In a culture where shows like Jersey Shore, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo engross TV viewers everywhere, it's important to acknowledge programming that engages audiences with clever writing and stimulating material. Every so often the networks get it right and support a series that is a breath of fresh air with clearly developed characters, perfectly cast actors, and a luring and often intricate plot. In appreciation of such shows, I have started this commentary.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

AHS Asylum: Yes...THAT Anne Frank

Episode 4 of American Horror Story: Asylum opens with a curious new occupant at Briarcliff Manor. She calls herself “Anne Frank,” meaning the Anne Frank. Forget the history books, kids: Season 2 of AHS is ready to break some boundaries. She is a self-admitted patient, straight from a bar where she attacked business men with a broken beer bottle for making anti-Semitic jokes. More on her later…

Meanwhile in the infamous Briarcliff bakery, Kit and Grace discuss Dr. Arden’s latest frustrations with the chip formerly residing in Kit’s neck. Dr. Creepy must have lost it because he believes it has found his way back inside Kit somehow. Perhaps the alien Sister Jude saw last week confiscated it. After all – Dr. Creepy was very busy elsewhere in the asylum screaming “whore” at inanimate objects.

At this point Grace decides to trust Kit with her story (or maybe she just wanted to “one up” him. Either way). She was a farm girl who awoke one morning to discover an axe wielding hired hand named Red killing her father. That's how she woke up? Where the hell was the rooster when all of this was going on? She runs down the stairs to hide in the hall closet as the killer searches for her. For a second I feel sorry for her, hiding all by herself. No worries though - there is a big heap of what used to be her stepmother right behind her to keep her company. Red never returned to finish the job, and it turns out he was in cahoots with Grace’s stepsister, who ultimately framed her for the crime. Bummer.  Seems everyone has their own family drama. She was taken from the farm and her beloved horses and was admitted to Briarcliff immediately thereafter.
 
Back in the common room, Anne Frank is writing a diary entry on a piece of paper. Stupid Lana approaches and warns her that writing will only cause her trouble. Anne is having none of Stupid Lana, but before she can really react, Dr. Creepy enters the room. Anne immediately remembers him as a “Nazi swine!” named Hans Gruber. She is taken from the common room still screaming at him.

Sister Jude, fresh from her movie night hangover is not buying Anne’s story. “What a relief it will be to millions of school children to know that you survived.” Oh how I love this woman’s sarcasm. Anne explains, however, that when the concentration camps were liberated, she was rescued but was too sick to tell anyone her name. She flashes a tattoo – a number from the death camp. After she was freed, Anne says she met a U.S. soldier who married her and brought her home with him. She became a widow when he went back overseas to fight in Korea, and that same year Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl was published in America. The diary received so much attention because of a 15 year old martyr, Anne believed she could never reveal that she was still alive.

Anne goes on to tell Sister Jude about Dr. Creepy’s past. Back when he was Hans Gruber, he was an SS guard who was at first known for his kindness. She recalls a time where he saved two twin boys from guards who were ushering children to an untimely fate. He also brought the girls chocolates and sweets, offering to help them. When he brought them back, however, they would be sick and sometimes deformed. So, Dr. Creepy began his medical experiments decades before he ever arrived at Briarcliff.

Side note: if you are wondering why the younger version of Dr. Arden seen in the flashbacks is a dead ringer for James Cromwell, the young actor is James Cromwell’s son.

Sister Jude isn’t 100% sold on this portion of Anne’s story either, but she becomes incredibly suspicious when two investigators show up to question Dr. Creepy. Detectives Bias and Conners explain that the good doctor has been accused of roughing up a certain lady of the night after she saw some pornography and Nazi memorabilia in his home. So the prostitute is still alive? Good for her. Dr. Creepy denies ever having met her and leaves the room. Turns out the detectives are there on a more serious matter – namely, they believe Dr. Creepy might be Bloody Face. Naaaah. Too obvious.

Sister Jude takes her concerns to Monsignor Timothy (welcome back, Father Hotness) in hopes that he will rid the asylum of this Nazi war criminal. He reprimands her for her “obsession” with Dr. Arden and tells her to worry about herself instead. Seems her drunken display during movie night is well known, and he blames her for the escapes….well, escape attempts but she doesn’t know that. She is on thin ice.

Distraught and disappointed, Sister Jude seeks advice from her Mother Superior, and I’m just impressed that she left the asylum. Mother Superior tells her that “God loves to see us triumph” and encourages her to follow her instincts.

Elsewhere, Kit continues his sessions with Dr. Thredson, who is still caught between a rock and a hard place trying to determine whether or not to report Kit as insane. He doesn’t believe Kit is evil, but he does tell Kit: “You are a victim of a brutish society that drove you to commit act so terrible, so antithetical to who you are as a person, that your psyche concocted this elaborate fantasy about alien abduction to absolve you of your guilt.” Sigh. Sadly, the notion that someone can “fall victim to a brutish society” and distort reality is far more accurate than many would think. Dr. Thredson believes his theory to be true and… wait, what? When did this happen? Just recently he went to Wendy’s house to give her Stupid Lana’s message and feared she had been killed by Bloody Face. Why the sudden change of heart?

