Note from the author/editor prefacing the below interview: Again, this interview took place the day after his first appearance in American Horror Story: Asylum, which was the day before the shootings in Connecticut, McDermott’s home state. He has posted thoughtful words of support since then on his Twitter and Facebook accounts. But there’s still a bundle of new information, just step right up to the below link!
Darkmedia.com: I was wondering if you worked at all, directly, with Zach Quinto on your characterization of the son [of] “Bloody Face,” or if anything you watched him do prior to the season informed choices that you made as a character?
D. McDermott I kind of just watched him and picked up a few of his mannerisms. There is one scene coming up where we’re in the same room. I guess in the writer’s room, they put up a picture of me and Zach and Sarah to see in I could be their son, when they were casting it. I guess I passed the test, but I think that we do have some similar qualities in our darker features, so I don’t think it’s much of a leap. But I did kind of try to listen to his voice and look at his mannerisms a little bit.
Q. …Can you tell me a little bit about your character and where you hope he ends up at the end of the season?
D. McDermott: Well, ‘Johnny Thredson,’ obviously he’s a troubled man; so where I hope he goes and where he goes are two different places, but I think he’s got a sole purpose in life and really that is, he feels so scorned by his mother. Everything is about his mother. The reason he’s doing all these horrible things is because he was rejected so harshly by his mother, obviously aborted. His father was a serial killer. His mother aborted him and he still lives. So his whole trajectory in life is really about her.
Yep, this recent SNL sketch is actually discussed in the article! I would have rather seen him than Dermot Mulroney myself…
Eclipse: I actually wanted to ask you, what is the strangest thing that has happened to you on set, or personally, from doing this show.
D. McDermott: Well, I mean if you watched all the episodes, you know that I’ve had to do some strange things clearly, but it was part of the ride when I talked to Ryan [Murphy] about this show. Obviously the cry-bating and walking around naked, and now I’m playing a serial killer; in terms of doing American Horror Story, this is what comes with the dinner. So you just have to be up for it.
Q. …obviously it’s early yet, but would you see yourself coming back for the third series, if Ryan came up with another big idea for you?
D. McDermott: Yes, I mean I love this show. I just think it’s just really—if I wasn’t on the show, I’d be watching it; so I’m a fan of this show as much as an actor on the show. So whatever—like I said before, I really trust Ryan and he has a great instinct with me. If he asks me to come back on, of course.
Nice ink, Johnny…
Starry Constellation: I was wondering if there is anything about this particular character that you added to the role that wasn’t originally scripted for you?
D. McDermott: Yes, you’ll see him in, I think in the next episode, I started smoking some crack. [Horror Boom note: Heard a rumor about this but laughed it off. Bloody Face ON CRACK. Like he’s not enough of a wild card, hey, let’s add a crack habit!] I don’t think that was in it. I wanted him to be—I needed him to have an outlet for it and then when I started smoking crack, they started putting it into scenes. So that was an important thing that I wanted him to be high because a lot of these guys are high and a lot of people do, obviously, terrible things on drugs. It was important for me to have him to be a drug addict as well.
We guess it could be worse; Bloody Face Jr. could be on “bath salts” (when you take that poison, you don’t have to even be a homicidal maniac with a notorious serial killer for a dad in order to do completely insane shit like run around stark naked and rip off a total strangers face), though I don’t think crack is exactly a great choice for him.
Yup, you heard it here first: OK, second: Bloody Face on Crack! HOW COOL IS THAT?!
Uh, we mean, drugs are bad, m’kay? Especially crack. Though maybe smoking a little weed once in a while would keep Bloody Face from hearing voices telling him to hurt/kill women, and he’d just stay at home and watch cartoons.
It’s hard to choose the best episode, but picking “I Am Ann Frank Part Two” as one of their top ten, when there was a LOT of great shows with great episodes this –I mean, last– year. I don’t agree with about half their picks (“New Girl” isn’t, how do I put this, my cup of tea), but the other half was dead on. I forgot about that pitiful squirrel speech. “The Origins of Monstrosity” was pretty goddamned great, too. Yay, EW.com!
1. Sister Mary Eunice— the meek one who begged Sister Jude to use a bigger cane on her as she cried hysterically— is still in there somewhere. When Conroy’s Angel of Death confronted her, she said she knew what Sister Mary Demon was (“cousin… like me, but fallen”) and that someone inside her had been calling her, singing to her, for help, Old School Sister Mary Eunice broke free for a moment and weeping, begged the Angel to release her. “O Heavenly Host… will you release me? Can you release me?” When the demon came back to take over (“Shut up, you stupid SOW!”) that Dark Angel backed off, but told her, “We’ll meet again”. [Side note: every time Frances Conroy‘s Dark Angel unfurled her expansive, beautiful black wings (FWOOOOP) I actually gasped, the sight was so cool and breathtaking. ]
2. In one of many clever twists and reveals of the night, we discover Sister Jude did not, in fact, kill the little girl fifteen years ago in the hit-and-run. We did NOT see that coming (even though in the minutes leading up to the reveal, Missy’s mother seemed pretty cheerful for someone who’d lost a child, especially to an unsolved homicide). Mary Eunice knew Sister Jude didn’t kill her, but she knew Sister Jude thought she did, which was enough to start torturing her (more on that later) and playing on her guilt. Notice that in Jude’s memories, and even in the newspaper headlines, no-one ever said the girl had been killed; just the victim of a hit-and-run, but it NEVER occurred to us that she might have survived. Missy having survived was a relief, since Sister Jude was clearly planning to confess to her parents and then take her own life (probably with that straight razor). “We get to live with our daughter. The monster who left her there, has to live with himself,” Missy’s mother told her at the end of the scene. Sister Jude seemed a little more freaked out than relieved, but that’s understandable.
