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SO MUCH, you guys. Where to begin? I guess with how the Angel of Death has arrived at Briarcliff, summoned by suicidal schizophrenic Miles and played with heavily powdered grace by Frances Conroy. She spends the rest of the episode visiting various characters in their moments of death or near-death. Like Grace, who tells the nuns who revived her that they should have let her die. Her hemorrhaging was from a forced hysterectomy that Dr. Arden insists he didn't perform. Devil Eunice seems to honestly believe he did, which means La Diabla has no idea about the whole aliens part of the story.
Back at Hostel 1963, Sylar Thredson rapes Lana in his basement -- during which Lana is visited by the Angel, but she resolves to fight on. So when Thredson changes his mind and decides that rape is bad but murder is better, Lana manages to get the better of him and escapes into the night. But when the car you flag down is being driven by William Mapother, you know you're fucked. He's some kind of misogynist crusader at the end of his rope, and when he shoots himself while driving, the car crashes with Lana in it and she wakes up in Briarcliff. There, she tries to tell Sister Eunice about Thredson's murders and Kit's innocence, but La Diabla already knew that. She placates Lana but keeps her locked up.
Meantime, Sister Jude, still freaking out over Sam Goodman's body, realizes that Sister Eunice is both a murderer and possessed. But Devil Eunice has set the motel room up to look like Goodman was investigating Judy Martin's crimes, so she can't go to the police. Instead, Devil Eunice leaves Jude a bottle of whiskey and a razor to kill herself with. Jude is visited by the Angel for what turns out to be the third time in her life. She says she's finally ready to lay it all down and accept death, but before she does, she visits the family of the girl she ran down fourteen years prior. Only the girl survived! This seems like a sign.
Kit attacks his public defender at the police station and escapes (how? He just does, okay?). He races back to Briarcliff, as he's heard that Grace was near-death. He's followed through the secret tunnel by one of the Creatures, however. Kit finds Grace in the kitchen; a nun finds them and screams for help; the Creature finds the nun and tears her throat out; Kit fights the Creature and disembowels it; Frank comes upon the scene and, with orders to shoot on sight, fires his gun; Grace dives in front of the bullet, taking it in the chest. Finally ready, Grace accepts the Angel's kiss and dies.
Featuring a mash-up of Constantine, Legion, Angels in America and Wings of Desire, as performed by Frances Conroy; Dreamgirls, as performed by Jessica Lange and Sean Patrick Thomas; and the opening scene of the Buffy episode "Dirty Girls," as performed by Sarah Paulson and William Mapother.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Hey, here are two nuns we haven't seen before. Young and pleasant and happy -- what are they doing at Briarcliff? They're amiably discussing Lilies of the Field as they enter the medical ward for morning rounds. Their first patient is Grace, who is barely conscious and burning from fever -- still from the alien encounter, it would seem. They pull back the covers to see blood covering Grace's lower half and the bed. Coupled with the fact that the last time we saw Grace she was ALSO bleeding from vaginal area, it gives the impression that nothing's been done to help her in a while. The young nuns score more points with me as they opt not to call Dr. Arden about it, calling him a "butcher." While they try to revive Grace themselves, the camera cuts to another angle and we see an older woman, dressed all in black, with very pale skin and a veil. She's played by Frances Conroy, who was so fantastic on the show last year. She reaches out to Grace and Grace (who in actuality is still unconscious) reaches back and says "I'm ready." Suddenly, Frances unfurls two giant black, feathered wings, places a gloved hand on Grace's face and pulls down to kiss her. Before that can happen, however, one of the nuns pounds on Grace's chest and re-starts her heart. She's awake now. The dark angel is gone. "You should have let me go," she whispers, in tears.
After the credits, Devil Eunice pays a visit to Dr. Arden, who's tending to his plants and herbs. Eunice throws some very measured shade at the good doctor, alluding to his shitty "all-thumbs" care for his patients. He's all, "WTF" so she starts in on him about Grace and how he obviously must've botched her sterilization procedure, considering she nearly bled out in the infirmary today. For once, Dr. Arden's "I don't know what you're talking about"s are honest. He knows of no such sterilization procedure -- he never performed one. Eunice doesn't believe him and says, "All of her girl parts have been scooped out." Inelegant phrasing aside, Eunice isn't lying either. We seem to be at an impasse. Arden objects to both Eunice's insinuations and her tone. "As the head of this institution, I demand to be spoken to with at least a modicum of respect." She nearly laughs in his face: "You really think you're in charge?" He slaps her in the face. Mistake. See, Devil Eunice doesn't need to curry Arden's favor anymore. He's already installed her as Sister Jude's replacement. "You touch me again," she warns, "you will die." He moves to strike her again, this time with a backhand, but she uses her Devil powers to throw him across the room without even touching him. She looks down at him, on the floor, shocked and likely bruised and says she hopes this has clarified the chain of command. She's always been in charge.
