‘American Horror Stories’: 5 Things You May Have Missed in Season 2’s “Facelift”

By far the creepiest part of “Facelift” is Dr. Enid Perle, a plastic surgeon who offers a solution that seems too good to be true. Rebecca Dayan excels at playing the shifty figure, but eagle-eyed fans probably recognize her from Season 10 of American Horror Story. The French actress starred in the Death Valley half of Double Feature as Maria Wycoff, a housewife who becomes a victim to aliens. Dayan also starred in Halston, another Ryan Murphy-produced series. In that historic miniseries, she portrayed the legendary jewlery designer Elsa Peretti.

Britt Lower may be brand new to the world of Ryan Murphy, but she’s not new to cults. Before joining the ranks of the Shining Ones, Lower starred on Apple TV+’s Severance, a trippy dramedy about a company that takes the idea of a work/life balance to its most extreme form. Just like in “Facelift”, Lower’s relationship to a disturbing organization isn’t quite what it appears.

Lower also has a history with FX outside of AHS. The actor starred in Man Seeking Woman, FXX’s underrated comedy about the woes of dating.

In many ways, “Facelift” felt like a return to a world that Ryan Murphy knows well. Nip/Tuck was one of the super producer’s first shows, a scandalous and brutal deep dive into plastic surgery. So it’s only fitting that a Nip/Tuck alum would appear in this episode of American Horror Stories. Before Todd Warring starred as a terrible neighbor, he appeared in the medical drama as Garth McCloud. But that’s not all. Warring also appeared in another Murphy project, portraying Lincoln Aston in Impeachment: American Crime Story. 

The more “Facelift” continues, the clearer it becomes that Dr. Perle isn’t an ordinary doctor. That’s because she’s a follower of Étaín, a figure that actually exists in Irish mythology. Renowned for her beauty, Étaín was the wife of Midir of the Tuatha Dé Danann. But due to Midir’s first wife’s jealousy, Étaín was transformed into a pool of water, a worm, and eventually a fly. There are a lot more betrayals in this myth and far more twists and turns, but it eventually ends with Midir sleeping with his own daughter. Oh mythology, never change.

You can’t think about “Facelift” without remembering this 1992 cult classic starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn. This episode and movie have a ton of things in common: plastic surgeons, a “rejuvenation” expert with suspicious origins, and two older women battling to maintain their youth. But where the two properties differ are in “Facelift”s final act. Death Becomes Her doesn’t reference any Gaelic gods and there are no pig transformations. Still, it’s more than worth a rewatch.