Grotesquerie recap, episode 7: A very twisted sister

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR EPISODE 7 OF GROTESQUERIE

If you came into this week's episode of Grotesquerie hoping for answers, I'm sad to disappoint you and reveal you won't get any. Instead, episode 7 flips the entire show upside down. And with only one episode on tonight, likely by design, viewers now have a whole week to process what, exactly, they just watched.

Last week's episode ended with Lois in an abandoned bottle factory where she finds out the killer has been stalking her all along. While analyzing the photos of herself pinned to a wall, he sneaks up behind her and tries to kill her, but Lois is faster and shoots him before he can hurt her. The episode ends on a cliffhanger with Lois unmasking him off-camera so we don't get to see who was beneath the mask.

Who are the killer(s)?

Cut to this week where we appear to fast forward significantly. Lois has solved the biggest case of her career. Father Charlie was the murderer and now he's dead. She's flying high. Ready to move on with her life, Lois takes Marshall off of life support.

There's a sense of unreality about the episode. Lois reads the words "wake up" and spots a piece of paper about a woman on life support with no viable organs. It's all hinting toward the reveal that comes about halfway through. But before that, Lois continues her investigation to tie up loose ends and finds Megan's office in the church. Inside is a tome filled with graphic images and disturbing diagrams. The walls within are papered with bible pages and verses.

That night, Lois cooks dinner for Megan at her home and begins to float her latest theory. See, the books she found in Megan's office are identical to the ones they discovered in Charlie's home. Megan was his accomplice all along, and she doesn't take Lois learning her secret well. They get into a violent, knock-down drag-out fight that culminates with Megan repeatedly stabbing Lois in the chest.

Just kidding, nothing is real

Here's where we pivot to something else entirely. An alternate reality where Marshall is awake, Merritt and Eddie have been married for years and are hurtling toward divorce, Father Charlie is actually Doctor Charlie, Megan is the acting police chief, and Nurse Redd is a cam girl who Marshall has been sleeping with for six years.

And most importantly, in this reality, Lois is the one in a coma. Grotesquerie has been hinting at this being the truth all along. Based on this episode and the preview of what's to come in the remaining three, we can assume that this world is the real one. Meaning everything we've seen so far has likely been taking place in Lois' head.

During dinner with Merritt and Eddie, a scene mirroring the opening, Merritt reveals Lois and Eddie have been sleeping together for two years. Learning this is the breaking point for Marshall, similar to how learning about her husband's affair with Nurse Redd was the final straw for Lois in the alternate world. He immediately drives to the hospital to unplug Lois and even tells the doctor he doesn't want her body. They can donate her to science.

In the end, Marshall is very callous and cruel about the whole thing. Even Redd calls him out on his hypocrisy since he's been actively cheating on his wife for years, yet only now, when she does it, is it a problem.

Grotesquerie culminates in a tense sequence alternating back and forth between the world where Doctor Charlie is prepping to take Lois off of life support and the one where she's fighting for her life with Sister Megan. In the end, Lois manages to shoot and kill the nun, while in the other reality, she wakes up.

Moving forward, it looks like we'll be focusing on Lois in the "real" world unless the show pulls another twist at the last minute. The preview for what's to come in the final episodes hints that Lois might have brought the killer from her dreams into reality. But honestly, it's hard to say what direction the show will take next. At least next week it's back to two episodes!

New episodes of Grotesquerie air Wednesday nights on FX and also stream on Hulu.