American Horror Story Asylum Recap – Episode 12: Continuum

Continuum

This week’s episode, Continuum, is weird. It feels entirely different to the previous 11 episodes and there is certainly the feeling of fast approaching closure. Episode 13 promises to complete Season 2 of FX’s American Horror Story: Asylum just nicely thank you very much!

Why Polygamy doesn’t work: Episode 12 of FX American Horror Story: Asylum

Episode 12 starts with HBO and the FLDS hijacking American Horror Story: Asylum and we discover why polygamy only ever works in theory and NEVER in practise. Kit (Evan Peters) is now living with his two wives Alma (Britne Oldford) and Grace (Lizzie Brochere) and their two children. The year is 1967, so free love and alternative lifestyles are all the rage yet still not socially acceptable. Grace is rampant in her need to draw the aliens she saw as well as making sure their two children know their history.

This pisses Alma off.

To cut a long story short, Alma snaps, kills Grace and gets committed to Briarcliff. Whoops!

Next we are bought into 1968 and the Monsignor (Joseph Fiennes) is leaving Briarcliff after being appointed to Cardinal. I must say, I felt a little confused during this episode with the constant reminder of the years passing in American Horror Story: Asylum. But I guess that was FX’s plan. It really put me on edge and made me totally aware of how Sister Jude (now known as Betty Drake) must now feel.

Angel of Death or bad lesbian porn?

Speaking of Sister Jude (Jessica Lange), her past has caught up with her in the form of bad lesbian porn. It seems the Angel of Death (Frances Conroy) is now a bad-arse leader of the nutters in Briarcliff. I am starting to wonder if Sister Jude has been insane from the very beginning and we are living entirely within the fantasies in her head. Jude is reminding me a lot of Isobel in The Ring of Lost Souls in this episode. The kiss of death has now become a lesbian act (and we all know how adverse Jude is to homosexuality) and she fights against being overcome by this woman. It looks like Jude’s promise to the Angel of Death has not been forgotten and she must now pay up by paying the ultimate price. When the Angel of Death stabs a patient after he didn’t save up his meds and kill himself, Sister Jude has to consider herself now officially warned!

Was Sister Jude insane all along? Are we merely a figment of her imagination?

Pepper (Naomi Grossman) is still able to speak in this episode and now bosom buddies with Sister Jude. However, we find exactly how befuddled Sister Jude’s mind really is when she is told that Pepper died two years ago (in 1966. See, it’s another year reference) and that the Monsignor (now Cardinal) has been absent from Briarcliff for this long also after the Church gave up Briarcliff to the State. It seems he has forgotten his promise to get Sister Jude out of Briarcliff (or was that just a Ju-delusion?)

I’ll say it again – are we just watching the world through the eyes of a crazy person?

Yes, I can write. And yes, I’m an asshat.

Good old Lana Banana (Sarah Paulson) turns into a fucking mole-troll in this episode. The year is now 1969. We find Lana doing book readings and signings of Maniac, her novel about Bloody Face and her escape from him. She has dramatised her attack quite a bit and the demons of her past – in the form of visions of Dr. Thredson (Zachary Quinto) and her lover, Wendy (Clea DuVall) –  rise up to remind her.

Kit arrives at the signing (looking completely like a dork, I might add) and Lana decides to have coffee with him to discuss old times. The mole-troll personality is extremely apparent here. Kit reminds Lana of her promise to Sister Jude that she would have Briarcliff closed down. He also tells her about Alma and we find out that she died of heart failure while at Briarcliff.

Did Alma REALLY die of natural causes?

Kit also lets Lana know that Sister Jude isn’t dead. And let me just say, seeing Jessica Lange play the role of crazy Sister Jude in this episode is just amazing to watch – what a brilliant actor she is! Kit tells of how he finds Sister Jude rocking and watching The Flying Nun on TV. She is completely convinced that the writers stole her life for that show. And in a round about way, she is right about her life being stolen from her.

I may dress like a dork Lana, but you’re still a mole-troll.

As Kit drives off from his visit with Lana, there is a cool segue into the present day. Johnny Morgan (Dylan McDermott) is sitting in his car, smoking a hash pipe in the same spot Kit drove off from. We now know Johnny is at the same bookshop his mother signed at all those years ago.

He enters the store and wants to purchase a signed copy of Maniac by Lana Winters. The shop owner (who is in the process of closing the place down) refuses to give up the book since it was her mothers. Johnny announces who he is. The owner then goes on to say that she was a major in Women’s Studies and knows that Lana’s baby died at birth. John-boy, of course, denies this and he goes on to describe exactly how he will go about killing his mother.

What did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments below.

Just on a side note though, here are my thoughts on that last scene:

As I was watching it, I was thinking once again about all the mentions of time passing in this episode. What exactly is FX playing at? Then, when the shop owner mentioned that Lana’s baby died at birth, I started thinking about Sister Jude and how I was questioning her sanity and all the actual events she’d been involved in – were they real at all. This made me wonder – did Lana’s baby REALLY die at birth? After all, the nurse did say that the baby had an allergy to baby formula, could it have had an extreme allergic reaction to the formula and died? Or did Lana smother the baby while she was ‘feeding’ it? This, in turn, led me to question whether John Morgan is actually delusional and just imagining he is the son of Bloody Face. If this is the case, then how do Kit’s children play into all of this?

I guess only next week’s episode will be able to answer these questions *sigh*