While I did watch Guys with Kids and Chicago Fire as well, the bulk of this will be focused on the awesomeness that is American Horror Story.
Guys With Kids
I know the point is to dislike the ex-wife, but Sheila just makes it too damn easy! They try to make it funny, but I can’t see how anybody could sympathize with her character. Chris and Nick steal her sofa, which used to be theirs in college, before realizing they had outgrown it.
Chicago Fire
Severide gets some depth. He’s an addict, though it’s hard to say of what. He is doing some kind of injections when he gets overwhelmed or emotional or whatever, but it’s still unclear what the origin of that was. As much as I like Jesse Spencer–I was a devoted House fan for many years–I’m not hooked yet on this show. It’s good, but not great. Entertaining and interesting, but I’m not sure it’s going to be able to overtake Nashville for the time slot.
American Horror Story: Asylum
Jessica Lange as Sister Jude is brilliant, as always. My heroine. Harsh. Unforgiving. Savvy. And when it comes to punishment, her bite is worse than her bark.
Evan Peters (Tate, from Season 1), is one of the patients committed to the santarium. He is supposed to be a serial killer, nicknamed Bloodyface, but maintains his innocence. From the beginning of the show, we see that he was married to a black woman (this is 1964, so that is a social no-no) when they both experienced an extraterrestrial encounter. She was abducted, and he was returned after being experimented on.
So, when “Bloodyface” arrives at Briarcliff and Sister Jude makes a comment about one of the women he supposedly killed, a colored girl, he spits at her. She wipes it from her face and says, with no anger or relish, just an icy matter of fact: “You’re gonna wish you hadn’t done that.”
That pretty much sums up her entire character. She is the lady in charge. And nobody better upset her order of running things. Not the doctor (James Cromwell), the patients, the reporter (Lana Winters, played by Sarah Paulson), or anybody else.
However, Sister Jude has a sultry side, and a crush on the Monsignor, played by Joe Fiennes (who could blame her?!). She plays out an erotic fantasy as they eat dinner together, with her in red lingerie under her habit, and we see that no matter how much one may preach purity, chastity and devotion to God, temptation is never too far away.
Chloe Sevigny plays a patient diagnosed with nymphomania. While it’s clear that she has something of that nature, Sister Jude is of the opinion that psychiatry is just a fancy way of describing sin. Her character is not revealed too much in this episode, but if last season is any indication of how things may progress, I’m sure that there is plenty more to come from the “hottest tamale” in this joint.
Sarah Paulson plays Lana Winters, a reporter, who is also a lesbian in a time when homosexuality was just as much of a social stigma as race. She is involved with a school teacher, played by Clea DuVall, who is no stranger to mental institutions (remember Girl, Interrupted?). Lana is looking for a story on Bloodyface, but arrives at the sanitarium on the pretense of finding out about the bakery that Sister Jude began there. Once Sister Jude learns the real reason Lana wanted to visit, her distaste becomes disfavor. By the end of the episode, Lana has ventured too far into Sister Jude’s realm to go back, and she too is committed to Briarcliff.
I have always been a James Cromwell fan. He just has that edge of quiet grandfatherly kindness that you are so willing to trust, and then he throws you a curveball. LA Confidential, he turns out to be the villain. In AHS: Asylum, he is even more villainous, though we do not yet know entirely what he’s up to. He is doing experiments on his patients, which some might construe as torture, and he is doing it without the say-so of Sister Jude, much to her chagrin. There is much more to that side of the story, but we will have to watch the rest of the season to find out how it plays out.
Now, after all this, I haven’t even mentioned the modern piece of the story! The show actually begins with a modern scene–a horny couple who visit haunted places around the country and document it. They explore Briarcliff and take photos and talk dirty to each other, but at one final point in their adventure, the man has his hand through a slot in a door while the woman blows him, and suddenly, he is attacked by something on the other side of the door. His arm is torn off and the woman panics, of course, and tries to run for help, but she too has been sucked into the haunted walls that are Briarcliff.
Phew! Lotta stuff for one episode, but it was all awesome. I really love the credits. They are creepy in just the right way. The season 1 credits creeped me too badly that I had to mute them and look away when the dead babies in jars came up. This season I feel is going to be bloodier, sexier, and more terrifying than the first.
I am disappointed that Dylan McDermott and especially Alexandra Breckenridge did not return for season 2. Breckenridge was brilliant in the first season, and it’s going to be strange not seeing her every week in this show.
However, I didn’t make any connections from this season to the last in terms of actors returning to play new characters. The show is distinctly a new plotline with a new cast of characters and a new list of horrors in store.
This week:
I will catch up on Nashville later, and Thursday evening, we have all new episodes of Last Resort, Grey’s Anatomy, Elementary, Up All Night, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Beauty and the Beast, and Scandal (not covered here–unless it was really good). I will be enjoying a much needed night off, so it is likely that the only recap for Thursday will include Sunny because it’s the only one with encore presentations later in the evening. Expect more recaps Friday and possibly Saturday covering the rest of the shows.
I will do a recap of Beauty and the Beast week 2, on principle, but they haven’t hooked me, and I don’t think they will. Still, I do like to give shows at least 2 weeks to try to accomplish that.
Looking ahead, the last presidential debate is next Monday, so all the regular CBS programming is on hiatus until the following week. Tuesday will be a big day, as we’ve got two new season premieres on ABC joining the already overcrowded lineup. I am truly shocked and amazed that ABC hasn’t taken a break in the season yet for any shows except for last week’s vice-presidential debate. However, I’m sure it can’t be far off.
Until next time!
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