In the kitchen, another heretofore unseen nun (new nuns EVERYWHERE this week) is slicing deli meat at singing some churchy song of another. At the table behind her, a young African American patient named Miles is hearing voices. His own voice, really, and it's angrily chastising him, wondering when he's going to step up and "be a hero" for once in his miserable life. He yells out loud for the voice to shut the hell up and Sister Mary Waferthin takes offense. He clarifies that he wasn't talking to her. She says shouting won't do anyone any good. The voice agrees with her and once again commands Miles to "do something." So he lies that the meat slices are looking a bit uneven and offers to inspect the slicer. Sister Mary Wafterthin lets him and it seems, for a moment, that the voice intends for Miles to do her harm. But no. He sets the blade spinning and, with the voice still screaming at him, lowers his wrists to it, spraying his blood everywhere and crying out in pain.
Cut to Frank explaining to Devil Eunice that they were able to stop the bleeding, but he's going to need a lot of stitches. Sister Mary Wafterthin cries to Eunice that Sister Jude is going to be so mad at her (so I guess the memo hasn't circulated yet), but Eunice ignores her. She's fixated at what Miles drew in his blood on the wall. It's a three-letter word, though the letters aren't from our alphabet. They resemble two lowercase "n"s and a capital "E" turned about 45-degrees counterclockwise. Eunice stares at the word -- a name, as she tells Frank, written in ancient Aramaic. On the soundtrack, we hear a faint, animalistic growling. The Devil feels threatened. With real fear in her eyes, Devil Eunice asks Miles how he knows that name. Miles doesn't even know it's a name -- he doesn't know how he wrote it. She bends closer to him: "Did you summon her?" Frank's eager to get Miles stitched, up and Eunice orders that Miles then be placed in isolation. "GET THIS WALL SCRUBBED UP!" she orders, and then storms out. Glad to know something can actually spook the Devil.
All stitched up, Miles is now in isolation. Frank clearly likes the guy and asks if he's all right. "I don't wanna be here no more," Miles tells Frank. Not the room -- the world. Frank, saddened, pats Miles on the shoulder and walks out. The lights in the isolation ward clunk off one by one. Miles is all alone... but not for long. The Angel appears, telling him he summoned her. She's here to help him, if that's what he wants. Fighting through tremendous pain, he starts pulling out his stitches. "Help me!" he begs. His arm starts bleeding out again. "Shall I kiss you, Miles?" the Angel offers. "And make this all go away?" She's not sinister. This isn't a trick. She's easing his pain. Once again, we see her unfurl her wings. This time, her kiss lands. The "kiss of death" metaphor is obvious, but so is everything on this show. It works. Miles is dead. Suddenly, the Angel hears a noise. "Who's there?" she asks. "Who dares look upon Shachath?" That's a lot of Hebrew "chhh" sounds coming from such a WASP-y looking lady. Of course, it's Devil Eunice at the door. She tries to maintain the façade of being just a simple nun, but the Angel senses it in her soon enough. She addresses her as "Cousin," clearly adversarial, but she's resigned to it, like they've been at this for a very long time. Eunice orders her dark cousin to leave, but the Angel says she was invited here, unlike the Devil. She says the woman she's inhabiting -- who's still in there somewhere -- cries out to her. Suddenly, Regular Eunice breaks through and immediately she's crying and begging the Angel to release her. Sigh. Regular Eunice. I respect your work, Ms. Angel, but please just let Regular Eunice stay in the back seat. "OH SHUT UP YOU STUPID SOW," Devil Eunice screams, wresting back control. "She likes it here," she tells the Angel. "We like it. We have work left to do." The Angel says she does as well and that they'll meet again."
