Friday, January 04, 2013

Recapping AHS – The Electric Shock Therapy Kool-Aid Acid Test


Picking up right where we left off a few weeks ago, Arden is reviving Kit from his chemically induced “death”. Kit wants to know if it was worth it, but Arden says nothing happened. Of course, actually Arden has secreted Grace and Pepper away in his lab. Arden observes that Grace has completely healed from her gunshot and that Pepper is no longer microcephalic. Arden debates using X-rays or even an emergency C-section to find out what exactly is growing inside Grace, but when he brings the scalpel out he is thrown across the room. Pepper tells him that the aliens are protecting Grace, and they’re laughing at Arden and if Arden steps out of line, they'll turn those lobotomy practices back on him.

Pepper FTW!

Act I! Sister Eunice is tending a wounded Monsignor, who survived his encounter on the crucifix but not before the Angel told him that it wasn’t his time yet because the Devil has taken Eunice and it’s Monsignor’s job to cast him out. Eunice leaves Arden to his thoughts and goes to the common room to oversee the installation of a new jukebox. Jude says that Eunice only brought it in to taunt her, but Eunice corrects her, saying no, here’s the taunting part and then cues up Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” and dedicates it to Jude. Lana and Kit are taken aback when Thredson suddenly Don Drapers his way into the common room. Sister Eunice apparently offered him a full-time position after freeing him from that closet and so now the healing can begin again! Later that night, Eunice orders a search of the women’s ward and “discovers” a cucumber in Jude’s room. Eunice refers to this as “awkward given our past relationship” but she can’t have Jude picking up any tricks from Shelly so something has to be done – to the electroshock therapy room! Eunice and Arden strap Jude down and hook her up to the machine. Arden tells Eunice to throw the switch, but go no higher than 50%. Eunice opts for 80%, crediting Jude for being a tough cookie. The lights flicker and Jude screams.

Act II! Eunice is back with Monsignor, unwrapping the bandages on his feet and hands and calling him a saint for trying to help Leigh Emerson, who has gone missing. Monsignor tries to shove his rosary onto Eunice to expel the demon, but it really doesn’t take. Eunice laughs it off, recites a dirty limerick about priestly anatomy and jumps on Monsignor, stripping off her habit and literally getting into his pants. He begs her not to, but it’s not like this show isn’t going to take an opportunity for another rape scene, so you can guess what happens. As Monsignor struggles, Eunice notices Arden is watching. Just to be clear, this is a scene about a nun possessed by the devil raping a priest while a Nazi watches. Oh to be a fly on the wall in the writers’ room when this one came up. In the common room, Jude is not in a good way. The electroshock wasn’t kind to her and she’s unable to speak or move clearly. Lana approaches her, trying to help and asking if she knows who Lana is or even knows her own name. Jude pauses at the question, noticing that “The Name Game” is a song that is available on the jukebox. And then, I swear to God, this happens: 

dafuq???

Yup, that is a high-contrast dance number where Jude hallucinates singing in a glam dress while the inmates and the nuns launch into a choreographed routine. If you ever had any doubt that this is from the same people who brought you Glee… Anyway, in the woods, Arden is carting out the usual viscera to feed the zombie inmates when Eunice coquettishly interrupts him while sucking on a lollipop and asking about the feasibility of performing a lobotomy on Jude. Arden is acting glum and Eunice laughs, telling Arden that Monsignor “didn’t mean anything to me.” The zombies approach for their feeding and Arden WTF shoots each of them in the head, announcing that “the experiment is over.” Ah, zombie inmates. We hardly knew ye. Arden brings the gun to his own temple, but can’t do it, collapsing on the ground and sobbing to Eunice, “you have no idea what it means to have lost you.” Eunice almost looks like she’s going to have an actual human emotion before uttering that Arden is pitiful and walking away.

Act III! Jude is in the kitchen, trying to knead a lump of bread when Monsignor approaches asking for her counsel, saying she always had a clarity about her, although obviously that’s not so much right now. Monsignor confesses that she was right, Eunice is TOTES possessed and that Eunice has taken his virtue and what she he do? “Kill her,” Jude manages. Thredson, meanwhile, is going through Arden’s lab when he hears Grace screaming. He finds her giving birth with Pepper attending and announcing the baby is crowning. Upstairs, Monsignor prays for strength when Eunice finds him and asks if he’s ready for round two. Eunice taunts Monsignor again, going between sexually objectifying him and asking how he’s planning on killing her, perhaps using the statue of St. Francis? Although that would be “ironic.” Monsignor follows Eunice out onto a balcony, trying one last time to expel the demon but he is pushed against the railing by Eunice for his trouble. The demon screams from insider her that it will devour her and then, for a moment, the real Sister Eunice surfaces, sobbing and saying that she’s tired and wants to let go. Monsignor uses the opportunity to push Eunice off the balcony and she plummets to the ground like a true fallen angel. Broken and laying in her own blood several floors down, Eunice sees the Angel. “Take me,” Eunice asks. “I’ll take you both,” the Angel replies and kisses her.

Have I made a flying nun joke yet this season?

Act IV! Monsignor is delivering Last Rights when Arden asks to have her body cremated. Despite the Catholic prohibition against it, Monsignor reluctantly agrees. Thredson has had Kit brought to him. Kit saying nothing will make him tell Thredson where the tape is. Thredson calls his bluff by showing him Grace, holding what she claims is their son. Cut to Thredson ransacking the hydrotherapy room looking for the tape, but Lana has beaten him to the punch and confesses that she has already re-hidden it and if Thredson does anything to Kit, she’ll find a way to get the tape to the police. In the common room, Jude is attempting to remember the names of the inmates when Mother Superior arrives. Jude wants to tell Mother Superior goodbye, Jude is going to Rome with Monsignor to get married in the Vatican and then be Pope together and btw, Eunice totally sexed up Monsignor because the devil was jealous. In between the crazy rambling, Jude manages to ask Mother Superior to help get Lana out of Briarcliff. In the crematorium, Arden loads Eunice’s body onto a gurney and prepares to send it into the oven. As her body slowly starts to enter the fires, Arden climbs on top of her, going into the oven with her. The door to the oven closes and Arden screams in pain. An ironic death for a Nazi, to be sure.

Next week! Jude regains some clarity. 



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