A weekly investigation of “American Horror Story: Asylum,” as well as, when applicable, an investigation of the “American Horror Story: Asylum” bakery. Spoilers lie ahead.
What I love about “American Horror Story: Asylum” is the fact that, like the Murder House version of “American Horror Story” that preceded it, it holds back nothing. This is a show that looks restraint in the face and says, “I see you for exactly who you are,” and then gives us a dream sequence in which Jessica Lange strips down to a red negligee and straddles Joseph Fiennes even though she’s a nun and he’s a Monsignor.
Yes, repressed sexual impulses, science vs. spirituality, racism, discrimination against homosexuals, extra-terrestrials and the frontman for Maroon 5 getting his arm ripped off by some ... thing: it was all present and accounted for in “American Horror Story: Asylum.”
But what does it all mean? I don’t necessarily know, but, in keeping with Celebritology tradition, let’s break it all down via 10 questions about the “AHS: Asylum” premiere, an episode called “Welcome to Briarcliff.”
Were Teresa and Leo — the randy newlyweds who visited the abandoned Briarcliff Manor, portrayed by Jenna Dewan Tatum and Adam Levine — just the worst?
Well, they were hot in addition to being the worst, what with their insistence on noting their mutual sexiness and saying stupid, horror movie things like “I’ll be right back.” However, aside from finally showing us what it might look like if Adam Levine lost his arm in a tragic laundry chute accident, they also served an important purpose: they shared important backstory details about how Briarcliff Manor used to be a tuberculosis ward and then the Catholic Church bought it in 1962 and turned it into an asylum from which no one escaped. And they encountered some thing that suggests that even in 2012, Briarcliff remains an actively dangerous place.
On a related note, I particularly enjoyed this tweet about the husband and wife whose honeymoon really should inspire a new “Best Haunted Places to Have Honeymoon Sex” feature on Oyster.com.
Wasn’t it interesting that Jessica Lange’s Sister Jude used the word hellhole to describe what Briarcliff used to be?
It was, especially since she enunciated it in such a pronounced fashion. Then again, she does that a lot. (See: patriarchal mallllle. Somewhere, over the Boston Harbor, that l-sound is still reverberating.)
Still, given that there’s an underground tunnel below Briarcliff known as the Death Chute, I would not be surprised to learn that some bodies are buried beneath the asylum, or that there’s even a direct portal to Hades down there.
At this point, I’d just like to pause for a moment and say: “Jessica Lange: holla.”
Now, another question: what’s the significance of Lange’s reference to the movie “Song of Bernadette”?
Glad you asked. “The Song of Bernadette” — a 1943 film starring Sister Jude’s apparent idol, Jennifer Jones — is about a young woman who eventually becomes a nun after having miraculous visions of the Virgin Mary. Unfortunately, though, she dies too soon. Because she has ... tuberculosis. So you can can kinda see how Sister Jude would relate to her., what with her spirituality and her running a place that used to be a TB ward.
Okay. So what was up with that French song that was playing in the delightfully vibrant Briarcliff common room?
That’s the popular 1963 tune “Dominique,” recorded by Jeanine Deckers, a woman otherwise known as the Singing Nun.
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