Shall I kiss you, and make this all go away?
3. However, we also learned that there’s still plenty of tragedy left in Sister Jude’s past. For instance, we find that she tried to kill herself before. Her awful shitbird of a fiancée… well, let’s hear it in Sister Judy Martin’s own words:
When Casey left me the night before the wedding, when I told him he’d given me syphilis and I’d never be able to have children… I forgave him …and he called me a liar and a whore. All I ever wanted was my own family, my own children to teach and love…
Yes, THE NIGHT BEFORE THEIR WEDDING, just to put the icing on the goddamn cake. If I’d been in her shoes at that moment, I might have looked into alcoholism too, if not a suicide attempt.
Poor thing. Maybe we should call Briarcliff. At least they could give her a bed for the night.
4. Sister Mary Eunice is still going out of her way to mind-fuck Sister Jude at every opportunity. Not only does she send fatal shards of the broken mirror into Mr. Goodman’s neck (though it doesn’t kill him right away, and looks very painful), she writes “Murderer” in blood on the TV and tapes up the Search for Missing Girl Continues headline to the TV over it for Jude to discover. Then (after a flashback) she calls Sister Jude. “This is your conscience speaking… That man dead on the floor, he was investigating you. ” She then tells sister Jude she left her a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon and “something else” for her, which turns out to be a straight razor. For a minute we see her slicing or wrists open (vertically) with the razor, then lying on the floor in a vast pool of her own blood …then we see Sister Jude was (phew) just picturing herself going through with it.
“I hope this clarifies the chain of command, Arthur.” Most satisfying line of the night!
5. I love your work… Bloody Face, the Jeb-demon told Dr. Thredson during the exorcism. Since that same demon then jumped into Sister Mary Eunice, she knows Dr. Thredson is Bloody Face, just to make sure Lana is really screwed. OK, let’s back up a bit.
I’m going to crawl out of my own skin if I have to lay on that bed again.
6. When we first saw Lana this episode (SIGH), Dr. Thredson had gone from crying with happiness and curling up to ‘breast-feed’ with his new Mommy surrogate and moved on to raping her. Lana had gone limp and it was clear her mind was floating away; she already looked dead behind the eyes. It was no surprise the Angel of Death showed up, since they’d established she had to be summoned by someone ready to die. We still don’t know (or I don’t) who wrote the ancient Aramaic symbol (her spoken name was given in the closed captions as “Shachath”) on the wall in blood to summon her in the first place —Miles said he didn’t. Dr. Thredson said it was time to end it.
Peace is so close, Sister…
7. Lana realized she wasn’t ready to die yet, and attacked Dr. T with all she had—the hypodermic, the chain around her ankle, fists, feet, gravity, and miraculously made it own of his basement alive. But we horror fans know that the first time you escape from a maniac’s captivity and run like hell, the car that you flag down or stops for you is not going to contain a friend. Rather than have the man whose car she leaps into be working with Bloody Face and take her right back to him (as we at Horror Boom were expecting), he blew his brains out, the car crashed, and Lana ended up in Briarcliff, seriously banged up …under Sister Mary Eunice’s care. Absolutely did not see that coming – any of it.
8. We learned that Dr. Arden has it in him to actually cure a sick patient (the traditional way, too, not his own fucked-up version of what he sees as a cure). I thought Grace was going to bleed out and die, since the infirmary at Briarcliff seems rudimentary at best, (not to mention any visit from the Dark Angel is a big hint), but even though it was for his own selfish reasons (he didn’t sterilize her, but no-one’s going to believe that, and he says she’s going to live, “if only to set the record straight”), he actually treats her (in a tradition way) and it works. The last thing I expected was to see her sitting in the kitchen, looking and sounding healthy and like her regular self again. The surprises kept coming, though…
I’m here to help… if that’s what you want.
9. Escape from police custody seemed pretty easy for Kit once he set his mind to it, but of course, it didn’t work out for long. He made the (well-meaning) mistake to return to Briarcliff for Grace. Unfortunately for everyone, he went in through the death chute, where a very ravenous, energetic Rasper (remember, as the winter gets colder, they’ve been getting hungrier and less shy about staying back in the woods, keeping to themselves) slipped (or lunged) in behind him, unnoticed. It looked like the really aggressive, fast one that sent Lana, Kit, and Grace sprinting back into Briarcliff the evening of their very brief escape in Episode Three, “Nor’Easter”.
