Review Grotesquerie (Disney+): a tasteless series that lives up to its title

Ryan Murphy never takes a vacation. After releasing a new season of Monster on Netflix, he is back with two series on the Disney+ streaming platform this fall. Doctor Odyssey is a cross between The Cruise has fun and a medical series, while Grotesquerie is a sort of horrific UFO mixing drama, detective and gore.

The two series are created by Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken and couldn't have more radically different moods. And if one is a soap entertaining, what should we think of Grotesquerie ? Is this horror series worth a watch? Discover our review, guaranteed without spoilers.

The history of the series

Several heinous crimes trouble a small community and Detective Lois Tryon has the strange feeling that these crimes are targeting her personally, as if someone is laughing at her. Having no leads and not knowing where to turn, she accepts the help of Sister Megan, a nun and journalist from Catholic Guardian. As Lois and Sister Megan piece together clues, they find themselves trapped in a sinister web that seems to raise more questions than answers.

Our review

A question haunts us Grotesquerie : Are Ryan Murphy and his cohorts okay. We have been thinking for years about the man behind productions as varied as Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story, 9-1-1 or even The Watcher. But this new program is really – and rightly so – the pomp of the grotesque.

This new series without head or tail is well marked by the touch of Ryan Murphy. By turns vile, perverse and embarrassing, she seeks to shock completely gratuitously, to provoke for the sake of provoking, without really taking the time to tell anything.

The more the episodes progress, the more Grotesquerie enjoys maintaining confusion, multiplying plot twists without explanation and throwing smoke into the spectators' eyes by hiding a bland and boring story behind nicely composed images and careful staging.

No fool, the spectator will still notice that putting diamonds on dung does not change the nature of the product. Between objectification of male bodies, vilification of female characters and gratuitous horrific elements, Grotesquerie makes fun of herself and her subject too much to convince of her interest.

Like the protagonists questioning their reality, we wonder how a series dealing with anger, resentment and manipulation persists in doing so through a scenario so convoluted that it becomes soporific.

It is therefore impossible to understand how actors and actresses of the caliber of Niecy Nash-Betts (Dahmer), Courtney B. Vance (American Crime Story) and Lesley Manville (The Crown) were convinced to participate in such a series. Either way, it's them and their impeccable interpretation of undrinkable characters that saves Grotesquerie of total shipwreck.

Coupled with a visually polished production, their performances manage to maintain the viewer's attention despite an illegible and verbose script. This is probably in the hope that at some point the whole thing will stop feeling like a waste of time. Alas, at the end of this season, this is still not the case.

The series Grotesquerie is available on Disney+ from November 13, 2024.

• Watch the trailer for the series:

Conclusion

Overall rating