Back to Grace. Still not dead, but still not well either. It looks like Dr. Arden has taken Devil Eunice's challenge seriously, because he's trying very hard to save Grace's life. Not for her, of course, but to ensure that he doesn't take the fall for something he didn't do. She's not strong enough to speak, so she just listens to him talk about the infection in her body. He injects her with antibiotics, assuring her that he won't let her die. "If only to set the record straight." So... nobody's going to ask who performed this botched hysterectomy, then?" Okay!
Well, unfortunately, it looks like colostrum wasn't enough for Sylar Thredson. As we return to his murder dungeon, he's in the middle of raping Lana. Dead-eyed, she experiences it all in horrifying slow-motion. In real time, he's banging away at her, but from Lana's perspective, time has nearly stopped. She looks past him and sees the Angel appear through the plastic curtain. Is it time to go?
After the break, Kit is meeting with his court-appointed attorney, who I think is that neighbor guy from That '70s Show. Kit, bless his dumb little heart, is all, "Have you talked to Grace like I asked you? She saw Alma alive. That proves I'm innocent." To give Kit the benefit of the doubt, I don't think he knows that Grace saw Alma on a spaceship, but still, as his lawyer points out, Grace is a mental patient and thus not likely to convince any jury. Beyond that, he hears that she's quite ill and may not last much longer. This alarms Kit, as you'd imagine. The lawyer's words are starting to seem awfully damning, all about how Thredson took away his one chance to avoid the electric chair. His back against the wall, Kit does the only thing he can do, really. He brains the lawyer with the three-hole punch on his desk and escapes out the window. Okay!
Back to Lana. Thredson's gone -- for now -- and she's curled up on the bed, traumatized. The Angel is here with her and Lana acknowledges her presence. She says she called for her. She's so scared and thinks death might be a blessing at this point. She says she used to be scared of it, but now she thinks she's ready. This is all good news for the Angel, who seems like a solid lady, but who is also kind of peddling death like a pamphleteer on the sidewalk. "Do you have five minutes to share in Death's sweet embrace?" Anyway, the Angel begins her routine: wings out, lips puckered. But Lana stops her and sits up in the bed. Not now. Not yet. Thredson then comes downstairs, all worked up about something. He apologizes for what happened earlier and assures her it wasn't her fault (thanks?). He says he made a mistake bringing her here in the first place. He's a very tenacious person and doesn't like to give up, but he feels that they are at an impasse and it's time to stop pretending. Sounds like he's talking about his whole Mommy & Me experiment. Fair enough. Of course, the solution isn't much to Lana's liking. "I can either cut your throat or I can strangle you." He just wants it to be as painless as possible, see! And he doesn't believe in guns. Oh, just kill her with your garden hoe then, you hippie. She starts crying, but Thredson -- who is agitated in the manner of someone who has to stay late at work because of a troublesome project -- is all, "What am I saying? We'll put you out." He emerges with a crazy-huge syringe. She starts to panic as he advances on her, climbs atop her with the syringe in hand. He promises to reunite her with Wendy and turns her face to Wendy's framed photo on the nightstand. She reaches out for it, once again seeming like she might be giving up. But before he can plunge the needle into her neck, she grabs the photo and smashes Thredson with it. He's bleeding below his left eye. She struggles with him and they tumble off the bed, where she's able to get the needle away from him. She's still chained to the floor and so she begins choking him, Jabba the Hut style. When he passes out, she digs through his pockets and unlocks herself. She's halfway up the stairs when he lunges at her legs, but she's actually able to kick free and escape. Escape!
Outside, it's darkest night, of course, and she scrambles to a road. As she's running, headlights appear behind her. Thredson? Kit escaping from jail? Sister Jude on a bendah? Oh no. Worse than all that, maybe. It's just a regular, heretofore unseen motorist... but he's played by William Mapother, who's played creeps on such shows as Lost and Justified and is also Tom Cruise's real-life cousin. Lana is so fucked. She hops in the car and begs him to drive, which he does. Inside, he's kind of put off at being bum-rushed like that. He immediately starts asking if she had a fight with her boyfriend. "What did you do to him?" Oh, it's like THAT. What follows is a rather rushed discussion on gender politics and conflict and whether women play the victim and so on. She at first just wants him to take her to the police, but the more he presents as a lady-hating psycho, she just asks him to let her out. He refuses. From one prison, to another, to another. Mapother then starts ranting about women who leave and cheat and take ten years of marriage and flush it down the toilet. Oh, find a therapist guy. Lana can recommend a very interesting one back down the road a ways. "You brought this on yourself," he says and produces a gun from his pocket. thing we know, the Angel of Death is riding along in the backseat. Lana looks back at her and is all, "Really? You? Now?" Mapother keeps ranting, keeps speeding faster and faster and he finally puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Lana screams as the car loses control and crashes.
