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If you thought that last week’s season premiere of American Horror Story: Asylum threw way too many characters and stories at us then this week gave us more of what the show’s weekly rhythm may resemble. When a severely troubled patient is brought inside Briarcliff Manor, the procedure involved in his healing unearth dark secrets, keep a new character around, and give some of our favorite inmates their first real chance at escape. Plus more Pepper!
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Ryan Murphy has often said that he has an obsession with Catholicism and that’s how he was inspired to build this season around an insane asylum run by members of the Church. It’s also historically one of many dark periods for the Catholic Church that led to allegations of various forms of abuse and violence against the people whose care was entrusted to them. This episode really dealt with the idea of the members of the Church being complicit in carrying out acts of evil disguised as acts of charity and of healing.
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We first see this in the scene where Jude goes to Arden in order to keep Lana, a threat to the very institution itself and to what Jude and Monsignor Howard want to make of it in the future, silent. It’s her idea to put Lana through Electroshock Therapy and she went straight to the person who she knew would have no problem putting an innocent woman through such a horrific procedure. It’s all under the cover of wanting to heal Lana of her madness and paranoia, but we know full well that Jude is making a deal with a devil in order to protect Briarcliff from nosey outsiders who would seek to shut the place down. It wouldn’t be the only time that Dr. Arden plays this role in the episode as a memorable scene with himself and Sister Mary Eunice held an allusion to the snake tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden except replace Eve with Eunice and make that apple a candied one to fit the Halloween theme of the episode.
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But it isn’t the actions of Arden that lead to the full realization of this theme of the Church’s complicity with dark forces. Instead, a God-fearing couple brings their teenage son, Jed (a very impressive turn by Devon Graye), to Briarcliff after a particularly nasty spate of mood swings and ritualistic violence against livestock. They’ve brought evil itself to the asylum’s doorstep and once inside everyone is affected by its presence. The exorcism story ends with sweet simple-minded Mary Eunice housing the demon—literally in bed with evil as she rests in the infirmary following her affliction. I enjoyed the metaphor within this tale moreso than the idea of Mary Eunice’s story taking this turn for the foreseeable future. Though Lily Rabe will definitely get a chance to get in on the scenery-chewing action by playing a possessed version of her character it’s going to come off as less ‘see no evil’ if no one else notices she’s changed and more they should have just let the devil go when it left Plot Device—I mean Jed’s body.
That’s basically what Jed Potter’s function to the story was as both a catalyst for the plot developments of the episode that took place inside of the hospital and as a way to provide Sister Jude’s juicy backstory. Turns out little miss high and mighty was one of the saddest and most sinful things anyone can be—an aging whore. She boozed and partied until one night she was wasted behind the wheel and ran down a little girl in a blue coat (the one from the promo teasers). Lange was excellent as she played out the horror of the demon forcing her to face her own dark past.
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She wasn’t the only one to be affected by Jed lashing out, new character Dr. Oliver Thredson (Zachary Quinto finally making his debut this week) also seemed to have something to hide. We were only given a hint from Jed knowing Oliver’s name and exclaiming, ‘look at what you’ve become no wonder I gave you up.’ Could this mean that this character has known what it’s like to face down evil before, and that’s why he puts on a front of being so skeptical of the Church and their methods? He definitely felt very strongly about the case of the Potter boy even though he was brought into Briarcliff as a court-appointed psychiatrist whose job it is to apprise if Kit is fit for trial or not. There aren’t many actors that can go toe to toe with Jessica Lange, but Quinto proved last season he can do just that with aplomb. He brings this innate intellectual edge to his characters and it works for Dr. Thredson. Every member of the Church or authority figure on this show has some sort of skeleton in the closet so it’s going to be interesting to see what Oliver’s is.
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Last week I mentioned that Jude’s struggle against the patriarchy in society and in Catholic culture was a big theme with the character. Twice this episode we were given more hints of that struggle as the man who was brought on to lead the exorcism immediately told her she’d be better placed sitting with the boy’s parents during the actual dirty work (“This is no place for a woman.”) Later on, Kit stood up and took all the blame for a botched escape attempt during an emergency blackout so that Grace wouldn’t receive any punishment from Sister Jude. Oh the sneer on her face when she went to give Kit his own special treat for trying to be noble and imply that Grace was too weak to be punished for something even if she was part of it. It’s clear by the end of the episode as the cane bears down on Kit’s bare ass, (so far a fixture in every episode) that she’s just done with men and their assumptions of a woman’s strength.
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As for the Bloody Face arc, which though it has its narrative reasons for existing often feels so tacked on after the fact in the actual execution, he seems to have claimed one more victim in the form of Lana’s girlfriend, Wendy. Clea Duvall we hardly knew ye plus we didn’t even get a Heroes reunion out of this with a Wendy and Oliver scene either. It actually was shocking to see Wendy dispatched so quickly but it served the purpose of making the audience put a big fat question mark next to Kit Walker’s name on their ‘who is Bloody Face?’ score card. When it came to Mr (or Ms.) Face this episode we began a game of musical red herrings. It can’t be Kit because Wendy was killed when he was locked up so…maybe it’s Dr. Arden he does keep his porn stash in the same box as his grotesque photos of mutilation. Not to mention the scene with the lady of the evening at his place felt like it was going to have an ending reminiscent of American Psycho even before she discovered his spank bank of fucked up photos.
Hey, you know who was in that movie though? Chloe Sevigny and her character Shelley already gets on Dr. Arden’s nerves (and mine) so if the show wants to have Arden do what Patrick Bateman didn’t then I’d be just fine with that. Her character just doesn’t work. I understand the statement they’re trying to make with Shelley, whose only crime as she says is she loves sex and women can’t do that, but when that’s literally her only character trait it isn’t enough to support any storyline they might stick her with. It hurts to say that as I actually do like Chloe Sevigny’s work—this just isn’t the thing for her.
Next week is movie night at the asylum as a wicked storm hits. Oliver Thredson is sticking around perhaps he moves into the asylum as their only certified shrink and he may yet give Lana another chance to get the hell out of there before they pass on the paddles and bust out the scalpels. Electroshock is one thing for memory manipulation, but when lobotomies become part of the equation that’s when things truly get barbaric at Briarcliff.
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