Sister Jude begins to unravel due to paranoia. Another escape is attempted.
**CONTENT WARNING: Descriptions of violence, mentions of rape, disturbing photos**
Synopsis
Teresa hides from Bloody Face while he stabs Leo. Bloody Face comes after her, but Leo manages to get up and knock him down. Teresa stabs Bloody Face several times, and she and Leo hightail it out of there. Teresa calls 911, but before she can explain what’s happening, another Bloody Face blocks their way out, then one more appears behind them and shoots them both. These two new Bloody Faces take off their masks, one freaking out that the other shot them. He points out that Leo is missing his arm, something neither of them did, and then the real Bloody Face attacks them.
In the 60’s, a huge storm is coming so Sister Jude arranges for a movie night of The Sign of the Cross to keep the patients calm. Sister Mary Eunice drops off the mail, and with it a newspaper from 1949 with an article about the girl Sister Jude ran over. Sister Jude thinks someone knows her secret and is taunting her. At first suspecting Dr. Thredson, she confronts him about it but he doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
Dr. Arden dissects the alien microchip spider, but it snaps back together. Dr. Arden brings Kit back in for more tests, suspecting him of being a spy sent to get information about his lab. The microchip seems drawn to Kit, though it can’t reach him since it’s stored in a jar.
Sister Mary Eunice tries to convince Sister Jude that someone has been drinking the communion wine and watering it down, offering her some to taste and check, but Sister Jude reminds her that she abstains from alcohol. Sister Jude notices Sister Mary Eunice is wearing lipstick, which Sister Mary Eunice claims Dr. Arden gave her to pass along to Sister Jude. Sister Mary Eunice uncharacteristically mocks the patients, and a Catholic patient recognizes her as harboring Satan. That evening, Sister Mary Eunice visits the Catholic patient in her room and murders her, feeding her body to the creatures in the woods. Sister Mary Eunice visits Dr. Arden and acts overtly sexually towards him, but he is shocked by her behavior and refuses her advances.
Grace and Kit plan to use the movie night to escape, and Shelley asks to get in on the plan. Lana convinces Dr. Thredson to get a message to Wendy for her.
Sister Jude confronts Dr. Arden about the lipstick and now suspects he gave her the newspaper, but they agree that Sister Mary Eunice is not acting like herself. Dr. Arden thinks Shelley is a bad influence on her, but Sister Jude blames him for fawning over her. Back in her office, Sister Jude gets a call apparently from the girl she ran over, then sees the girl’s broken glasses on her desk. Freaked out, she downs all of the communion wine Sister Mary Eunice left. As the movie night begins, she drunkenly gives the introduction, which devolves into babbling about the girl before she catches herself and starts the movie. She leaves the viewing room and encounters something alien looking.
Dr. Thredson sits by Lana during the movie and tells her he couldn’t get ahold of Wendy, so he stopped by her house and let himself in when she didn’t answer. She seems to be missing, and he noticed some similarities to Bloody Face’s victims. He’s alerted the police, but they prefer to believe they’ve already caught Bloody Face, something Dr. Thredson is no longer certain about. Lana notices Grace, Kit, and Shelley have slipped out and makes an excuse to leave. She finds them and admits she was wrong about Kit and asks to come with them. She takes them to the secret tunnel, but along the way Shelley stays behind to distract a guard. When Shelley tries to get back to them, she’s caught by Dr. Arden who takes her to his lab and tries to rape her, but he can’t perform. She tries to flee, but he knocks her out.
The others wait for Shelley, but ultimately decide to leave when she takes too long. They get out into the rainy woods and head for the road, but they find the Catholic woman’s body and are attacked by the creatures, who we finally see for the first time. They look like deformed people. Frightened, the trio ends up retreating to the tunnel and rejoining the movie. However, in the meantime it was noted that some patients were missing.
Sister Mary Eunice wakes Sister Jude to tell her something is wrong, which she first interprets that others saw the thing in the hallway. Upon learning three people are missing from the audience, she goes to the movie and shuts the whole down and assumes the three missing people are Shelley, the Catholic woman, and Pepper (who went to the bathroom in the middle of the chaos), not noticing that the trio are wet and shaking. Since Shelley is assumed missing, Dr. Arden has no need to let her go, so he amputates her legs.
The Staff
Sister Jude is losing her mind thanks to this paranoia about the girl she ran over. I’m not sure if the phone call was actually the girl’s ghost, or if it was part of a trick by the possessed Sister Mary Eunice, since she seems to be the one who left the newspaper. Now Sister Jude not only broke her alcohol abstinence streak, but she got absolutely wasted and made it pretty clear in front of the whole asylum. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point Sister Jude gets admitted as a patient to her own asylum. If she does, she has a much clearer build up to it than Vivien did in the first season. Vivien was totally normal, just rightly worried about home invaders and such, and then all of a sudden everyone told her that she was crazy and then admitted her in the same episode. Here, Sister Jude is gradually unravelling, with many witnesses to her paranoid behavior. Plus she already works in a mental institution, so it’s not a far jump for her to wind up admitted there.
Dr. Arden continues to worsen. Before he rejected Shelley’s advances, but now he tries to rape her and then amputates her legs to keep her as his prisoner. I think he’s shaken by Sister Mary Eunice’s sudden sexual nature, which completely flies in the face of the aspects of her which he was attracted to: her purity and innocence. Shelley seems to be someone he direct his frustrations at.
Sister Mary Eunice’s change is very distinct. She went from this timid, sweet woman to someone who delights in mocking patients, psychologically torturing Sister Jude, and cold-bloodily murdering someone. It’s a smart storytelling move to pick the one truly good person on the staff to be the one who gets possessed. Lily Rabe does such a great job in her portrayal.
Dr. Thredson is still the voice of reason among the staff, but it’s a little weird that he walks into a complete stranger’s house just because she doesn’t answer. Also it’s not clear what evidence he found that made him assume Bloody Face is involved, besides a blood spot on the carpet. Surely that’s not enough to be considered a serial killer’s MO.
The Patients
I’m glad Lana finally agrees that Kit is not Bloody Face. I feel bad for the trio, though, for their bad luck in escape plans. They were literally outside of the asylum and forced to come back because what’s out there is scarier than what’s inside.
Shelley has another good scene where she makes a point about how just because she’s promiscuous, it doesn’t mean she’ll sleep with anyone. She still chooses for herself with whom and when she has sex, so if Dr. Arden is going to take her, then it’s rape, no matter how much she likes sex in other circumstances. But this poor girl is now Dr. Arden’s new plaything and has lost her legs just because this guy is a psychopath with weird sexual hang ups.
The Monsters
Although we’ve now seen the creatures, I’m still no more clear what they are. They almost seem zombie-like. Which, granted, wouldn’t be completely out of the realm of possibilities, considering we already have aliens and demons. I’m just not sure if there’s more to them then that, maybe something Dr. Arden did to create them.
Sister Jude seems to have seen an alien in the hallway. Of course, we already know about aliens in this story, but I was not expecting one to just show up in the asylum. Maybe it came for the microchip? I’ll bet Sister Jude brushes it off as a delusion because of how wasted she was.
Conclusion
Only three episodes in and things are falling apart. Sister Jude is cracking, Dr. Arden is becoming unhinged, and Sister Mary Eunice is literally Satan. Not to mention previous events like how Lana’s girlfriend has been murdered by Bloody Face. How much worse can things get in the remaining ten episodes?
Score: 7/10
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