10. Speaking of brief, Grace and Kit were re-united. Grace happened to be in the kitchen when Kit snuck in, and told her he was taking her out of there. Their faces light up —nice to see any likeable (human) characters look truly happy this episode– and they embrace. “I couldn’t let you die here, Grace,” he tells her, and hand in hand, the happy couple head for the exit. Well, this is great news!Finally, what a relief, to know there’s hope for escape, and for Grace to back up his story that Alma is alive! Glad something is working out for someone on this show! What happens next, happens fast. The returning nun working the kitchen promptly runs into them on the way out, and immediately screams for help …a split second before the rasper jumps her, tears her throat out with his teeth and hurls her across the room. Kit thinks fast, grabs some deadly weapon I couldn’t make out, stabs it into the rasper hard enough that its weird innards spill to the floor, Frank bursts in and sees this (including Kit with a weapon and a dead nun) then raises his gun to shoot—a split second before Grace leaps in front and catches the bullet meant for him. As Grace lies on the floor gasping, the Angel of Death comes for her, and this time, gives her that kiss to escape from Briarcliff for good.
Dark Angel: Are you ready for me?
Grace: Yes… I’m free.
So they let people who are unmedicated enough to hear voices in their head (“they get real loud sometimes,” Miles says) work in the kitchen with every single sharp object imaginable, including a meat-slicing saw with no safety mechanism? I’m still on the lookout for the name of the actor who played poor Miles, by the way.
After Dr. Thredson raped her Lana for God knows how long, he has the nerve to ask, “You decent?” before coming down later to talk to her. Yeah, sure wouldn’t to intrude and, you know, invade her privacy or anything.
Frank the guard? Still decent. He did his best to comfort the miserable Miles. As far as the sad ending (I actually got a little choked up) the order on Kit, according to Frank, was “to shoot on sight.” He had to move fast, and there was a dead nun and a dead rasper there, what was he supposed to think? He didn’t have time. I’m sure he’s not going to be able to easily brush off killing an innocent –OK, relatively innocent bystander, who had just made a miraculous recovery from the brink of death, either.
When the nuns in the infirmary find Grace on her cot with what looks like more blood outside her body than in, one nun/nurse asks the other, “Should we call Dr. Arden?” She responds, “That butcher? He’s the one that did this to her!” in an alarmed hush. Looks like despite that miracle cure, Dr. Arden isn’t fooling many of the nuns on staff. They don’t know the half of the “butcher” part, but they know he’s the last doctor to trust a life to… especially a woman’s life.
In the guest star department, that was Bob from That “70s Show” (minus his 70s ‘fro and leisure suits, of course) as Kit’s wrong place, wrong time court-appointed defense lawyer. Handsome Sean Patrick Flannery, who only looked to us about 5 years older than he did in Cruel Intentions (1999) played Terry, Judy Martin’s band-mate who came to tell her regretfully they’d finally had to replace her. Insane woman-hating driver who picked up Lana? William Mapother, who most viewers probably recognized from Lost, but we obsessive Ju-On fans remember him as Matthew from the 2004 Ghost House-produced version of The Grudge (he was scary in that, too).
“Legend has it that once you were committed to Briarcliff, you never got out.” –from the first five minutes of the Season Premiere
…and don’t tell me what to say, and don’t tell me what to do…
1. We learned that Sister Mary Eunice, who sure was having a great time throughout the episode (the only character that wasn’t wretched, unless you count Dr. Thredson’s extreme mood swings, if you include a few happy, delusional moments he had in the episode) looooooves spreading evil outside Briarcliff as well as within. Despite Jenny’s mother’s desperate query to Sister Jude quoted in the header above, I’m pretty sure that sociopathic little girl was born twisted. She scared the shit out of me, and usually little spooky kids don’t creep me out that much (unless something supernatural is involved. We didn’t get much deep back story other than the fact that she had never cried, but what was she, eight? Cute plaid dress, Bad Seed pigtails, Fun Time coloring book, emotionless eyes and flat voice, already keeping trophies… and her brother and sister were fine. Notice I used the past tense? That’s because (thanks to Sister Mary Eunice’s encouragement), by the end of the episode it was revealed Jenny had slit both her sibling’s throats …and stabbed her mother with the giant butcher knife from the kitchen at Briarcliff. Take a wild guess as to who gave her the knife. Sister knows budding evil when she sees it, and I’m pretty sure Jenny was born that way, with “the gift of authentic impulse,” as Sister described it warmly to her. She wasn’t raised by a wire monkey mother. I’ve studied enough abnormal psychology and true crime cases to know of some killers who, after they were caught and convicted, confessed to either a journalistic or researcher and said various versions of whatever’s wrong with me, I was born with it. Nothing happened, it was just already in me. Jenny also taught us that in some cases, monstrosity is born, not made.
Administrator: I should warn you… the sight of her is quite shocking. Monsignor Timothy: We’re all God’s creatures.
