Thoughts on AHS: Asylum Week 2

By Shawn Binder on October 26, 2012

Last night I carved a pumpkin, cooked the seeds, and settled down to watch week two of American Horror Story: Asylum. I was slightly distracted the first time I watched it because…pumpkin seeds are super delicious, but after watching it for a second time today, here are my thoughts!

-Jenna Dewan Tatum is given little to do this episode besides watch her fiancé, played by Adam Levine, get stabbed a bunch by a man in a skin mask. I was expecting Adam to stick around this season for a little while longer. However, he didn’t act much this episode so that was a plus! As John Travolta once said, “I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you go.” Bye Adam!

Photo via fxnetworks.com/ahs

-Clea Duvall’s character is, like, super upset she sold out her lover to the mental institution and decides to calm her nerves with a blunt and bath combo. Didn’t everyone do this in 1964? It seems to work until she is stabbed by the same masked man who killed Adam. Who is this guy!? Why is there so much stabbing happening?! It’s okay, Clea, at least we’ll always have that sick 1960’s bob haircut to remember you by.

-Zachary Quinto shows up in this episode as a kind-hearted psychiatrist with sweet glasses and a distaste for the treatment he sees at Briarcliff. He’s a foil to Jessica Lange’s crazy-ass nun character and it was really fun to see them duke it out in a few scenes.

-The devil makes a visit to Briarcliff in the most disturbing scenes of the show’s two-season run. The possessed boy speaks in tongues, eats a cow heart, and throws people around. So, now we have both aliens AND demons thrown into the plot. I often image the writers of AHS sitting around a table, high as a kite, pulling out random nouns from a bowl to work into the plot. “I just pulled out demon/vampire.” Ryan Murphy exhales as he begins typing away.

-Hands down, Pepper is the scariest character is this show. Seriously, her shaved head, bugged out eyes, and tiny ponytail haunt my dreams.

- Yeah, electroshock therapy is extremely disturbing and the fact that it happened so often in the past is a very upsetting realization.

-There is a really awesome scene between the nymphomaniac patient, played by Chloe Sevigny, and the head psychiatrist which I’m sure will raise a lot of discussion about today’s “slut-shaming” and how a woman’s sexuality was supposed to be oppressed during this time. It’s a really fascinating aspect of this show to compare 1964’s views through a 2012 lens. Of course it seems absurd to us now that a woman would be committed to a mental asylum for cheating on her husband, but back then…not so much. This is perhaps the scariest aspect of the show, understanding how many things were written off as mental handicaps and how many people were thrown away for them.

-So many butts this season of AHS. Butts getting spanked, butts in the shower. This show may lack some understandable plot points but there is NO lack of butt.

-What in the HELL are they feeding in the woods? Can this be addressed?!

-James Cromwell’s character has a frightening affinity of insisting his prostitutes act “classy” before tying and killing them. I cheered when one girl wised up and kicked him in the balls.

-The possession this episode revealed some of the backstories of the characters. Particularly of Jessica Lange’s character, Sister Jude. Back in the day Sister Jude ran over a small girl and kept on driving. Girl, according to you that’s a huge sin!

 

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