American Horror Story: The Coat Hanger (#2.9)

Oh Brooke Smith, you just have the worst luck, don't you?  First you fall prey to the evil monstrosity of Buffalo Bill, manage to escape with his dog (and yourself) intact, and then you are forced to encounter Bloody Face 2.0, this time not being nearly as lucky.

Yes, AHS-ers, there is another Bloody Face, and it is indeed Dylan McDermott, confirming one of the worst kept secrets of the season.  For a second during the episode I thought that would leave the question mark over whether he was Thredson's or Kit's child, but there is no doubt that he is indeed the son on Bloody Face, and his father is Oliver Thredson.  What is still in doubt is just how much does he know about his mother, and did Thredson ever come to justice (my gut instinct is saying that he didn't)?  And also, is it now confirmed that poor Jenna Dewan Tatum died at the hands of Bloody Face after managing to survive for so many episodes during her snippets?

These are questions that are still left open, but a lot of them were closed last night, and none-too-satisfyingly.  Perhaps it's because Murphy (or McDermott) have let too many spoilers become common fact, that even for those of us who actively avoid said spoilers, it was impossible not to be permeated at least somewhat.  It took away from the biggest reveal of the episode, and a lot of the rest of the smaller reveals you could see a mile away.  For starters, who didn't see Dr. Thredson eventually escaping the clutches of Lana and Kit?  I mean, to be fair, they had some very legit reasons for not killing him (wanting to exonerate Kit), so this isn't one of those hyper-foolish horror movie tropes where they miss an opportunity to kill him (like, say, a few episodes ago when Lana told on Kit and Grace as they were trying to escape, which I still maintain is the only way all three of them could have gotten out alive-if only AHS was a choose your own adventure book).  Unfortunately, though, this once again may have been a one-time only opportunity for them, as I suspect that Thredson is fleeing the coop rather steadily, though based on Bloody Face, Jr's story, he has to reunite with Lana or at least her child one more time before the series ends.

We also saw some movement on the alien story for the first time in a few weeks, with another set of unlikely allies, Kit and Dr. Arden, teaming up to try and lure the aliens back, based on Dr. Arden's odd but apparently legit theory that the aliens are after something specific in Kit (what that is, it's hard to say-perhaps they want their breed of aliens to be as adorable as Evan Peters?), but it somewhat worked (though, again, why is anyone trusting or teaming up with Dr. Arden?), as Kit lay slowly dying, the aliens returned Grace to Briarcliff, fully pregnant despite her rendezvous being most recent, and we were left to wonder the fate of Kit over the break, though my gut tells me there's still quite a bit to play where he is concerned.

The title of the episode comes from Lana's story, which was fairly straight-forward the entire episode.  Lana wanted to abort the baby of Bloody Face, but that wasn't going to be a supremely easy task in a Catholic insane asylum in the 1960's.  Still, she attempted to do it, and tortured Dr. Thredson with this idea, which was probably good for some catharsis. Sister Mary Eunice, though, wasn't about to let that happen, since she clearly wanted the killer's offspring to enter the world, and continually tried to stop Lana, and as we know from the Dylan McDermott story, Lana is going to be having that baby.  We also saw the reuniting of Sister Jude and Lana this episode, and the apology that probably will never be accepted by Lana, but Sister Jude needed to share.  Sister Jude, so far down the ladder at this point, has gone from head of the institute to patient, and though her story was brief this episode, with Sister Mary Eunice, Dr. Arden, and Lee Emerson all lying and throwing her into the nuthouse, we still got a sign that perhaps that fire in her may return, when she smashed the French record in the recreation room of Briarcliff and said "things are going to change around here."  How she'll be able to change them in her current status as patient, I'm not sure, but I'm looking forward to finding out.  And though Ryan Murphy's characters have constant mood swings, I hope that Sister Jude remains constant in her fight to let Lana (and hopefully Kit) free of Briarcliff forever.

We end this week where the episode ended, with the underused this season Monsignor, whose secrets still haven't come entirely to the forefront (or is it simply that he has ambitions to become the Pope, is that all there is?), but his naivety was at the forefront.  He clearly fell for every lie that Sister Mary Eunice, Dr. Arden (whom he should know to mistrust), and Lee told him, and pushed Sister Jude unjustly into the asylum with little thought of remorse for her, seemingly more focused on his own burdens as a result.  However, his complete stupidity caught up with him later in the episode, when he was suckered in by Lee to uncuff him, causing Lee to almost drown him in the water, and then to quite literally crucify him on the alter.  I'm curious what happens with his character in the upcoming weeks, but unlike Sister Jude, I'm going to have a harder time forgiving him-he was brought down by stupidity, Sister Jude was brought down by seeking the truth.

And that's where we are left until 2013.  All-in-all, a necessary episode to keep everything moving, but not an overly exciting one (except for the genius of casting Brooke Smith at the beginning of the episode-that deserves a Casting Emmy alone).  What were your thoughts on The Coat Hanger?