horror Stories. In my opinion, the biggest problem with the two horror series is that sometimes the stories just peter out as if he just got tired of writing. This seemed to be the case with Episode 7 of Grotesquerie, when it’s revealed that the episodes so far were nothing more than a “fever dream” of a comatose police detective.

At the show’s start, Detective Lois Tryon is called to the scene of a gruesome ritualistic murder. An entire family has been murdered and the body of the father mutilated. Before their deaths, it is hinted that they are made to eat a part of their father. Lois’ deputies implore her to give the investigation over to the FBI. However, she is ardently against it and eventually comes to believe that the killer is addressing her directly through the victims and outwardly challenging her to solve the murders. She is egged on in this belief by Sister Megan, a reporter for the local church paper.

The serial killing isn’t the only burden she shoulders. She has a brilliant daughter, Merritt, whose only ambition is to appear on a reality show for obese people called, “Two Ton Trauma.” Her philandering husband, Marshall, is in a coma and her decisions regarding his care are consistently challenged by his overly attentive nurse, Nurse Redd. Then there is Sister Megan, who introduces her to the religious iconography of the serial killings and seems to know a lot about the motivations of the serial killer. Incredulously, Lois, who seems suspicious of everyone, is only mildly suspicious of Sister Megan.

Predictably, Sister Megan is Lois’ comeuppance. As she lays dying, it is revealed that she is the coma patient, not Marshall. Immediately in the next shot, he is shown at a nice restaurant having dinner with Merritt, and her husband, Eddie, who was a hospital orderly in Lois’ dream. During dinner, Merritt announces she is divorcing Eddie because he had an affair with Lois (her mother and Marshall’s wife). Upset, Marshall visits Lois’ doctor and insists on having her life support machine disconnected. However, instead of dying Lois wakes up.

Initially, this is what I dreaded. The writer got tired of writing and everything up to this point became “a dream.” In the waking world, Sister Megan is actually Lois’ boss in the police department. Merritt is actually a successful doctor and lecturer with multiple degrees. Nurse Redd was never a nurse but a cam girl with whomt Marshall has an affair but eventually moves in with. Marshall is the only character who is who he is in Lois’ dream,  a philandering husband and professor of philosophy.

Like Dorothy being conked on the head during the tornado and having an adventure in Oz, Lois fell into a coma and had a gory adventure involving a serial killer. Despite the disappointment, I continued to watch. There were only three episodes left and the relationship drama between Lois and all the people she “cares” about was enough to keep me tuned in still. Lois’ confrontation with Merritt and Redd’s confession that she doesn’t want a relationship with Marshall was revealing – And the “sin” Lois committed to protect Megan was worth dealing with the “it was all a dream” reveal of Episode 7.

In hindsight, this might have been a genius manipulation by the writer. I was already so invested in the characters. I had to see how their story ended. The finale, Episode 10 made Episode 7 make sense! Lois who has now checked herself into a psychiatric hospital tells her doctor that she is dead and in Hell, and the events she is experiencing are part of a punishment that she is doomed to repeat until eternity. I don’t know if sinners reliving their regrets and nightmares as punishment upon death is a real Biblical or theological concept, but I have heard this before. In the show, Lucifer, the concept of a “Hell Loop” is introduced. In an episode called, “Yabba Dabba Do Me,” Lucifer attempts to free someone from a Hell Loop.

But it wasn’t Hell that made Grotesquerie impactful for me. It was the memory of a favorite Twilight Zone episode, “Shadow Play” (1961), where a criminal is sentenced to death and claims every time he dies the world dies with him. He ends up dying at the end and his prediction comes true. The entire world is recast. Familiar faces now have new roles. The story setting is the only thing unchanged. He is still on trial with death as the punishment.

Rod Serling’s closing monologue for “Shadow Play” gives Grotesquerie a haunting new meaning that makes me hope this is the true end of Detective Tyron’s story:

“We know that a dream can be real, but who ever thought that reality could be a dream? We exist, of course, but how, in what way? As we believe, as flesh-and-blood human beings, or are we simply parts of someone’s feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it, and then ask yourself, do you live here, in this country, in this world, or do you live, instead, – in The Twilight Zone?”