Lana may not have been crazy when she was admitted, but they’ll make sure she gets there. Also, we can add demonic possession to the list of problems within Briarcliff.
**CONTENT WARNING: Descriptions of violence/abuse and demonic possession, disturbing photos**
Synopsis
In present day, Teresa flees from Bloody Face and tries to drag Leo to safety. She’s not strong enough to get him there so she has to let him go and hide in a nearby room alone. She watches through a slit in the door as Bloody Face finishes Leo off.
Back in the 60’s, it’s Halloween eve. Wendy’s friends console her about how distraught she is over selling Lana out. Wendy decides she’ll go tomorrow to convince them to let her recant. But after her friends leave, she’s attacked by Bloody Face.
Lana is caught with notes about the abuse she’s enduring, which she plans to use to write an expose about her captivity once she gets out. As punishment, Sister Jude gives her shock therapy, despite being previously opposed to it as a form of treatment. Recalling the secret tunnel, she requests Grace’s help to escape. Grace won’t do it unless Lana includes Kit, but Lana believes he’s Bloody Face and refuses.
Dr. Arden convinces Sister Mary Eunice to try a bite of a candy apple, although partaking of sweets is supposed to be a sin. Later he slut shames Shelley, but after work he hires a prostitute. He won’t let her talk dirty and makes her take off her makeup and change into a nun outfit. While changing, she snoops and finds pictures of women tied up and gagged. She panics and flees.
Kit is evaluated by Dr. Thredson (Zachary Quinto) to see if he should stay here or go to trial. Kit reveals that we don’t know for sure Alma was the one murdered because that body’s head was missing. Regardless, Dr. Thredson believes Kit is crazy. While at Briarcliff, Dr. Thredson notices the harsh treatment of the patients, instead of actually treating them for their maladies, but Sister Jude will hear none of his complaints. Dr. Thredson inserts himself into an evaluation of a potential new patient who appears to be possessed. Dr. Thredson believes the teen, Jed (Devon Graye) should be given medication, but Sister Jude gets the monsignor to bring in a priest (John Aylward) to do an exorcism. The exorcism gets out of hand and the priest ends up in critical condition. While the others tend to him, Sister Jude is left alone with Jed, who reveals secrets about her past. She wasn’t always a nun—in fact, she was a partier for many years until she drove drunk and ran over a girl. She wasn’t caught and has never told anyone. The others return to finish the exorcism, but Jed goes into cardiac arrest. He shares a look with Sister Mary Eunice before passing away, then Sister Mary Eunice faints.
During the exorcism, the electricity in Briarcliff goes haywire and all the doors open. Lana and Gace make a run for it, but when Grace sides with Kit instead, Lana yells for the guards, unwilling to let Kit go free and murder more people. The next day, Sister Jude “rewards” Lana’s betrayal by having her watch the others get lashed with a cane rather than getting lashed along with them. Kit takes the blame for the whole thing and takes Grace’s lashes for her, on top of what he always was going to get.
Dr. Arden checks on Sister Mary Eunice since she fainted the night before, but he’s made uncomfortable by her immodesty since she’s in just her nightgown. After he leaves, the crucifix on her wall shakes.
The Staff
This is our introduction to Dr. Thresden. He’s more of a visiting consultant than a permanent staff member, but he shows a vested interest in the asylum. He’s the only one (besides the patients) who seems to be appalled by the way they mistreat their patients. He’s clearly a man of science (he’d get along great with Dr. Arden), but they included him in the exorcism specifically because he doesn’t believe in its merit. Well, now he’s been through it, and it will be hard for him to deny that something supernatural happened there.
Dr. Arden was already cruel, but now we know he terrorizes women in his spare time. I’m guessing the show highlighted this to push us to think he’s Bloody Face, but it doesn’t line up for me. The way he treats the women in the pictures isn’t how Bloody Face does. He clearly has sexual issues, based on his repulsion of “slutty” behavior, even while hiring a prostitute and playing out his own kinks that clearly involve the nuns at his workplace.
