(The Verge) – FX’s hit TV show, American Horror Story, premiered its “mid-season finale” last Wednesday. If you were too busy watching Kanye West prance around in his Trojan skirt, here’s what you need to know.
Ryan Murphy, creator of the show, promised his actors from season 1 that they would play a completely opposite role if they returned for season 2. Murphy stuck to this promise with all of the returning actors thus far, but last week’s episode, “The Coat Hanger,” really took the take.
Dylan McDermott’s back, going from the therapist/sex-addict, Ben Harmon, to guest starring as a deranged serial killer, John Morgan. The episode begins in present day, with McDermott’s character in a session with an obsessions and compulsions therapist (McDermott went from being a therapist, to being a therapistee). He divulges to the female therapist that he is in fact, the son of the original Bloody Face.
Seeing as Dr. Thredson is his father, who’s his mother? Yep, you guessed it. None other than the lover-he-never-got-from-his-mother, Lana Winters. The rest of the episode continues to focus on Lana’s attempt of terminating her own pregnancy, with. a. coat hanger. ICK. This show has some pretty gruesome imagery, but this self-abortion scene was an 11 on a scale from 1 to repulsive.
Lana gets Dr. Thredson to make a confession about being Bloody Face by using her “pregnancy” as the tool. Miraculously, Kit managed to record it all on a tape recorder the size of a refrigerator. She later learns that Dr. Thredson Jr. is still alive inside her, despite her coat hanger hoax, and that the father of her unborn child had been set free.
In the midst of all this, a new patient is enlisted on the Asylum roster, Jude…Sister, Jude. She wanted to get back into the establishment to exploit all the wrong doings, but was not permitted back on the Asylum grounds as a staff member. So Jude got her wish by being incarcerated there and, once in, began to rebuild the bridges she burned with Lana.
The last we knew, Jude put up the fight of her life while being attacked by the drastically disturbed and demented Santa Claus, Lee Emerson. Unfortunately, it is revealed that the serial killing Santa didn’t die after Jude stabbed him. He’s actually seen in front of a review board and tells them that he saw Sister Jude slice the throat of the Asylum guard, Frank. Deranged Santa obviously doesn’t know the difference between Sister Jude and Sister Mary Eunice.
Emerson also repents for all of his heartless Christmas murders and even convinces Monsignor Timothy Howard that he is a changed man. Emerson’s repentant act fooled the Monsignor so much so, that Monsignor Timothy volunteered to baptize Santa Emerson. Not even seconds after he’s successfully baptized, Emerson forces the Monsignor’s head into the baptismal pool and then decides to crucify him. Still alive on the cross, the angel of death reappears in hopes of bringing Monsignor Timothy out of his misery.
Meanwhile, Dr. Arden comes to his own conclusion that Kit is being ‘protected’ by the aliens that are still an awkward mystery. Since the aliens seem to only appear after Kit has sex (with Alma and Grace), Dr. Arden believes that these extraterrestrials hold Kit at very high value and that any threat to his life would be detrimental. Arden comes up with the genius idea not to kill Kit, but to almost kill him in order to provoke the aliens into coming to protect their merchandise.
At this point, Kit is willing to try anything to grasp what the heck is going on. He ends up on Arden’s infamous operating table where the Doctor uses a syringe to give Kit a swift jab in the chest with an almost-killing-concoction. As Arden predicted, the aliens returned with their 80s-rockband strobe lights and unidentifiable, horn-like sounds. However, he didn’t predict the alien’s next move of reincarnating a now-pregnant Grace.
In a world where the real sociopath is the psychiatrist, the doctor is an established Nazi, the mentally stable are imprisoned, and the existence of extremely random aliens, this Asylum hell sure makes for interesting television (to say the least).
Too bad for the viewers, we have to wait until January 2nd to find out Jude’s next move, where Dr. Thredson escaped to, if Monsignor Timothy Howard surrendered to the kiss of death, if Dr. Arden left Kit to die, and who the damn aliens are.
Until then, here is a video recap of the mid-season finale that FX released on Facebook yesterday.
Images and photo credit taken from: Google Images
