WARNING: This post contains spoilers. Please proceed with caution.
This week on AHS…
“The Origins of Monstrosity″
This is a very sporadic recap due to the fact that this was a very sporadic episode with a lot of information.
The episode kicks off in present day with a call to the police dispatch.
9-1-1, what’s your emergency?
Oh, no emergency, I only crafted some skinless decor for the arrival of your police officers at Briarcliff, just thought you ought to know.
Introducing Jenny, a little girl with long black, braided pigtails. How theatrical! I almost wish her name was Wednesday.
Jenny may or may not have stabbed her only friend with a pair of scissors, her mom complains that she’s never cried, not even when she was a baby. It sounds to me like this mom needs to sort out her priorities.
Lana wakes up in a comfy bed to a picture of her lesbian lover and for a moment she’s blissfully ignorant of her surroundings. Rise and shine, Lana, Bloody Face, made you a snack!
Dr. Threadson divulges a little slice of himself to Lana, explaining how he was raised in an orphanage, neglected of love and affection, and abandoned by his mother when she was 33 years old, the same age as our Lana Banana. All this guy wants is a mother’s love and affection! Is that really too much to ask?
Well, now we know the origin of this monster, right? RIGHT?! (Get it, cause the name of the episode … yeah, ok.)
As he explains how he needed to feel the warmth of skin and that’s how he got started in cutting the skin off women, Lana starts to cry. Dr. Threadson tells her not to cry, because all of that’s behind him now that she’s there … his mommy.
NO. What. STOP.
Mr. Goodman, the Nazi hunter, buzzes Sister Jude with some interesting information. He confirms that Dr. Arden is in fact the doctor Anne Frank thought he was from Auschwitz.
So … Jenny’s mom split, leaving her abandoned at Briarcliff.
The Monsignor visits a hospital to see one seriously deformed patient who, of course, ends up being Shelley (remember, she was found on a playground last episode).
REWIIIIIND!
It’s 1962 and Dr. Arden is working with the “incurables.”
It’s the beginning of the Monsignor’s time at Briarcliff. As they wheel away a dead body together, Dr. A explains his experimentations and how the next step in his research would be human subjects. He says that it is a greater good that will not go unnoticed. Not even in Rome.
We jump back to 1964 and the Monsignor putting Shelley out of her misery with his Rosary beads wrapped around her neck.
He storms into Dr. A’s office freaked out and enraged over what he did to Shelley. Dr. A tells him that he is working on evolving the human race. His next victim? Spivey, the patient who can’t control his urge to masturbate. As the Monsignor walks away, Dr. A reminds him that if he exposes his research, everything about Briarcliff will come to light. This halts the Monsignor in his tracks.
I wonder what they know that we don’t! What have they been up to?!
Sister Mary Eunice tries to give her best demonic advice to little Jenny. She tells Jenny she knows Jenny really did kill her friend and it’s no big deal since her friend was a “phony little shit.” When Jenny denies it, Sister tells her she knows all ’cause she’s “the devil,” but that’s neither here nor there.
Flash to a sort of home movie of Mary Eunice at a pool party with some snotty teen girls. She’s on the diving board when the ring leader tells everyone to drop their robes on the count of three. All the girls drop their cover-ups and Mary is the only one buck-naked. Surprise!
Mary Eunice continues to tell little Jenny that she can never let anyone keep her from being who she’s meant to be. Oh, and there’s no God, and it’s all made up to keep people from being who they want to be. It really is a surprisingly sweet bonding moment with Jenny and Mary Eunice.
The Monsignor fires Sister Jude.
Though I’m pretty sure it’s to protect her, I don’t like it. I know there’s no way she’s done with Briarcliff for good, but still.
Anyway, as she’s packing her stuff up, Mary Eunice stops by to tell Sister Jude that Jenny’s mother has picked her up. Sister Jude tells Mary Eunice she’s leaving the asylum for Pittsburgh, and Mary Eunice actually looks a little sad about Jude’s departure. After a half-hearted hug, Sister Jude asks her to go fetch the Monsignor’s special cognac and two “very clean glasses.”
Dr. Threadson receives a phone call from Kit, who is now in custody of the cops. Kit tells Dr. T that he knows what really happened and that he didn’t kill those women. Dr. T gets a little pissy and starts telling Kit that he needs to admit to his crimes. Meanwhile, Lana is trying desperately to cut through her chains, which she manages to sort of do, but before she can get away the doctor comes down the stairs and she hops into bed real quick. Dr. T notices that she’s sweaty, her heart is beating fast and he finds the chink in her chains and gets upset that she was going to abandon him. He ties her down and pulls out the mask.
Next we see Mary Eunice flitting around the room in Sister Jude’s sexy red lingerie singing “You Don’t Own Me” before the phone rings.
Before her departure, Jude stops by Dr. A’s lab with the Cognac to have a quick drink with him, and, also, to get his finger prints to take back to Mr. Goodman’s house to compare those prints to the ones on the paperwork from WWII.
But, wait! While he’s waiting for Sister Jude to arrive, someone knocks on his door, and it’s Sister Mary Eunice.
Uh, oh …
Sister Jude shows up at Goodman’s house where the door is cracked, phone is ringing. She see’s him lying in a pool of blood with half a mirror sticking out of his neck. He manages to spit out that one of her nuns showed up and went cray.
Sister Mary Eunice brings all the evidence of Dr. A being a Nazi to the man himself, though being the smart demon she is, she doesn’t give him all the evidence, just in case she needs to use it against him later on. As he questions why she’s protecting him, he answers his own question with ramblings of her not being in love with him.
We see little Jenny standing over her mother with a knife in her back as she explains to the cops who the attacker was, giving the same description she gave the police when her friend was murdered.
Dr. Threadson, explains to Lana how she’s going to scream, and the first incision will hurt, but it’ll be ok. HA! Right … He talks about the first time he saw her and how he knew she would be the one to understand him. With the scalpel at her neck, Lana says she does understand and “a mother’s love is unconditional,” and everyone deserves it, “even you … baby.”
No. WHAT. Stop.
Dr. T pulls off his Bloody Face mask and starts to cry. Lana calls him “my baby” and he says, “baby needs colostrum” and starts sucking on her breast.
NO. WHAT. STOP.
We flash back to present day. We see the bloody face decor being lowered from their hanging spots. Bloody Face being a killer of a certain caliber, he calls a phone on one of the dead bodies to explain that he only killed the imposters, not Leo, who was shot. The cops have “Oh, no, Leo is dead but where is his new bride?” moment, and we cut to Teresa laying on a table with Bloody Face standing next to her.
How can it be?! Bloody Face would be, like, 80! Has he passed his mask down to a protegé?!
As always, I can’t really wrap my head around everything that’s happened, and, as always, I can’t wait for next week!
-Sarah Scroggins, The Hub@TTU
About Sarah Scroggins
