American Horror Story: Asylum, Welcome To Briarcliff, Ep 201

I have to say that I was riveted by season one of American Horror Story, though I found it confusing and hard to follow in the beginning. I wished I had blogged it because I think I would have appreciated it even more and understood what was going on a lot sooner. I am going to try to blog the important events as best I can. I find myself confused and lost once again this season. Forgive me if I get a few things wrong.

The “Asylum” is called Briarcliff Manor. We get flashbacks to the 1960’s, when it was open and run by Sister Jude. The setting is creepy and very dark and worse still are the “patients.” The official description of the series reads: “A church-run haven for the criminally insane, ruled with an iron fist by Sister Jude (Jessica Lange), a nun with a troubled past… From Nazis and serial killers, to mutants and aliens, no one is safe inside these walls.” I could never have summed it up so well!

The story opens with newlyweds, Leo and Theresa, taking a romp inside the very old, run down, and empty asylum. Why a newlywed couple find that intriguing is beyond me. However we find the couple is very compatible as they both get turned on by the unsettling atmosphere and decide to get intimate in the “Death Chute,” an underground tunnel where they would get rid of dead bodies. However, they never really consummate their plans because Leo’s arm gets ripped out of it’s socket when he sticks it through a cell door, and Theresa runs around screaming and trying to get out and get help. 

Theresa’s screams lead us to a flashback to the 60’s, where we meet Kit Walker aka “Bloody Face.” Kit runs a gas station in the south and has a black bride, which was frowned upon in that era. After a session of love making with his bride, she goes off to make him dinner and an extremely bright light flashes into the bedroom. Kit runs out of the house with a shotgun. He hears his wife scream and when he returns into the house he is confronted by the blinding white light, deafening noise and is pulled up to the ceiling.

Meanwhile, at the asylum, Lana Winters, a reporter, pretends she wants to do a story on the asylum’s bakery, but she really wants to meet “Bloody Face.” She is greeted by one of the residents who she believes to be harmless. However, the creepy looking, insane, deformed drawf-like creature has killed her sister’s baby and cut it’s ears off. Lana meets with Sister Jude and tries to get her to agree to letting her talk to “Bloody Face” for three minutes. “Bloody Face” is due to arrive at the asylum within minutes where he will remain until his trial. Kit “Bloody Face” Walker is supposed to be a serial killer of women and has gotten his name from the fact that he wears a mask made of human flesh. Sister Jude is annoyed with Lana for trying to “con” her and if we know anything about Jessica Lange’s characters, you do NOT cross them! 

Then we meet Grace, the asylum resident who takes a liking to “Bloody Face” and befriends him. There is a good looking priest, Timothy Howard, who considers Sister Jude his right arm. At dinner he tells her when his is promoted from Bishop to Cardinal to Pope, she will be going right along with him. Sister Jude loves that idea, but she loves the idea of screwing Father Tim even more, and fantasizes about it at dinner. We are also introduced to Dr. Arthur Arden, who Sister Jude doesn’t like at all. She accuses him of doing something with the four bodies, who died without family, and mysteriously disappeared. He blows her off. Not the best idea to tick off Sister Jude, but I am the only one who picked up on that! I get the impression that Dr. Arden is a modern day Dr. Frankenstein and is creating his own “monsters” in the asylum, as if there weren’t enough of them already in there. 

Dr. Arthur finds himself alone with Kit Walker and performs a procedure removing a foreign, spiderlike implant from his neck. The implant is alive and takes off and I’m sure we will see it again, don’t you?

And Lana can’t seem to take no for an answer, so she returns to the asylum and sneaks around, trying to find “Bloody Face” only to get caught. Who could have seen this coming? It seems good old Sister Jude has managed to blackmail Lana’s lesbian lover into committing her.  Lana is now a permanent resident of Briarcliff. 

And so ends episode one. I am going to try to catch it on demand and watch it again. I just know I missed some fascinating little twist, turns and foreshadowing! What did you think? I think Asylum is off to a great start and can’t wait to see what happens next week!