After last week's bombshell of an episode, things were naturally going to have to settle at least slightly or we'd all be certifiable by episode 10. But that doesn't mean that there still wasn't plenty of crazy to go around this week.
We start things off with a black screen and the sound of a 911 call. So this must be present day? Yes - and the cops are being summoned to Briarcliff by a raspy voice that sounds suspiciously like it belongs to Season 1 star Dylan McDermott, no? Either that or Archer.
Archer tells the 911 operator that "they were imposters" and therefore had to die. Hmmm...
Some cops arrive at the ruins of the asylum and find these three fellas hanging out:
Nothing to see here - three corpses, everything's fine! Actually, wait - there were only two imposters, right?
CREDITS
Back in 1964, a woman named Mrs. Reynolds and her daughter arrive. Mrs. R speaks with Jude (Jessica Lange) while her daughter reads in the lobby:
Turns out that little Jennifer has a very different idea of what constitutes a "Fun Time" than other kids - because she might be a sociopath. Mrs. R explains that none of the kids like her. Well, one little girl named Josie would play with Jennifer, but it ended badly:
Another scissor sister - they do recruit young, don't they?! Anyway, Little Jenny blamed the murder on a man with a beard (I RESEMBLE THAT REMARK) but days later her mom found a lock of Josie's hair - which could easily have been snipped off with a big pair of shears - in Jenny's pocket.
Jude puts on her best sympathy-face:
(For the record, this is also Jude's "Did I forget to add the fabric softener?" and "Maybe I'll have beans instead of salad." face.)
Mrs. R asks if people can actually be born evil, but Jude has no answer - she tells Mrs. R that unfortunately they are not a daycare and can't admit a rugrat, no matter how psycho that rugrat may indeed be. She suggests that she try to pray the slay away.
Speaking of born this way, Lana (Sarah Paulson) wakes up to find herself in a comfy bed surrounded by photos of herself and Wendy (Clea Duvall), with the sounds and smells of someone cooking breakfast not far away. Aww - it was all a dream, and now it's time for an omelet!
Not.
Oliver (Zachary Quinto) has staged this lovely little scene in his kill room, and he's making her a croque monsieur on the stove where he usually boils skulls. Yum! Lana - apparently not a fan of grilled cheese - screams, and Oliver screams back, Jame Gumb-style. Nice. He lets her in on a big secret: "Nutmeg makes all the difference." I'll see your nutmeg and raise you a nutjob.
Oliver brings Lana her "perfect mommy snack" and tells her that he grew up without a mommy, in an orphanage. As Lana listens she takes a bite, pointing out that it's very good:
Remind me never to challenge her to a poker game.
Lana thanks him for this act of kindness, insisting that she's not patronizing him - she felt abandoned herself in Briarcliff and knows what it feels like. Clever girl, that Lana - getting her captor to identify with her. Oliver opens up about the fact that he's always known he was different, and that he discovered just what was missing from his life when he was in medical school and met a cadaver that reminded him of his mom - or who he imagined his mom was when she abandoned him at age 33 ... which is also Lana's age. He recounts a delightful story about his first quality time with his fake dead mom, which looked something like this:
Thank Godric it doesn't go where it seems it might be heading - instead, Oliver embraces the corpse. He tells Lana that what his life had always been missing was "a mother's touch". But this mommy was cold and stiff, and he needed "something a little more lively." Hence the new mommies, whom he would then skin alive for maximum freshness. He quotes a study conducted with baby monkeys in which they responded to a fake mommy with terrycloth skin over a wireframe monkey that had milk - it was the skin that they couldn't resist.
He also insists that now that he has Lana, he won't need to murder anymore. "All that work is behind me ... Mommy." Okay, I've heard of "mommy issues", but this is a whole new level. It's the September issue of mommy issues.
Back at Briarcliff, Jude gets a call from Sam Goodman - the Nazi-hunter (just occurred to me that this is at least the second Ryan Murphy show - after Glee - to feature a Nazi hunter) that we knew wasn't going to give up his investigation of Dr. Arden. Turns out Charlotte "Let's Just Go Ahead and Call Her Anne Frank" Brown was right about one thing: Arden is indeed Hans Goober. All he needs is Arden's fingerprint to match to the documents that he uncovered.
Jude gets off the phone to find that little Jennifer is standing behind her. Jude is thrilled to be in the presence of a young person:
I guess she's not used to meeting little girls when she's not behind the wheel. (ZING!)
Jude tells Jenny to buzz off but Jenny says her mom left her there. Lucky us!
At some fancy hospital that is certainly not Briarcliff, Monsignor Timothy (Joseph Feinnes) arrives - turns out he's there to administer Last Rites to some lady who made headlines and who may have TB. OMG - is this who I think it is?!