2. RIP, Shelley.
At least she got to spend her last days in a private room with clean sheets. I was thinking, huh, wonder what this new development going to be? when we saw an establishing shot of Monsignor Timothy and the man who had reached out to him for last rites walking across some sort of upscale lobby we’d never seen before. [side note: What was that place? A hospital? A hotel? It looked much more sterile and nicer than Briarcliff, anyway]. The other man– let’s call him the administrator– said they weren’t able to identify her . Oh no. Once he mentioned TB to Timothy, I knew who was waiting for her last rites. She looked so much worse than we saw her last week (the fact that the guy who escorted him up was really eager to give Timothy privacy, and couldn’t really look at his patient, still didn’t prepare us) that I was very worried he wouldn’t be able to identify Shelley, especially since she was point the point of speech, but Timothy did. He looked genuinely upset and hurt when he recognized her. There was nothing left of the vivacious young woman we met early on, who told us she was only there because her husband decked her and had her committed to Briarcliff after he caught her cheating (in a threesome with two sailors, granted, but that doesn’t excuse him having her locked away and discarded), who pointed out that men loved sex too and no-one called them whores, the girl with the lusty grin who we first met in the premiere when she sprang up and gleefully told Sister Jude, “You could shave me bald as a cueball and I’d still be the hottest tamale in this joint!” after Sister had shaved off a chunk of her hair. Though we didn’t see it, the Monsignor put her out of her misery as quickly and as painlessly as he could, weeping quietly (it looked to like he strangled her with his rosary), then made the sign of the cross. Speaking of that rosary…
3. In what was maybe my favorite transition in the episode, we next saw him entering Dr. Arden’s quarters, looking as genuinely pissed as we’ve seen him so far when he saw Dr. Arden looking out at the view and happily humming, then Monsignor winged that same rosary at Dr. Arden’s record player (sound of needle being scratched off– vvvvvvvuuuup!) and called him on his shit. When he saw what Dr. Nazi had done to Spivey (who got caught beating off watching Sister Mary Eunice bathing languidly while humming Jesus Loves Me; Dr. Nazi didn’t buy Spivey’s story that she’d invited him to watch her “flash her pussy” through that peephole, but we sure did), and didn’t buy Nazi’s rationale, he announced he was turning him in. Dr. Nazi then announced that Timothy had just as much to lose if everything ‘came to light’, and so we learned Dr. Arden has indeed been blackmailing him. I guess they didn’t do a full reveal/flashback about why yet, but it’s obviously something the Catholic church would not approve of. So that leaves out altar boys, since judging from recent media reports, the Vatican seems to have an open-door policy on that. I’m guessing he’s a sex addict.
4. Speaking of Dr. Arden’s research, as has been theorized here and on quite a few other horror sites, he was trying to create a “immune-boosting vaccine” –sort of– to make sure the human race could survive after WW3 (or so he says; I suspect he’s a power freak with a God-complex and sure as hell doesn’t mind inflicting pain, but he doesn’t admit to that) after the devastation of the nuclear holocaust that he assumes will immediately kick off. “I am not a monster! I am a visionary!” he angrily responds to Timothy’s allegations. Sure, whatever. “Witness the next stage of human evolution.” He cut Shelley’s legs off to punish her for not wanting to have sex with him, then (worse) for laughing at his tiny junk, and he sure as hell knew he wasn’t doing her any favors conducting experiments on her. No-one else is buying it, especially not Timothy …but he’s being blackmailed.
“You’re smarter than they are. Don’t you ever forget it.”
5. We learned Dr. Nazi is not the only one doing some blackmailing. This time, Dr. Gruper (the exact spelling according to closed-captions) is catching instead of pitching! Sister Mary Eunice, who pretended to be Sister Jude on the phone (doing her voice perfectly), then paid a little visit to Sam Goodman. “Did Sister Jude send you?” “She doesn’t know I’m here”, and got a less-than-friendly look on her face right before the cutaway to commercial. When Sister Jude visits him to deliver Dr. Ardren’s fingerprint and finds the door not only unlocked but slightly ajar, Guess who she finds on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own blood. However, with his dying breaths, he manages to gasp to Sister Jude Arden didn’t do this… it was a nun.
THEN…
Sister Mary Eunice grabbed all the evidence, and paid “Hans” a visit. By the way, when she pointedly calls him by his real first name, he seriously loses his shit, but only makes himself look worse when his defensive reaction degenerates into racial slurs. When he asks her if that’s all of it, Sister Mary Eunice smiles sweetly (for a demon) and cheerfully tells him no, not everything, she kept some evidence in case he tried to “double cross” her. Showing a rare, momentary lack of delusion and narcissism, Dr. Nazi asks her why she’s protecting him and what she wants. “You’re not in love with me. I’m no fool. I know I’m too old …too ugly.” This is when we find out Sister Eunice definitely has a master plan (besides giving murderous sociopathic little girls a giant weapon and making sure she gives them a push in the right, or what the devil would consider “right”— direction). When she tells Dr. Arden the two of them would make the start of a new era as long as he entrusted his soul to her, Dr. Nazi’s eyes showed a flicker of real uncertainty and even some fear for the first time since we met him. Good. Even though it scares us too…
…No monster starts off that way. He was somebody’s precious baby, crying for his mommy.
