Caution: Contains spoilers.

Wednesday Oct. 8 kicked off yet another brand new season of American Horror Story. The opening credits are enough to give someone with a clown phobia an aneurism, so be warned.

Much like the surfeit of empty chairs at the freak show, viewers may dwindle if season premiere episode “Monsters Among Us” is any indicator. However, my level of anxiety, disturbance, confusion and fright didn’t disappoint. And isn’t that really what AHS is all about?

The year is 1952 and our story takes place in Jupiter, Florida. Despite the implications of the era and a small town, there is nothing ordinary or virtuous about our characters.

Let me introduce you to the freaks…

Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) runs the show. I mean that both literally and figuratively. We first get a glimpse of her self-worship when she refuses to pay her restaurant check because, “Stars never pay.” By the end of the episode, it becomes clear why she really wants a successful show, and it is not at all for the sake of the freaks she claims to be helping. It is with desperation she searches for a headliner that will bring an audience to her failing show, dubbed the “Cabinet of Curiosities.” Elsa drugs a nurse, steals her candy-striped uniform, and sneaks into the hospital room of a “monster” found in the home of a murdered woman. There she finds hope for the future of her show and her own aspirations as a singer in the form of conjoined sisters.

Our main character(s) are Dot and Bette, the conjoined twins played by Sarah Paulson. They share two hearts, four lungs and as Elsa points out, just one “cherry pie” (her words not mine, and yes that means what you think it means). Elsa speaks to the sisters about joining her show and we quickly realize the intriguing contrast between the two sisters. While Dot is realistic, conservative and a creature of routine and silence, her sister is quite the opposite. Bette has a disturbing sense of child-like optimism, carelessness and sexual curiosity. We come to find out the woman found dead is Dot and Bette’s mother, whom Bette murdered in a fit over being told she could not leave the house to see a movie.

Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters) is “Lobster Boy.” His hands, referred to as flippers, cause him shame but also come with perks in probably the most “what the f***” scene of the show. Jimmy uses his misfortune to his advantage, utilizing his deformity to give pleasure to housewives who pay him for his handiwork – something his mother (the bearded lady) refers to as “flipper action.” She advises her son not to use his flipper hands, sexually, on the conjoined sisters. Foreshadowing? (Also, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type.)

Kathy Bates returns as the bearded lady and right-hand-woman to Elsa. She feels as though Elsa has given her an immeasurable opportunity with the life she has provided her working at the freak show. She explains to her son, “There is no normal for us,” as he brings up wanting a new life outside the tents.

Finally, there’s the horrifying murderous clown they call “Twisty,” and the reason I didn’t sleep last night. With a literal ear-to-ear grin, bulging eyes and blood-stained skin, he’s not pleasant to look at. In an early scene, he approaches a couple picnicking in a luscious green field. Now – this might just be my opinion – but anyone who doesn’t run from a slowly approaching bloody clown carrying clubs, probably deserves to be murdered by that clown. And that, sadly, was the case. While the boyfriend was horribly and gruesomely stabbed to death, the girl was taken as a captor inside the clown’s residence, forced to watch him perform for her. Later she is joined by a young boy, whose parents were also murdered by Twisty.

I won’t even get into the candy striper’s involuntary orgy with members of the freak show, or the socialite and her son (who might be even more of a weirdo than the people in the show) who buy up all the seats and try to purchase Dot and Bette for $15 grand.

We barely scratch the surface of each character. I want to know why they are the way they are, where they came from and their lives pre-freak show. Without these glimpses of development it may be difficult to keep a steady interest. The show has potential if the writers can keep a decent storyline while continuing to disturb and frighten its viewers – and that’s the challenge AHS faces in every season since the first.

I was hoping for one hell of a show, but it seems it might be just another empty house.