Yes, it's Shelley (Chloe Sevigny)! And he recognizes her...
Tim flashes back to his arrival at Briarcliff, when he was apparently dating an absolutely adorable ginger priest:
Bless me, Father, for I am about to sin as soon as I finish writing this.
Anyway, Tim and Father Firecrotch meet Dr. Arden (James Cromwell), who is the outgoing supervising physician for the tuberculosis ward that had just been purchased by the Church. He explains that the few remaining patients are "the incurables" - my favorite Pixar movie! - and Tim gives one Last Rites and then helps Dr. Arden dispose of the body via the death chute, which leads out back to a crematorium. Arden points out that there are hundreds of unclaimed crematory remains at Briarcliff. I just hope no one mistakes this area for a coffee pantry:
Arden makes the case to a rather impressionable Tim that human testing for his new immune booster would be good for everyone. He adds that a scientific breakthrough would make serious waves - "Even in Rome." Apparently that was all Tim needed to hear.
Then he kills Shelley with a rosary:
Well he DID just give her Last Rites - he was just checking his work!
Tim isn't comfortable with what he just had to do, though - so he storms into Arden's office and throws the beads at Arden's record player (Arden quips, "You would have preferred Mozart?") and growls, "Jude was right about you - you're a monster!! Arden replies that the patients in Briarcliff are "human waste" and that he's doing humanity a favor by putting them to good use. We then see someone spying on Sister Mary Eunice Whoopsies del Diablo (BVM) through a Norman Bates-approved peephole:
Turns out it's Mr. Spivey (Mark Consuelos), whom I had honestly completely forgotten about, since he's been missing since Episode 2. Apparently he's been in the broom closet masturbating the whole time. (Atta girl!)
Arden drags Spivey out of the closet (literally) and makes a snide comment about Spivey's habit of exposing himself to schoolchildren (Spivey insists only the girls, because he has standids!). Spivey corrects him - Sister Eunice actually asked him to "come and watch her flash her p*ssy." OMG - you kiss Kelly Ripa with that mouth?! Well, it's actually about to get a lot dirtier:
Yes, Dr. Arden didn't take to Spivey's tone and has recruited him to be the next Shelley. Tim is horrified at the sight, so Arden explains that he is doing this to usher in the next phase of human evolution - where humans are impervious to all disease and will be able to survive atomic fallout.
Tim thinks he's nuts and threatens to expose him - but Arden says that he'll just be exposing himself. (Spivey gives an invisible high-5.) Arden points out that they're in this together, and they share a common enemy...
Meanwhile, Sister Whoopsies (Lily Rabe) is babysitting Jennifer in the kitchen. Whoopsies calls Jenny out for killing Josie - and when Jenny asks how she knows, she replies, "I know everything. I'm the devil." HA! She adds that Josie had it coming, the little snot.
We then see Whoopsies flash back to a pool party that she apparently attended as a teenager when everyone picked on her. This was apparently billed to her as a nude pool party, but when everyone dropped their robes she was the only one who was naked. Whoopsies, indeed!
Snapping back to the present, she asks Jenny, "You know there's no God, right?" Ouch. Let's ease her into it, shall we? Maybe start with the Easter Bunny? Whoopsies bitches to her about Jude (mentioning her red lingerie and lipstick) and tells Jenny that she needs to learn to defend herself, pointedly setting a butcher knife down right in front of her.
Jude gets off the phone with Mrs. R, who has decided that, okay, she'll come back for her daughter. But her relief is dashed when Monsignor Timmy arrives to fire her ass. And even worse - he's sending her to Pittsburgh. Whoopsies was right. There is no God.
Whoopsies catches Jude packing and pretends to be upset about her leaving so that she can try to steal Jude's red teddy while they hug. HA! She doesn't get away with it, though. Jude gets an idea and tells her to go and fetch the good bottle of cognac and two very clean glasses. Yaaay - shooters!
Back at Oliver's impossibly well-appointed bachelor pad of torment, he answers the phone. It's Kit (Evan Peters)! Aww - I'd almost forgotten about him. Kit is in jail and he's figured out that Oliver sent him up the creek without a paddle by getting him to confess. Not as dumb as I thought he was! He calls Oliver a liar, which Oliver DOES NOT LIKE.
Meanwhile, Lana takes the opportunity to grab a file from Oliver's toolbench and noisily tries to file through her chains. (They established earlier that the basement is soundproof, so no harm, no foul.) But she's interrupted by a very angry, most certainly NOT A LIAR Oliver, who notices her elevated heart rate and sheen of perspiration and deduces that she tried to escape. This leads him to put on a very unhappy face:
He straps Lana to the bed and tells her it's not working out between them after all, adding, "This is your fault."
