I have questions about Travis Kelce’s character in Grotesquerie
Ryan Murphy currently has six shows, but only one of them features Kansas City Chiefs tight end and Mr. Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce. Big questionwhich is actually the second American horror story replacement for the year (American horror stories is still a thing!), is about Lois (Niecy Nash), a troubled detective who solves a series of particularly grotesque and biblically themed murders, who teams up with Sister Megan (Micaela Diamond), a nun who is also an investigative journalist and true crime enthusiast .
How does Travis Kelce play into this? Great question! I’m still trying to figure that out myself.
(Ed. remark: This post contains mild spoilers for Big question through the sixth episode.)
Kelce appears in the third episode as Eddie, a male nurse at the small town hospital. He is dressed all in white and sits next to Lois in a beautiful garden, completely illuminated by warm sunlight. It’s a far cry from the dark and gritty murder scenes, as well as the creepy liminal space of the hospital. They share some flirty banter and Eddie egged her on not drinking and driving.
However, she doesn’t listen to him and ends up in a car accident. When she wakes up in the hospital, Eddie is there, and after a brief scolding by Lois’ superior, the two resume their flirty back and forth.
It’s funny because no one else seems to realize that Eddie is in the hospital or even in her room. I had a theory that he could be some sort of alcohol-induced hallucination, or maybe even a saint or guardian angel, given all the religious motifs in this show and the fact that he repeatedly tries to get her to stop drinking. No one else had direct contact with him! I thought I was on to something.
However, my theory was undermined a bit when Lois introduced Eddie to her daughter and asked him to stay at her house while she drove to the middle of the desert with Megan.
…and that’s the last we see of him!
There have been two more episodes since then, where Lois very clearly returns home at least once. But her daughter and Eddie are completely missing. Where did he go? We simply don’t know. And Lois doesn’t seem to care, which is kind of understandable considering how much is on her plate. (Although it’s a little weird that we don’t get any confirmation that her daughter is okay when there’s a serial killer specifically targeting Lois, but okay!) With no shots to reveal that her daughter and Eddie are still alive are, I still wonder…did Eddie even exist?
Is his mysterious absence indicative of the fact that he is some kind of benevolent spirit who guides Lois but is ultimately called away to a higher power? Or is it just that Kelce’s training schedule allowed him limited time so they basically had to shoot all the Eddie scenes in one take and put them in somewhere? There’s also the fact that Eddie has a very pompous, perhaps alien, attitude towards him. Which could indicate that he is not of this world. Or more likely, it’s probably because while Kelce is a good football player, so is he relatively new to the world of acting.
But wait, it gets even weirder! There is a little nod to Eddie at the end of the sixth episode. A mysterious figure comes after Lois with a knife to her throat, and she starts thinking about what all the important people in her life are doing: there’s a shot of her comatose husband and the creepy nurse who’s in love with him; nun recovering from her gunshot wound; and then Eddie and Lois’ daughter is watching videos on her laptop, apparently still in Lois’ house even though it’s been about two days since Lois left him there.
Is the answer to my burning question simply that Lois never told him he could leave? Is he still sitting on her couch watching funny YouTube videos?
Lois eventually shoots the dark masked figure behind her and a whole big Thing™ is made of her unmasking the stranger, where it goes to the credits before we can see who it is – could it be Eddie under that mask ?! I note that the figure had pale skin and noticeably didn’t have Kelce’s stubble, so it could be another guy we met (like the handsome priest?), or someone else entirely!
I guess we’ll see if Eddie returns next week, or if this is the extent of the Kelce footage Murphy got for the show!
New episodes of Big question premieres on FX on Wednesday at 10pm EDT and drops on Hulu the following day.