6. Kit is onto Dr. Thredson. He used his one phone call to call him, and knows he fucked him over, and grows furious because he was confused about his story, but now isn’t any longer, because he knows (after Grace told him as he was being dragged out of Briarcliff). Alma is alive. Or at least that, as far as we know, he didn’t kill her. Dr. Thredson was calmly condescending at first, but unravels when Kit calls him a liar, then ends up yelling back at Kit just as loud when he calls him a bastard, and slams down the phone, ending the call. What the hell is Kit going to do now?
7. Ah yes, we learned a lot about Dr. Thredson. Some of which we wish we sort of didn’t (that ‘breast feeding’ was at least as creepy as the aversion-conversion therapy he gave Lana in Briarcliff)! His birth mother, who he says he never knew, abandoned him to an orphanage (as Lana puts it) where they gave him food, water, very basic education, and learning the difference between right and wrong with the help ‘of a leather strap.’ He stresses how much he misses a mother’s touch, especially skin-to-skin contact. Warm skin. If you’re wondering about the Harlow study with the wire-monkey mothers and want to read more, here’s a good place to start, but I’m warning you it’s a heart-breaker. The two classes in college I took that covered it are enough info for me, and I remember everyone– sorority girls, frat-guys that I usually tried to sit as far away from as possible because they were such douchebags–just kind of trudging sadly out of the lecture hall afterwards (especially the one that showed slides).
Would you care to see what your benevolence has produced?
8. We then learned that Dr. Thredson had a revelation when he was going to medical school. In gross (REALLY gross) anatomy class, they wheeled in a 33-year old woman’s corpse (about the same age as his mother when he abandoned her) into the ‘operating theater’ for students. He came back later when he could have some privacy to get up close and personal with the cadaver, but knew he needed someone a little more lively… “warm living skin” as he put it. Then he calls Lana …Mommy.
9. In quite possibly the best, most clever reveal in the episode, we learn out where Dr. Thredson saw Lana before—AND why he chose her to “tell his story”. Zach Quinto, Sarah Paulson, and Ryan Murphy all cryptically said after last week’s reveal that we’d find out they’d “been in the same room” before he met her in Briarcliff. She was there to cover the story about Bloody Face being apprehended and taken to Briarcliff for psychiatric evaluation. Remember how she was there in that slo-mo scene in the premiere when they brought Kit Walker out of a car and up the steps of Briarcliff in shackles? Thredson (who we learned last week had good reason to be there: his agenda of covering his ass by framing someone) eavesdropped on Lana—the only female there— talking with her fellow journalists . When a sexist male reporter asks why she’s there covering the crime beat, Lana asks him if he thinks Upton Sinclair waits to be assigned a story. Unfortunately for her, Thredson overhears the following…
Lana: I’m making this my story. Sarcastic Douche: Oh, a woman’s touch, huh? Lana: Yes, exactly. That’s what’s been missing from this story. You think this mook’s just a monster, but no monster starts off that way. He was somebody’s precious baby, crying for his mommy.
Precious baby crying for his mommy… a woman’s touch… that particularly resonated with Bloody Face. Survival checklist when dealing with Oliver Thredson: Don’t make him feel abandoned. Don’t call him a liar or a bastard. Don’t get in his way. Don’t remind him of his mother, or any mother, except as a complete last resort to avoid being skinned alive. But what about present day Bloody Face?
Sticking your arm through a metal slot to take a photo of the inside of Bloody Face’s cell because your new wife offered to blow you if you did it: Bad Idea, or Big Mistake?
10. Aaaand we learned that the wrap-around story is back, making slightly less sense—but definitely ratcheting up the action. It starts with the cops showing up after a 911 call from a cold, flat voice that sounded very Dr. Thredson-esque (but turned out to be an actor we’d heard would be returning from Season One …new role, but the same actor) and told them they needed to send a car to Briarcliff. “I’ve been a busy boy,” he says, and informs them “they were imposters”. One of the cops on the scene realizes something has dripped onto his forehead from above (never a good sign), wipes it away to see the wet stuff is red, looks up, and curses a blue streak. The three Bloody Face “imposters” are still in costume, but suspended from the very high ceiling of what used to be Briarcliff. Not hung by their neck, mind you, but sort of wrapped in wire, or ropes in poses that I’m sure many will compare to the poor guard in Silence of The Lambs, but evoked Hellraiser a little more to us at Horror Boom.
You’ll know my name when you see them…
We close with cops searching the building and finding Leo with his arm ripped off. When a mobile phone rings, they follow the sound into the cell with the slot that Leo stuck his arm into to try to take a photo after his classy bride offered to blow him if he did it, and the cell phone is still in his hand… ringing. When a frustrated cop answers, the voice cameo is back, and they also realize Leo’s bride is missing. The last thing we see is Theresa, wounded but not dead yet, strapped to Dr. Arden’s table—with a pretty authentic-looking Bloody Face looming over her. So, though we’re left with more questions than answers, we DO learn that Leo is dead, and that pretty soon, Theresa is going to probably wish that she was.