Sister Mary Eunice has moments that imply she may have received the possession from Jed when he died. This is fitting because in this same episode, Dr. Arden literally tempted her with forbidden fruit while they were in the woods. Clearly that was an Eve reference. Sister Mary Eunice gave into temptation, and now her holiness is tainted.
Now we know why Sister Jude became a nun. Clearly her guilt over the hit and run pushed her into a life of religious devotion. Unfortunately she’s become insanely judgmental of the slightest perceived sins, and oddly harbors no guilt in treating people who already have severe issues with nothing but cruelty and hatred. With Lana, though, I think her treatment might be more personal than even her supposed judgment of her sexual orientation. I really think she is afraid Lana will make it out and report their methods for the world to see.
The Patients
I honestly have no idea why Dr. Arden apparently let Kit go after the last episode where he seemed on the verge of dissecting him. Maybe there’s more to what happened afterwards, with the alien spider thing, that caused him to release Kit. Or maybe Kit is just too high profile for Dr. Arden to want to mess with him too much. In any case, Kit doesn’t seem to have passed his evaluation so I don’t think he’ll be leaving any time soon. No thanks to Lana. But now he’s clarified to the audience that Alma isn’t necessarily dead. If not, she’s still with the aliens.
Lana has major guts to sacrifice her own freedom to keep a murderer off the street. Too bad he’s not actually a murderer… and the real murderer’s already killed her girlfriend. Which she doesn’t even know about. In fact, she thinks Wendy threw her away (which… well, yes and no. Technically she did betray her, but it’s not like she wanted to or had a lot of choice in the matter). She doesn’t know that Wendy would have come to try to free her the next day if she hadn’t been murdered. It an awfully big coincidence that Lana would be locked away in the same place as the framed Bloody Face while her girlfriend is murdered by the real Bloody Face. Part of me thinks he must have known about Lana and murdered her girlfriend on purpose, but then hardly anyone actually knows Lana is here, and why target her loved ones out of everyone at Briarcliff? Because she may have gotten Lana out of there? Why would that matter to Bloody Face? Surely it must be just a coincidence.
I may have been wrong about Grace. I just found her suspicious last episode because she was so convenient—supposedly framed and not crazy, just like Kit. But she seems genuine throughout this episode, and she stands up for Kit multiple times.
Shelley has such an interesting scene in this episode. Dr. Arden calls her a whore, but Shelley explains that men can have as much sex as they want and no one ever calls them a whore. The only reason she wound up locked in here is because she, a woman, happens to enjoy and desire sex. Granted she might be a bit extra about it, though.
Themes
Jed introduces a new factor into the mix: possession. I’m actually surprised it took until the second episode to include a possession in a story that takes place in a catholic institution, especially considering how many other factors were introduced in the first episode. Having such a “kitchen sink” of issues could come across as overwhelming, but I think it does make sense in this setting and for this show. Season one often included references to events throughout American history, such as Roanoke, Columbine, and the Black Dahlia murder to name a few. It seems as though this season, the focus is traditional horror elements. Season one had a specific house that was a magnet of evil and trauma. Since this season is set in an asylum, I get the impression that it is a magnet for these horror topics. Briarcliff, like Murder House, probably draws in these things, and Briarcliff has the extra layer of being a place where troubled people wind up. You know, people who were abducted by aliens or possessed by demons.
So far both episodes have started with a scene in present day before jumping back to the 60’s. This is an interesting spin on the first season, where (almost) every episode started with a flashback to some various time before coming to the present. I wonder if they’re going to stick with the Leo/Teresa story the whole season (well, Leo seems to be dead now) because there doesn’t seem to be much more they can do with it.
Conclusion
We’re getting to know more about the staff and their issues. There were a lot of interesting scenes in this episode, and I’ve been enjoying this season as much as I hoped.
Score: 7/10