After narrowly escaping being avenged by the people she claimed to love the most (her "freaks"), Elsa manages to run away to Hollywood, marry a casting director, and, in a short time, achieve superstardom with her very own network TV show, "The Elsa Mars Hour." But all that glitters isn't gold in Elsa's fairy tale: She's trapped in a loveless, unhappy marriage, forced to perform in a show and for an audience that brings her no satisfaction, and, worst of all, when she's finally reunited with the one man she ever truly loved, she finds out he has terminal cancer and just one month to live.
Elsa realizes too late that what she thought she wanted wasn't what she wanted at all. As she laments to her dying lover that she feels "cursed" by having all her dreams come true, Elsa shares a birthday wish she made eight years prior, over a cake made by Ethel Darling (Kathy Bates), the "best friend" she ultimately murdered.
"My wish was plain and simple," she says: "I just wanted to be loved." It's an emotionally gutting realization for the chanteuse and no less gutting for the viewer, who understands now that Elsa's wish — and the finale's ultimate statement — are one and the same, and surprisingly simple. Elsa was lucky enough to find both love and acceptance but was too blinded by the undeniable human impulse for bigger, flashier, and more apparent forms of it to appreciate what she had.
Thus, after being reminded of our own imminent mortality, base consumerism, and toxic ignorance and biases, we're treated to the truly horrifying realization that, as a species, we're just not very good at seeking out, appreciating, and holding on to the things that actually give life meaning. Still, there's a flicker of Bette Tattler-esque hope in "AHS" Season 4's finale.
