- Air Date: 11/14/2012
- Directed By: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
- Starring: Zachary Quinto, Sarah Paulson, Lizzie Brocheré, James Cromwell, Jessica Lange, Evan Peters
- Guest Stars: Chloë Sevigny, Franka Potente
One of the reasons I love AMERICAN HORROR STORY is its ability to merge horror with social injustice. And this episode is about characters thinking they’re getting what they want and realizing that the grass is always greener….
The episode begins with Sister Jude visiting a Nazi hunter. Sister Jude believes Anne Frank’s story and is determined to bring Dr. Arden down. Anne Frank is caught by Sister Mary Eunice and security before she can execute Dr Arden, which lands her in solitary confinement. Sister Jude’s plans come tumbling down when Anne Frank’s husband comes to Briarcliff the next day wanting his wife to come home to take care of their baby. He reveals that her name is actually Charlotte Brown. Dr. Thredson pops up saying that it sounds like postpartum depression and that she needs proper treatment. Sister Jude dismisses him and hands over the newly dubbed Charlotte Brown to her husband. Before we slip too far into Yellow Wallpaper territory, we catch up with Kit and Grace…
Locked in separate cells, awaiting their sterilization procedure, Kit and Grace connect in ghostly manners, rendering a tender and sweet scene. This all dissipates when Beelzebub aka Sister Mary Eunice shows up and says that Kit no longer has to have the procedure and has him led out. Grace, however, is still planned for the operation. Grace fights and screams in her cell alone until she finally falls asleep only to be woken up by some aliens, on loan from an X-FILES box set, who take her to the same bright white room that Kit was in. There she sees Kit’s wife, Alma, who tells her to let it happen. The unseen aliens cut open her stomach like in PROMETHEUS and drop her back at Briarcliff.
Meanwhile, Kit is trying to save Grace but first must participate in a new procedure, designed by Thredson, where Kit must admit to the Bloody Face killings while Thredson records it to will play it back to him, testing to see if it triggers a memory of Kit actually committing the murders. Which is not suspicious in the slightest.
Speaking of not suspicious, Dr. Arden thanks Sister Mary Eunice for hiding the legless, deformed Chloë Sevigny. We then cut to a schoolyard where children and a teacher see the legless wonder trying to crawl into the yard. They should have really given her a leg up. HEY-O!
Anne Frank/Charlotte Brown is brought back to Briarcliff because, according to her husband, she’s worse than ever. She is to be admitted and they will treat her. It is decided that Thredson should treat her, but it’s too late for Frank as Thredson keeps good on his promise and gets Lana out of Briarcliff. In fact, he is walking out the front door with her. As Frank catches up with them saying that Sister Jude wants Thredson’s help, Thredson says the most chilling line in the entire series, “I don’t work here anymore, Frank. In fact, I never did. You can tell her I said that.”
Out of options, Mr. Brown turns to Dr. Arden who suggests a frontal lobotomy, which Mr. Brown agrees to. We then cut to Dr. Arden gleefully (well as gleeful as a Nazi can be) performing the lobotomy as Chalotte’s husband looks on in terror and regret.
Long story short, Thredson is Bloody Face and has Lana in his trap. He throws her in some kind of GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO torture chamber (sans Enya) and reveals a dead/frozen Wendy on the floor. Thredson dons the Bloody Face mask and, just like that, the show starts answering their own questions. And I start breathing a sigh of relief.
In the final moments of the episode we see the Brown family, with Charlotte on par with the newest model of Stepford Wives. She has thrown out the Nazi paraphernalia that she was obsessed with and is cooking pot roasts with a baby in her arms. Then the camera zooms in on one lone picture left on the wall of Hitler with his officers and there is a young Dr. Arden. And with that dun-dun-DUN!!
