American Horror Story: Asylum

Show: American Horror Story, FX (2012-2013)
Streaming on: Netflix
Episodes: 13 


Usually, this blog covers shows that are cancelled. American Horror Story is still airing.

However, I decided to write about this show because it's an anthology series, meaning that each season is a completely different setting and story with a new cast of characters.

Therefore, I'm writing about the show's second season, which is its best yet.

The first season, set in a haunted house, is incredibly uneven (though the fact that Dylan McDermott is usually naked makes up for it) and the third season, Coven, is incredibly underwhelming.

However, Asylum is all kinds of awesome. 

Asylum switches back-and-forth between the present day and 1964 at the Briarcliff Mental Institution. In 1964, a serial killer known as Bloody face is skinning women alive. During the investigations, reporter Lana Winters (Sara Paulson) ends up getting locked up at the asylum by the stern Sister Jude (Jessica Lange) over Winters' lesbianism.

As Lana tries to escape, we meet the rest of the characters like Kit, an inmate who is framed for Bloody Face's murders, Sister Mary Eunice, a saintly nun who ends up getting possessed by the Devil, and Dr. Arden, a possibly former Nazi scientist who is doing gross experiments on the inmates.

image via: fx.con

Despite a shaky start in which waaaaayyyyyy too much stuff happens (murders, alien abductions, etc.) 

the show evolves into a smart, confident, and ultimately scary attack on the nation's mental health institutions and how it treats its patients. And it does so with Nazis and aliens and a murderous Santa Clause, one flashy musical number and more.

This is a season in which we actually care about the characters and are legitimately terrified of their outcome. Also, the season provides some amazing sequences and visuals. The penultimate episode "Continuum", is a delirious episode from the point of view of a mentally insane character. the result is an almost hallucigenic, dreamlike episode that flashes back and forth between the past and present with such daring jump cuts and shocking twists that it makes the season worth watching.