FXSPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen last night's American Horror Story: Freak Show, you may want to stop reading now…
The episode proved to be especially bloody. Not only did Dandy (Finn Wittrock) kill his mother, Gloria (Frances Conroy), by shooting her in the head but then he bathed her in her blood.
Well, if ya think that sounds awful, Wittrock warns that things are just going to get worse.
"I'll just tell you that the next one, I think his body count might double," Wittrock told me earlier today while promoting his new movie, Unbroken, the Angelina Jolie-directed World War II drama (in theaters on Christmas Day). "The next one really, honestly takes the cake. Even I'm scared."
In addition to his mom, Dandy has killed two others during Freak Show: the family maid Dora (Patti LaBelle) and a gay hustler played by Matt Bomer.
Wittrock admits he didn't necessarily think Dandy would kill his mom. "I guess I was surprised, but I knew one of us had to go," he said with a laugh. "But when it was over, I was like, 'Oh, boy! There's no turning back now, if there ever was.'"
How tough was it offing Conroy after working so closely together? "We didn't realize it was goodbye until it was over," Wittrock said. "That scene starts in one place and goes to a very different place, so there's a lot of emotions for both us there. We were both sort of in the midst of it, and she's a very meticulous actor, she's very detail oriented…She's so brilliant. You sort of just find it together."
He's also looked for inspiration in Psycho for the obvious mother-and-son creepiness as well as real-life children.
"There's a side to a child's mentality that is beautiful and innocent and there's a side that's totally self-centered and if that side never gets a chance to mature then I imagine it sort of becoming this monster," Wittrock said.
And don't look for Dandy to find love again like he did with the twins. Wittrock said, "I think his chances have been doomed."