- Written By: Tim Minear
- Air Date: 1/23/2013
- Directed By: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
- Starring: Zachary Quinto, Sarah Paulson, Lizzie Brocheré, James Cromwell, Jessica Lange, Evan Peters
- Guest Stars: Frances Conroy
This is the end my friends. For all the whackadoodle craziness of the last twelve episodes, this one felt like deleted scenes from Forrest Gump. Albeit a sweet finale it lacked all the bite and ferocity of the season leaving the characters to limp gently into that goodnight.
Back four months ago we get a glimpse of Johnny aka Son of Bloody Face wandering around Briarcliff listening to Lana’s book on tape while Maroon 5 and Channing Tatum’s wife run around generally being irritating until Johnny put us out of our misery and cuts off Adam Levine’s arm. This, we later learn, set off warning signs for the police who start tracking him.
For the rest of the episode we’re treated to a very special interview with Barbara Walters, oh wait, I meant Lana Winters where she conveniently recounts what’s happened over the last few decades. Before we take a trip down memory lane Lana makes a point of saying that she will not talk about Bloody Face as he’s already been given enough attention. Which is an interesting point about how our culture is fascinated with monsters bringing them to an almost hero-level of worship (see any of the big horror franchises). As Plato said, the good dream of what the evil do.
We start back with how Lana brought down Briarcliff. She went in through the back ways and filmed the inmates in their deplorable conditions. We then see Lana find Jude and bring her out of her cell. Back in the interview Lana admits that was a lie and that Jude was gone before she got there. While the TV crew interviewing Lana takes a break, Johnny who got a job on the crew brings Lana some water. Awkward.
While searching through papers left in the offices Lana finds that under a new name Jude was discharged to Kit. Going to see Kit Lana wants to know what happened to Jude. Kit tells her that he got her out of Briarcliff and got her home. She was still pretty crazy until his kids went on a walk with her, and made her not crazy. Whatever you do, don’t tell the pharmaceutical companies about that. They’ll take those aliens down faster than a computer virus. Judy then spends six happy months with Kit and his children until she quietly passes while the Angel of Death asks her if she’s ready. Jude says yes, and therein ends the Lifetime portion of this episode. Kit also passes away in his 40s of cancer. But there was no bodies as the aliens took him away. His kids are super awesome and everything continues to work out for the best.
We find out Lana confront Monsignor Timothy, now Cardinal Howard, about hiring Dr. Arden. Before any follow-up interviews can be arranged, Tim commits suicide but on the upside, looks great without a shirt on. As the interview draws to a close Lana confesses that she lied about the son of Bloody Face dying. He lived and she gave him up. She went to see him once at a orphanage then never saw him again.
Until after the camera crew leaves and Johnny confronts Lana. After she visited him at the orphanage he knew she was his mother and via Ebay got the recording where Lana wants to kill the baby and Thredson wants to save it. Johnny takes out a gun and points it at her head. He tells Lana that his father always loved him and that she didn’t. Lana does some sweet talking reminiscent of her trying to get out of that basement all those episodes ago. Lana eases the gun out of Johnny’s hand then shoots him in the head. We cut back to the scene from the first episode where Jude tells Lana, “If you look in the face of evil, evil’s gonna look right back at you.” Then an eerie shot of the Briarcliff staircase and we’re out!
I’ve had a lot of problems with the last few episodes and this one seems to be the pinnacle of all the problems. None of it meant anything. It was a collage of emotions. I would have rather had fewer plots and characters and have it all blend together into something cohesive and become a great story rather than an actor’s workshop. There were moments that worked and were adventurous and took chances but the stories became smaller rather than bigger. It was a mish-mash of plots and historical events that led to little pay off. I’ll say this, Sister Mary Eunice never would have let this happen.
