'American Horror Story' 210 "The Name Game" Review

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          With only three episodes left after tonight, American Horror Story used its tenth episode of the Asylum arc to start putting a bow on storylines that have progressed through the season. Two major characters died, the power shifts were evident all around in the dynamic between characters whose stories have placed them together, and we all got the chance to see what would happen if the sensibilities of AHS met up with the song and dance numbers of Ryan Murphy’s other creation Glee, and had a plucky choreographed murder baby. 

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This is definitely a beginning of the end type of episode as we closed off stories from the beginning of the year and shifted characters around on the game board before the final act. That meant big changes for the story insofar as who is in control of what now at Briarcliff. Just when Lana Banana and Kit Walker thought Dr. Oliver Thredson might be gone forever, he strolled back into the building with a promotion and an office all compliments of the full-time position Sister Mary Eunice gave him. It was she who freed him from his captivity off-camera. What a shame too that that scene was relegated to a snappy comeback from Thredson instead of an actual filmed scene as for two years running now Lily Rabe and Zachary Quinto haven’t shared a proper scene together on this show. It’s a damn shame. Whatever season 3 winds up being about, can they play a married couple or something that guarantees that won’t happen again?

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It’s fitting that despite the fact Oliver is a violent serial killer, his main weapon and his main weakness remains psychological warfare. He uses his discovery of the recently returned Grace’s status as a new mother of Kit’s possible child in order to press his boot on Kit’s neck so he’ll give up the location of the confession tape, but it’s Lana that continues to have all the advantage in the world over Dr. Thredson when she takes the tape herself and hides it again. There have been complaints online that Ryan Murphy must hate women and/or lesbians because of everything Lana has gone through this season. That’s the nature of compelling drama; Lana must go through Hell in order to come out of it a changed woman. It truly seems that hers will wind up ultimately being a revenge tale when all is said and done. She’s going to have her chance to bring down Oliver Thredson one way or another especially now that they’re once again in such close quarters. It’s just going to take a little time to shake out. Thredson’s done some deplorable things but, much like how I’m going to miss James Cromwell on this show, it won’t be the same without Quinto’s fantastic performance when Lana does finally stop her tormentor.

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That’s right everyone’s favorite secret Nazi doctor went out in a blaze of misery as he sent himself through the cremation oven along with the body of Sister Mary Eunice. A more darkly poetic ending for someone that worked in the concentration camps to couldn’t be found really. There was such sadness in the way he clung to Mary Eunice’s recently restored purity even in her death and his own. And in what made Arthur give up entirely when he learned that the higher life forms that saved Grace think his experiments are nothing more than a sad joke. This show has a talent for letting you feel the pain when its more morally questionable characters suffer.

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The only thing that could stop Mary Eunice’s reign of terror before it could continue wasn’t prayer and it wasn’t faith. It was a darkly human act instead that did the trick when she managed to take hold of herself long enough to give Monsignor Timothy Howard an opening to end her suffering with a push over the third floor railing. Joseph Fiennes hasn’t had any truly significant moments until tonight’s episode and he sold what they gave him. It’s rare to see the aftermath of a male character being sexually violated on television but Fiennes was all averted gaze and deep shame following his carnal encounter with Mary Eunice. But now that the devil herself is gone it’s worth wondering what the man who stopped the devil is going to do next. I think he’s going to emerge as a threat in the story as he was always waiting to be because of his ambition and quest for power especially now that he’s crossed two major boundaries of sin.

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Until the end, the devil in Mary Eunice ran one hell of a show as she took over Briarcliff and tormented new patient Judy Martin. From her secular slap in the face of a newly-installed jukebox in the common room, to her simulating circumstances involved in the indiscretions and punishments of both Shelly and Lana, Eunice was all about breaking Judy in half. After a dose of electroshock with ‘extra juice’ to it, Jessica Lange’s Judy Martin entered the next step of her evolution as a character. The descent into pure madness brought forth the aforementioned musical number which would be considered audacious on most shows but shouldn’t have surprised anyone who’s a fan of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s ways by now. On a second viewing, it gets even better and really becomes a welcome rare moment of pure levity despite the fact it’s actually a glimpse into the fractured damaged mind of a woman as she struggles to remember even her own name following her mistreatment.

As for the most controversial storyline of this season, the aliens, I’m still trying to get on board with it. It’s all so infuriatingly vague still and with so few episodes left we need to start getting some significant answers on what this part of Asylum means. The minute Dr. Thredson stumbled upon Grace giving birth I couldn’t help sighing at the fact that now he’s part of that storyline too and he’d done such a fantastic job of staying away from it before this. Their rejection of Arden’s self-appointed genius certainly spurred his actions to the point of no return for that character, and what the baby’s purpose will be is worth curiosity (what is this show’s thing for weird babies anyway?) It still has time to turn it around, but as of right now whenever these scenes pop up I can’t help thinking how much I’d rather be seeing any other storyline or character instead. I’m glad though that Naomi Grossman’s Pepper is finally getting to contribute an elevated performance. She's got such screen presence even under all the pinhead makeup and prosthetics.