Sister Jude (from the Season Premiere): All monsters are human.
Stray Thoughts:
Is it just me, or does Joseph Fienne’s English accent sort of come and go? I’ve gotten used to Grace’s French accent slipping slightly sometimes, but I’ll forgive it if it isn’t intentionally written in.
Sister Mary Eunice has the devil inside, but her entertainment factor went through the roof throughout this episode (guess they needed some comic relief in this very dark episode where several characters we are rooting for got very, very bad news indeed. The scene of her singing along with Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”, (hit this link to hear it) while twirling around in Sister Jude’s “trashy red lingerie” (and Sister Jude’s former quarters) and hurling her rosary off her neck and at the cross sexily was fucking gold, every second.
Plus, the horror fan in me LOVED Sister Demon’s B-story with dead-eyed little Jenny. Those two sure hit it off, unfortunately for her family. I wasn’t shocked she’d killed again, but I sure as hell didn’t expect her ENTIRE FAMILY to be the victims. Of course, she was telling the same story to the cops (as calmly as if she was ordering lunch), and I think that’ll be the last of her, because they bought it.
Warning: BIG cranky rant ahead. Skip the block of text if you want to don’t want to read it. NOW can certain ‘horror fans’ or writers who have no business recapping a horror story stop referring to the mutants/raspers as zombies? Jesus H. Christ! I know you fellow horror nerdists are with me on this. I get pissed when I hear people call 28 Days Later and [REC] and [REC2] “zombie movies”. Especially[REC2], where the whole point is the reveal, during the FIRST ACT of the movie, that it’s a demonic possession that’s contagious. This is beyond stupid. Were the raspers dead at one point? Did they then rise from the dead to eat the brains of the living, who then turn into zombies? I’m going to have to change the subject now, I’m getting all worked up just thinking about it. It’s one thing with viewers, it’s another for TV reviewers who are being paid to write a weekly review and/or recap. All I managed to communicate back was a reply directed at the author, asking, “What about them makes you think they’re zombies?” Zilch, zero, no reply, I’m sure they’re too lazy busy to read it, but if everything you see that looks messed up is either a zombie or an alien, at the very least you shouldn’t be assigned to cover anything more complicated than The Walking Dead. If that. COME ON! Really? Zombies? That the best you got? Sheesh.
Frances Conroy is back next week, with a black dye job and what looks like wings. YEAH! All Murphy will say (for now) is that she plays “the ultimate angel”, and judging from the preview, I think she’ll be the one to get the cruelly ousted Sister Jude back to Briarcliff. I hope to hell someone does!
God, like things aren’t hellish enough for Lana, she has at least a good fifteen seconds where she wakes up in her own bed, including bed sheets and a pillow that smells like home and maybe even her soul mate Wendy, with her own nightstand, and you can almost hear her thinking, Oh, here I am in our bed… what a horrible nightmare. Thank God it was just a drea — then she hears Dr. Thredson’s voice, sees that it’s her bed NOT her bedroom, instead she’s in a tiled basement with a shackle around her ankle, realizes she’s still in hell and lets out a prolonged, anguished scream of grief and horror. It’s supposed to get WAY worse in episodes 8 and 9? That alarms me.
So… what exactly was in those croque-monsuier sandwiches? The crunching and chewing sound seemed deliberately amplified to the point where I was waiting for Dr. T to tell her after she finished, “Oh, about where I put Wendy? Well, we just put part of her someone no-one would find it, that’s for su—” (Lana pukes everywhere)
Please, no more surrogate breast-feeding with Lana and Bloody-Face. We get why it was needed as far as exposition and character. I’m also glad she talked him out of killing her by being smart enough to know exactly what the freak needed to hear from her (he was weeping when he was preparing to skin her, before and after the flashback). I don’t like the whole “adult baby” way this is going, for one thing, but there’s other reasons why …that… just… NO.
Frances Conroy will be back for Episode 7 next week! She sure as hell isn’t playing Moira this season…
I just found the synopsis it for next week’s episode, “Dark Cousins,” and Frances Conroy is credited as “Dark Angel”. Synopsis: Sister Mary Eunice is terrified to discover a dark angel has descended on Briarcliff. Kit makes a bold move to be reunited with Grace. Another synopsis I read said pretty much the same thing, but worded it: Sister Mary senses an evil presence at Briarcliff.Does that mean there’s something that scares Sister Mary Eunice because it’s a threat to her evil …or something even scarier than what jumped into Sister Mary Eunice? We sure as hell can’t wait to find out!
See the preview below, looks like we’ll get more of Grace, who is looking the worse for wear (plus, Dr. Arden giving her an injection does not bode well for her health) and see Sister Mary Eunice shows Dr. Nazi who’s boss!