Back at Briarcliff, Whoopsies is wearing Jude's red lingerie and jumping around her sparse sleeping cell to "You Don't Own Me", hissing the refrain at the crucifix on her wall. Sounds like someone has daddy issues, for a change. Jude's phone rings and Whoopsies grabs it, hilariously putting on a husky voice and terrible Boston accent to pretend to be Jude. It's Sam Goodman...
Down in Arden's office, Jude offers him a conciliatory toast, insisting that she's a good sport and that he won. Initially he won't drink because she's not drinking - so she pours herself a glass and they both drink. Arden sets down his glass and we see Jude eye the perfect fingerprint that he has left on it...
In his motel room, Sam Goodman hears a knock at his door. He answers and it's Whoopsies. He asks if Sister Jude sent her, but she says that Jude has no idea she is there...
Jude arrives shortly after with the glass bearing Arden's fingerprint. She finds Sam's door ajar and his phone ringing. She answers and the caller hangs up - and then spies something in the bathroom:
Sam has been cut to ribbons with a shard of mirror, but he's still twitching. Ick. He manages to get out that it was a nun that did this to him - one of Jude's, in fact.
Speaking of the devil, Whoopsies returns to Arden with the files - which, as Goodman pointed out, are original documents - and gives them to him, noting that she's kept a few pieces for herself. She calls him Hans, which he likes being called just about as much as Oliver likes being called "liar". He calls Nazi hunters "money-grubbing Jews" and asks her why she is protecting him. She tells him to trust her with his entire soul and everything will work out. Sounds good!
Hey - let's check in with little Jennifer and see how she's getting along, shall we?
Oops.
Jenny has killed her brother, sister, and mother at a family picnic, and is again blaming it on a man with a beard. RACIST.
Back at Oliver's Bed and Breakfast of Terror, Lana insists that "it doesn't have to be this way."Oliver reveals that he was watching her long before he met her in Briarcliff - and we flash back to a scene where Lana has her hair did and she's speaking with a fellow reporter about her desire to get to the real story behind Bloody Face:
Hey, now. Smoking kills, Lana.
Just then Kit is brought out from the courtroom. And we're full-circle...
Back in the present, Oliver says that he thought that she would be the one to finally understand him. She says that she doesn't want him to feel guilty at all about killing her, because a mother's love is unconditional. She then adds, "... baby."
Oliver responds thusly:
And then he does this:
Yes, I think he's nursing. And I don't mean the kind that involves a paper hat.
Back in present day, the cops say all three Bloody Faces are teenagers, but that the car of a thirtysomething named Leo was found outside. Okay, I'm confused - there's an extra dead body here and a missing beast-man that would be capable of ripping a man's arm off - unless that was the guy who called 911? If so, he's got a lovely phone voice. Anyway, they find Adam Levine's body (short one arm) and they guess that whoever made the call is the killer. They hear a cell phone ringing, and find Adam's arm and phone. The cop answers, and it's Archer McDermott again, calling to say that he only killed the impostors, and he wants to make that very clear. The cops get word that Adam was here on his honeymoon. As they ask, "Where's his bride?" we cut to a knocked-out Jenna Dewan Tatum, strapped to a table, with Bloody Face #7 standing over her:
Aaaaaaaand SCENE.
Notably Dead: Shelley, the Bloody Face Mob, Sam Goodbar, Josie, Mrs. Reynolds and two of her kids, and thousands of TB patients.
Notably Undead: Jenna Dewan Tatum
Notably Absent: Grace, Pepper (I'm losing my patience, people), Alma, the aliens
Blood - 7/10
Sorry, Sam Goodman. But at least your death was colorful.
Beasts - 3/10
Shelley and Spivey are as beastly as it got this week. Where's that alien when you need it?
Buns - 0/10
Come on, Oliver. It's not like not losing your pants made that scene with the cadaver ANY less creepy. Why not go full Monty? I'm sure the corpse wouldn't have minded.
Diagnosis
Okay. So I'm not quite caught up on the body count in the modern-day stuff (not to mention who the hell is on the phone), I'm not entirely sure what Sister Whoopsies is up to with Arden and/or Jude, and I did not expect to see Bloody Face sucking on Lana's breast until at least their third date. I appreciated the nod to The Bad Seed, but it didn't really gel the way I think it was intended. I am glad, however, that while Oliver's psychosis is I guess indirectly his mother's fault (for abandoning him), they're not pulling the "evil mother poisoned her son's sanity!" card, which I was pretty much expecting. So my reaction to the episode is more of a "Huh?" than anything else - not that this is necessarily a bad thing. So my diagnosis of "Monstrosity" would be: Schizotypal personality disorder with a mild oral fixation.
Or as patron saint Barbra Streisand would call it, six out of ten Nutses:
But that's just me. What'd you think?