The situation now becomes even more bizarre. Thredson is willing to lie to the state to keep Kit in the asylum rather than sending him to the electric chair as long as he faces the truth of what he’s done. He then describes to Kit just how Kit did kill those women. Ah ha! Have we found the real Bloody Face? Thredson seems farrrrrr too detail-oriented here even if he did have the police reports.


Kit goes back to the bakery and expresses self-doubt to Grace. He worries that Thredson’s theories about him are true. Grace assures him that she believes in him, and then they have one hell of a romp right there on the kneading table. Their ecstasy is short-lived, however, by the arrival of Frank the security guard.  

Off the sinners go to Sister Jude’s office for punishment. Sister Mary Eunice (where the hell has she been?) eagerly chooses a cane for Sister Jude to beat them with. Sister Jude says Grace and Kit are drawn to each other like the serpent and the apple and accuses them of trying to make a “murder baby.” Instead of a beating, she insists that the two be sterilized instead. Wow. That’s harsh, but I imagine no one wants Dr. Creepy as a gynecologist.

Grace and Kit are separated and Sister Mary Satan holds Kit for a chat. Does she want to make her own murder baby? Not just yet – she tells him that Grace was not framed after all. She is a 1960s version of Lizzie Borden. As Kit and Grace sit in cells next to one another, she comes clean about her crime. Her father had sexually abused her repeatedly, and when she told her stepmother, she was given candy to keep quiet instead of help. The last straw came when her father sold the horses (the last straw can mean many things to many people), and out came the axe. Kit isn’t upset with Grace for killing her family, just upset that she lied to him. Ah, young love.

With Kit being contained, Dr. Thredson is free to council Stupid Lana about her situation, and he agrees that she doesn’t belong in an asylum. He would, however, like to “cure” her of her “sickness” even though she technically is not his patient.  She agrees to take her happy pills and subject herself to Thredson’s “therapy.” He administers a drug that makes her sick to her stomach. As he shows her photos of scantily clad women, she vomits, and this will supposedly train her body to be repulsed by women. Stupid Lana is a trooper though because she wants to get the hell out of Briarcliff. Then Thredson shows her a suggestive photo of Wendy. How did he get that?!?! “From your house when I was there.” Because lesbians trying to hide their relationship just leave photos like that on the coffee table? She tries with all her might to hold back, but she throws up again.

Round 2 of therapy features Daniel, a patient who wants to assist with the treatment. Daniel is smoking hot and he disrobes to “help” Stupid Lana…who then gives the very porn response of “Whatever you say, doctor. I want to do whatever works.” Gross.  What follows might be the most disturbing thing I have seen on television. Thredson asks her to touch herself. She does so with tears in her eyes but does not want Daniel to touch her….no worries there. Thredson tells her to touch his genitals while touching herself, and she is just a mess.

Side note: My hat’s off to Sara Paulson for her work here. I can’t imagine what it was like to shoot this. However, I still won’t be able to refrain for calling her character Stupid Lana. At least, not yet.

Stupid Lana can’t go through with it. Thredson approaches her later and apologizes to her, saying he never should have tried that therapy. What? He then gives her the photo of Wendy, explaining that he will be taking her out of Briarcliff at the end of the week. Soooo, she no longer needs to be “cured?” What is the deal with this guy?

Kit is released from solitary confinement because he wants to confess to Sister Jude. He asks her if God sees everything, and she says “God sees all.” If she believes that, I hope she is doing some serious repenting herself. Kit thinks he must have killed those women because everyone is saying he did. He remembers that Sister Jude told him when he arrived that he would never find forgiveness until he admitted to what he had done. Kit asks for forgiveness and wants Sister Jude to help him find God. Right now I can’t decide if this is a ploy or is he really starting to believe he is a killer.

Remember Shelley? Yeah, well, she’s screwed. Not only is she missing her legs, she now suffers from experimental injections at the hands of Dr. Creepy. While playing the role of mad scientist, he receives a phone call from Father Hotness. He encourages Dr. Creepy to take care of any “housekeeping” that might be lingering. Oh no! Father Hotness is evil too? I don’t know if I can take all of this disappointment. Dr. Creepy leaves to clean house and drags Anne Frank to his lair, throwing her around a little. She is ready for him though and pulls a gun, which she had pick-pocketed from one of the guards (again, the security in this place is appalling). She hears a commotion behind a door of the room, shoots Arden in the leg and demands the key. When Anne opens the door she finds a deformed Shelley, who looks up and says “Kill me.” We’ve reached the end of the episode.

Theory: Dr. Thredson is Bloody Face. He became entirely too sinister in this episode, knows far too much about the killings, and went to great lengths to obtain what should have been a secret photo in Stupid Lana’s house. He had his own look of repulsion as he showed Stupid Lana the photos of the women, and he seemed almost invigorated at her failed attempt of arousal with Daniel. If he is not Bloody Face, then he is at the very least, wicked.

Theory: Father Hotness is one of the twins “saved” by Hans Gruber at the death camp. There had to have been some significance to the story about the twins, the timing works out just fine, and this would explain why a man of God is okay with employing a murderous Nazi at Briarcliff. Additionally, Father Hotness expressed admiration for the doctor in episode one during his dinner with Sister Jude, explaining to her that science/medicine and religion go together because doctors have been given gifts from God to achieve such scientific advancements. One can only wonder what kind of “advancements” Dr. Creepy has come up with beyond the creatures living in the woods.

Again – just food for thought.

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