OK, so the above poll was basically put up to lighten the mood a little. I’m practically counting the hours till Wednesday at 10PM, but Murphy has also said it will be “the darkest episode we’ve ever done”, which scares me more than a little.
We’re pretty confident Dr. Bloody Face doesn’t just have serious issues with women (no male victims yet, I’m guessing there won’t be, unless it’s to throw off investigators, or some other sort of calculated move). Zach Quinto has said in more than one post-episode interview (after the reveal at the end of “I Am Anne Frank, Part Two”) that Oliver Thredson “has major mommy issues,” which we also sort of guessed.
We’re also pretty curious how horrifying it will turn out to be, but here’s a hint many viewers may have already picked up on. In episode two, during the exorcism, the Jeb-Demon suddenly turned and spoke in an old woman’s voice to Dr. Thredson as she looked him in the eye. “Oh Oliver, look what you’ve become. I’m so glad I gave you up,” it said to him (or something very close), and it was the only time we’ve really ever seen him break his composure. Rattled, he gave the possessed farm boy another strong sedative… or was it? Soon after, he (Jeb-Demon) went into cardiac arrest, and left his body right before the moment of death to possess Sister Mary Eunice. Did Thredson purposely give him a fatal dose, to shut him up, or kill anything that even reminded him of his horrible childhood?
If you’ve got a theory and want to sound off (or just sound off, period), please do leave a reply below. I hope it isn’t something we’ve seen done more than once, but I’m thinking his birth mother gave him up to a foster mother–or relative– who really did some damage. One theory I keep reading is that whoever it was suspected he was gay–even if he wasn’t–and gave him some especially nasty “aversion-conversion therapy,” whether done by a medical professional (very bad), or doing it herself at home (even worse). I could buy that. I just hope she doesn’t make him dress up in women’s clothes, lock him in the closet, and tell him all women are disgusting whores who will never love him the way she does. I have faith in the creative, team, though …and I don’t think it will be predictable.
Well, I went and shot my mouth (or laptop) off and said as soon as I got any news and/or spoilers for American Horror Story Asylum, I’d pass it on ASAP, so now I get to keep my word. About the only time I wouldn’t post any cool, juicy, exciting AHSA news right after I read it is if I’m asleep or unconscious.
I’ll put the most spoiler-ish stuff at the end, and fix it so you need to highlight to read, even though I want to blurt it out right now. So many people have different definitions and tolerance for spoilers, I should start rating them on a scale of one to ten. But I digress. Here’s the next four episode titles, and they’re getting more interesting!
This probably isn’t major news to most fans, but the upcoming episode, airing November 23rd at 10:00 PM on FX is called “The Origins of Monstrosity”. The official description released by the network is:
A mysterious little girl is abandoned at Briarcliff. The Monsignor makes a Faustian pact with Dr. Arden. The origin of Bloody Face is revealed.
Ryan Murphy gave out several teasers for the episode (without giving away any secrets). He has gone on the record and said that:
This is “the darkest episode yet, maybe the darkest of the entire series [ including Season One, aired in 2011] we’ve done”
We’ll find out not only the ‘origin story’ for Dr. T/Bloody Face, but pasts of other monstrous characters, including Dr. Arden-Gruper and get this, Monsignor Timothy (more on that last one in the spoiler section at the end)
Sister Jude will be starting a ‘downward spiral’, continuing with her recent vices that she fell into by the end of “I Am Anne Frank, Part 2”) Side note: I think I included in my last recap (the review that I call “Ten Things We Learned From…” ongoing series of weekly pieces that I’ve done after each episode, that at no point did it show evidence of her drinking, even at the bar. I think she mainly went to bar to cruise and get laid (and smoke), rather than guzzle booze and get hammered. I did notice, on a viewing after I’d already posted that and it was too late, that when she woke up in that flophouse with “Stranger” (as he was billed) there was a half-full bottle of booze on the bedside table, though it was on his side of the bed, among his other belongings. So, maybe alcohol was involved on her part …but still, you never saw her drinking–or acting drunk in either scene. I guess we’ll find out soon.
That we’ll find out if the Monsignor is really cahoots with Dr. Arden, and if so, why…
That Mark Margolis (the guy we Breaking Bad fans know and of and refer openly to as “Uncle Ring-a-Ding)” will be in the episode (but my gut feeling is he’s going to come to a ghastly end by the end of the episode next week)
That Lana and Dr. T were in the same room at one time, and perhaps that’ s why he “picked her to be the one to tell [his] story”
That poor mutant-Shelley will be back and show up in the episode (wonder if that’s what makes Sister Jude let out a horrified scream in the preview for the show)
That things get even more ugly with Lana and Dr. Oliver Bloody Face
And Sister Mary Eunice-demon will have more screen time.
Sounds like a great episode to me!
