Travis Kelce’s ‘Grotesquerie’ Role Revealed in Third Episode
[This story contains spoilers from the third episode of Grotesquerie, “The Bender.”]
There has been much fanfare about Travis Kelce’s foray into acting since it was announced the Kansas City Chiefs tight end was cast in Ryan Murphy’s latest horror drama Grotesquerie. The FX series written and created by Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken made its premiere with two episodes on Sept. 25, and it’s in week two’s episode three that the NFLer’s character is revealed within the small community that’s been disturbed by exceptionally gruesome murders.
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At the center of Grotesquerie is Lois Tryon, played by Niecy Nash-Betts, a detective who feels personally affronted by the nature of the evil misdeeds she attempts to solve with the help of an unlikely ally played by Micaela Diamond. The latter stars as Sister Megan, a nun and journalist with the Catholic Guardian newspaper who takes a special interest in crimes and cults.
Sister Megan also has a close relationship with her church’s priest Father Charlie, played by Nicholas Alexander Chavez, who currently stars as Lyle Menendez in another Murphy series, Netflix‘s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. In episode two, Father Charlie admits to Sister Megan that he has a “morbid fascination” with true-crime podcasts. Later, audiences see that’s not the only ghastly obsession of the holy man when he retreats to his priests’ quarters and begins masturbating while wearing a pair of leather chaps. Immediately after finishing he begins to whip his back with ropes to which sharp nails have been attached while reciting the words, “Then it shall be that if the wicked man deserve to be beaten the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten before his face according to the measure of his wickedness by number.”
Lois has metaphorical demons of her own within her personal life, each member of her family battling individual vices — hers being alcohol, which she routinely splashes into her morning coffee and sometimes doesn’t even bother to pour into a glass at night. Lois has a somewhat emotionally distant relationship with her daughter Merritt Tryon, played by Raven Goodwin, whose food addiction drives a wedge between her and her father Marshall Tryon, played by Courtney B. Vance, when he raises concerns about her health. It’s Marshall, however, who ends up critically ill and in need of long-term care after falling into a coma which, at the start of the season, he’s been in for 28 days. In a flashback argument in episode two, Lois kicks her husband out of their house when she informs him that she’s discovered he’s been cheating after having him followed. Marshall tells Lois, “I still love you sometimes,” to which she replies, “And yet I pray sometimes that I would get a phone call informing me you died.” In a haunting rebuttal, Marshall then says, “I hope you don’t regret those words when I do.”
The state of her marriage leaves Lois less than affectionate when she visits Marshall in the hospital, which is where she encounters Lesley Manville’s Nurse Redd, a caregiver and administrator who oversteps her boundaries in more ways than one when she admonishes Lois for her cold demeanor toward her husband and seemingly attempts to provide the physical comfort — and possibly pleasure — she claims he needs in her place.
Enter Kelce as Ed Laclan, aka Eddie, a flirtatious orderly Lois encounters in episode three after a disturbing exchange with Nurse Redd who threatens to get a court order to become Marshall’s power of attorney so she can give him the care Lois doesn’t. True to form, Ed finds Lois drinking on hospital grounds and repeatedly urges her not to drive home, saying, “I don’t want you to have any regrets.”
“Who doesn’t have regrets, Ed,” Lois retorts before getting behind the wheel of her car and crashing on a desert road minutes later. Lois then wakes up handcuffed to a hospital bed and arrested for having a blood alcohol level of 13. When Ed arrives to deliver her meatloaf dinner, she convinces him to help her escape and the two take off in a red sports car. In episode four, Ed takes Lois on a “date” to an AA meeting and the two begin to forge a friendship over their shared addiction — Ed relaying to Lois how he managed to kick his.
In May, Kelce spoke about getting cast on the series on his New Heights podcast, saying, “I was kinda blown away and kinda, like, shocked that he [Murphy] was willing to give me a role like this, because it is a big role on the show. He seemed very confident that I’d be able to do this and he kinda injected that in me the first conversation that we had. So hopefully I don’t bomb this for him.”
In a behind-the-scenes video released by Kelce, the pro athlete talked about how he gets into character. “I flip the switch like I would if I was going out on the football field and just getting into the zone,” he said.
Kelce’s co-stars have spoken highly of their experiences working with him, with Nash-Betts, who won the Emmy for best supporting actress for her role in Murphy’s Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, telling Yahoo Entertainment the boyfriend of Taylor Swift was “charming, well-prepared [and] a professional.”
Goodwin echoed that sentiment, adding, “He showed up to work. We welcomed him with open arms, and he was gracious and amazing. He did his thing.”
Vance also praised Kelce’s abilities as a novice on set. “We couldn’t go on the football field and do the reverse,” he told the outlet. “I was just in awe of what he was doing.”
Murphy recently spoke to THR about his latest show launches, which in addition to Grotesquerie and Monsters, includes FX’s American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, ABC’s Doctor Odyssey, and the return of 911 on ABC and 911: Lone Star on Fox.
“I’m grateful because everything lined up — it couldn’t have gone better,” said Murphy. “That’s what I marvel at. I’ve been working on a lot of these things for two or three years, but because of the strike and different orders — how things are reported and when things need to hit — they were all suggested to run at that date. And I thought, ‘Well that’s kind of fun,’ because I don’t think anyone has done that and, more than that, I like the energy of it. So much creativity, so much work from our brand at once. All the shows are very different, but they have the same DNA.”
Grotesquerie will continue to air two episodes weekly on FX until episodes nine and 10, which will premiere Oct. 23 and 30, respectively.
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