Ten Reasons We’re REALLY Psyched Up For The American Horror Story Asylum Christmas Episode Airing This Week!

So, the Christmas episode Horror Boom has been looking forward to ever since we saw the title of it about a month ago airs Wednesday, December 5th on FX. We’re psyched for it for plenty of reasons, in fact, we have no trouble coming up with ten of them, almost off the top of our heads! Plus, we have a gallery of some great episode photos, too.

1. The title of the episode is “Unholy Night”.

2. The fact that one of our favorite actors, Ian McShane is not only a guest star, he’s an EVIL guest star who dresses up like Santa (I almost typed “Satan”, wonder if a character will bring up the fact those two words are easy to confuse when spelling).

Perhaps you recall Al Swearengen (who turned out to be the most likeable character on Deadwood, and everyone loved him by the end of season one – I’m working on a few T-Shirts with his quotes). If not, here’s a little clip reel to show you what he’s capable of (not for the easily offended, though if you’re already reading this, we doubt that). If you’re as big of a Deadwood fan as we are, you’ll love it either way.

3. In an awesome interview we posted a few weeks ago (from vulture.com) with Lily Rabe, she said some REALLY exciting things about the episode. First, she spilled that Sister Mary Eunice teams up with Ian McShane to do a bunch of holiday-themed evil shit together.

4. THEN Lily Rabe went into more detail, and it just got better: “She [Sister Mary Eunice] has a lot of Christmas spirit, that’s for sure. That was one of my favorite ones to shoot, actually. Ian and I got to do some really evil things together, and I have to say it was a career highlight. He’s such a wonderful man. We had great stuff in the common room, with all of those background actors, the inmates. I can say Christmas will never be the same for me after shooting that episode. I’ll never look at a Christmas tree the same way.”

5. This official episode description that’s now been updated to the following: A murderous Santa wreaks havoc on Briarcliff. Sister Jude faces off with the Devil. Arden has a shocking encounter in the Death Chute. That’s pretty goddamned great already, but from the hints Ryan Murphy has dropped (it’s been confirmed Pepper the Pinhead will be back) I predict (and really, really hope) Pepper is going to show up in the Death Chute, since that’s kind of the secret entrance/exit of Briarcliff when Dr. Arden is there, and take revenge for Shelley that Ryan teased. Hmm, maybe a sharp object will be handy for her to slice HIS ears off?

6. Exhibit A: This photo that Ryan Murphy tweeted several weeks ago, from on set:

7. The fact that last week, Ryan Murphy promised to deliver, in his words, “The most fucked-up Christmas episode of all time.” WE ARE SO THERE! According to Murphy in the same interview, McShane’s character was “victimized so badly in prison that he made a psychotic break and decides he’s Santa Claus and he knows who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.”

Oh, so cannot WAIT to find out what horrible thing is inside that present!

8. The fact that he also said she (maybe McShane will help her make the ‘ornaments’, or provide them) will be decorating a tree. “Think of how the devil would decorate a Christmas tree,” he teased. We’re hoping it’s going to be something like the below still (from the Black Christmas remake, 2006). Just put some human inner organs on there, festoon it with some intestines, we’re good. Then he confirmed (in the EW.com interview here) what Lilly Rabe said earlier: Yeah, next week has my favorite [as far as] Lily Rabe’s character does, where she decorates the Christmas tree. It’s sort of like, Well, how would the devil decorate a Christmas tree? So that’s just a laugh riot. And we love Murphy’s sense of humor!