Upcoming Episode titles (after “The Origins of Monstrosity):
S2 EP7 Dark Cousin
(airdate Nov. 28, 10:00 PM EST)
And now, some spoilers (highlight to read, and by the way: SPOILER ALERT)
The Monseigneur is being blackmailed by Dr. Nazi. His secret he’s a sex addict
99% sure this is Shelley’s last appearance (unless she shows up around finale time in a flashback). She said in EW.com that she ‘wrapped after the 6th episode’. Hmmm.
NOTE: This piece is mainly speculation on Bloody Face’s identity, they don’t just blurt out who it is. They haven’t seen the episode either, but they DO have some interesting theories. I’ll post the results of the poll I put together asking everyone’s opinion on the “unmasking,” but the consensus on it is the same character that this article is placing their bets on: Dr. Thredson. Check it out below – more to follow soon.
…according to Sarah Paulson, who plays lesbian reporter turned Briarcliff patient Lana Winters, “It’s so only just begun. What happens in the first few episodes is like eating a bowl of ice cream compared to what happens to her.”
Here are some juicy tidbits from an interview with Sarah Paulson (who plays Lana Winters) dated 11/07/2012 (in other words, the night episode 4, “I Am Anne Frank” aired). Here she discusses Evan Peter’s junk, whether episodes are hard on her health, how much worse and blood-curdling it gets for hapless Lana, and that as of this writing, they’ve just wrapped Episode 8, ready to shoot #9 or 13. POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT BEGINS (highlight to read): In a recent interview with Chloe Sevigny, she stated she has wrapped for the season and hasn’t read any of the scripts past episode six. So, it may very well be that our poor Shelley will only survive till the end of episode 6. I wish she’d stick around longer …mainly because I would love to see her give some payback to Dr. Evil Nazi Prick – and up close and personal. I do know that another character who is on their way to becoming a fan favorite will get revenge for her this season, though!
“…given what I know happens and what we’ve shot, it’s so only just begun and it’s so horrifying that what happens in the first few episodes is like eating a bowl of ice cream compared to what happens to her.”
If you’ve been watching “American Horror Story: Asylum,” chances are … you’ve been scared shitless. But, according to Sarah Paulson, who plays lesbian reporter turned Briarcliff patient Lana Winters, “It’s so only just begun. What happens in the first few episodes is like eating a bowl of ice cream compared to what happens to her.”
On the series’ fourth episode (Wed., Nov. 7 at 10 p.m. ET on FX), things take a turn for Lana, Paulson told HuffPost TV. Even Chloë Sevigny, who played Shelley on “Asylum”, told us, “What happens to Sarah Paulson’s character [later on] is what’s scariest to me.”
Below, Paulson, who also recurred on Season 1 of “American Horror Story,” explains why “Asylum” is far more terrifying than its predecessor, upcoming guest stars, how the show can make an impact in terms of gay rights (even though it’s set 50 years in the past) and what it’s like being flashed by Evan Peters, which made her and Jessica Lange burst into laughter. Seriously.
Will Lana find out about Wendy’s murder?
[Laughs.] I can’t answer that yet because that doesn’t happen until much later … in Episode 5.
I was kind of looking forward to Lana being out in the non-Briarcliff world for a while. Were you surprised she was committed so early on in the season?
Well, I feel like in true Ryan Murphy form, it’s going to be an assault, not a slow burn. The show to me — even the style in which it’s edited — is very in your face. I feel to draw it out would have been antithetical to the way he does things. I think now that she’s in there, what happens to her is so insane and so extreme that if we waited a few episodes to get her in there, all this stuff wouldn’t have happened. I can understand why a viewer would think, “Wow. That was quick!” But at the same time, I sort of feel like, given what’s coming for Lana and what happens — we’re about to shoot Episode 9 — given what I know happens and what we’ve shot, it’s so only just begun and it’s so horrifying that what happens in the first few episodes is like eating a bowl of ice cream compared to what happens to her.
Q: I‘m officially terrified now. A: Yeah. You should be. [Laughs.] It’s just really terrifying, I have to say.
Does Lana’s lack of friendships affect her mental state in the asylum?
…Lana Winters is a fighter so she’s not going to go down without a fight, that’s for sure. Boy, I wish I could tell you everything. [Laughs.]
“American Horror Story” alumni Frances Conroy and Dylan McDermott are all also coming back to guest star this season. Have you done scenes with either of them yet?
Um, I don’t know if I’m allowed to answer that question. Dylan, no and I’m going to plead to fifth on the other one.
There was an interview with Evan Peters on Vulture and he said he flashed you and Jessica on the first day of shooting “Asylum.”
… Yeah, but listen, there are worse things to look at than Evan Peters from behind, I gotta say. I mean, Jessica and I blew a couple takes, we were laughing so hard because we just looked at each other and thought, “What the hell are we doing?!” We’re looking at these bare asses of these people and I’m handing her canes from the closet. [Laughs.] At one point, we were completely off camera — the camera was just pointing at Lizzie and Evan and we just literally could not get through the scene we were laughing so hard.
Well, now I’m scared to watch.
You should be. We can talk again after Episode 8 or 9 and you’ll be like, “Um. OK. Now I understand. OH MY GOD!”
HORROR BOOM 