Someone please save me. It’s the year of 2025 and we are still doing shows where producers cannot give us a satisfying conclusion to a TV series. Instead, we are likely viewed as inferior dimwits because the majority of viewers likely wouldn’t get the producers’ brilliant storytelling abilities. It wasn’t only until the very end, when I was confounded by the ending of Grotesquerie, that I discovered producer Ryan Murphy also produced American Horror Story. I was never a fan of that series and many Redditors also felt the same in that his shows usually result in vague and often cliffhanger conclusions. Grotesquerie continues that trend.

Like many others, the show started off pretty well in that we are introduced to some very gruesome murders. Detective Lois is the head detective and along the way, she meets a very peculiar Sister Megan. Together, they try to solve the grotesque murders, with each character benefiting from the cooperation of the other in seeing the case solved. Niecy Nash plays the role of Lois perfectly: a veteran, liquor-dependent detective who’s on the edge of retirement. Sure, that’s a very cliché role, but she makes it very believable. The series is very dark with all the murders and whatnot, but the quirky and weird vibes made it that much more enjoyable in the beginning. There were occasional hints here and there that things just aren’t quite what they seem to be. For me, it was when Lois met Ed. Their encounter just felt a bit odd and weird. Some of the time-lapse with Lois also hinted to viewers that something is definitely wrong with her.

The episodes get a bit weirder as it goes on, but it’s not truly until episode 7 when the big surprise is revealed: all that shit Lois went through was only happening in her mind. You see, she was in a coma due to Covid, and when she awakens, everything we know about the world through Lois’s point of view is thrown completely upside down. Hooray. The hunt for a killer calling himself Grotesquerie was just in Lois’s mind and not real. Or… is it? Hey, viewers, guess what? You don’t like it? Well, too bad, because it’s only going to get worse from here. Some of the episodes prior to the big reveal weren’t that good to begin with. The part in the desert? That was kind of brutal. Yeah, I know they tried to be cool and do a continuous shot kind of thing, which was weird to begin with at that point, but hey, why not? Maybe there’s some significant point to doing a continuous shot that’s missed on me.

So, the ending. Because that’s all that matters in this series. Is Lois still in the dream world or not? Is she some type of psychic due to the same type of murders now happening in the “real world” as in her “dream world”? Is she being toyed with by Satan himself in some type of hell or purgatory? We all know how religious symbolism usually plays into the hell or heaven thing. This series is so dark that heaven has no place in it. In the very first episode, we see the jigsaw puzzle she and her daughter are putting together, showing a picture of a black goat/Baphomet itself. Maybe Lois is in a continuous feedback loop between worlds? What I do know is that the killer known as “Grotesquerie” isn’t an actual person. It’s another one of those symbols where the “killer” is more of a representation of evil itself or a symbol for a perceived form of injustice. In this case, it’s the group of men in Lois’s life that desperately want the world and society to reverse the hands of time so that men aren’t looked down upon by women anymore.

Point is, we are doing exactly what the producer is hoping viewers will do, and that is to discuss the show due to its cliffhanger ending. Being that he can’t do that himself, it’s up to us viewers to interpret exactly what happened to Lois in the show. I admit that I am 100% positive that I missed out on a lot of clues and hints along the way in helping me understand how to answer this question. Grotesquerie, however, isn’t exactly a television show that can hold my attention for every single minute of every episode. Sure, I may have missed an important hint in the background, say, in episode 4 at exactly the 17 minute and 30 second mark that was only on screen for 2 seconds. Count me out of Grotesquerie if season 2 comes along.