thing Lana knows, she's waking up to the pale face of Sister Mary Eunice. Sister Eunice tells her not to move, as she'll be in great pain. She's back to Briarcliff, where she belongs. The camera pans out, showing Lana strapped down to the bed; from prison to prison to prison to prison. The music swells and Devil Eunice's shadow on the wall looks like a perverted approximation of the Angel and her wings. No deliverance for Lana tonight, though.
After the break, we're treated to a delightful reunion. Well, not delightful, but it had been thirty minutes and no Sister Jude yet, and I had missed her. We're back in the hotel room with her and the rapidly bleeding-out body of Sam Goodman. We're treated to a repeat of the scene where he tells her that one of her own did this to him, only this time we also get a flashback to Devil Eunice throwing him into the mirror and then sticking him in the neck with one of the shards. For her part, Sister Jude could be handling this better. She's just kind of crying and she throws a towel down at him and then goes to find the phone. Only when she does, she sees a half-empty bottle of bourbon on the table. And -- while we see the Angel bend low to give Sam Goodman his last kiss -- she looks to the television and sees the article about the girl she murdered taped to it, with the word "murderer" written in blood. She's being set up. Suddenly, there's urgent knocking at the door.
This all plunges Jude back into a flashback to 1949, back when Judy was a club singer with a band. And that band included Terry, who is knocking on her door, wondering where she was last night. She very clearly was All of the Drunk last night, but she tries to make excuses. Terry, by the way, is played by Sean Patrick Thomas of Save the Last Dance fame. God help me, but I think they're supposed to be the same age in this scene. He tells her the gig went pretty okay, as "Barry" (Terry and Barry?) called his cousin to fill in. And I guess she did pretty okay, because Terry has an envelope full of see-ya-later cash for Judy. She reacts as you might expect. "Barry's been trying to get his fat cousin in there for months now," she grouses. She starts shouting about conspiracies, but he can only look down at her sadly and say he's sorry. She even tries coming on to him, offering to make him feel "real good" and saying she's always wondered what it would be like with a "colored man." Aw, jeez. Look away, everybody. He finally shuts her down ("You smell of vomit!") and gives her a definite goodbye. As he does though, he mentions that in the Kiss-Off Envelope, there's a card from a detective looking for her, asking questions about a hit-and-run. Then Terry's like, "Peace!" and Judy starts freaking out because They Found Her. She hurries to pack her shit, leaves the rent money on the nightstand and hightails it the hell away. With her windshield still cracked! Hell of a police force in this town. As she speeds away, she's tormented by flashbacks to that night of the accident. She's boozing again while she does it and she ends up crashing her car... again. When she comes to, she sees an angel. Not Frances Conroy. A white angel. Made of stone, in fact. She managed to crash into a tree at the local convent. Organ music plays on the soundtrack and the beams of sunlight surrounding the statue make it pretty hard for Judy not to see this as a sign.
Back in the here and now, Jude's memories are interrupted by a call from Devil Eunice, who is feeling whimsical enough to tell Sister Jude that it's her conscience calling. Jude asks Eunice what she's done. Eunice is like, "Ohhhh, more like what did YOU do?" She tells Jude what she already knows: that the hotel room has been decked out with paraphernalia from a 15-year-old hit-and-run case. Sister Jude asks how she knew and Devil Eunice replies that she knows everything. "I was in your head, remember?" Jude does remember: that boy with the devil inside him, how the demon was cast out and Sister Mary Eunice was knocked flat on her back. On the phone, Eunice suggests Sister Jude start running now. Though, she muses, how far does she think she can even go. Instead, she's left a bottle of "Kentucky something-or-other" and a razor blade on the nightstand. You know, in case Judy feels particularly enterprising.
Judy considers the razor. She heads out to a diner, excuses herself to the ladies' room and imagines slicing deep up her arms, her blood gushing out. She imagines herself dying alone in that cramped room on that dirty floor. She doesn't though, thank God. There are prettier ways to die, for one. She returns to her booth at the diner, only to find the Dark Bird of America there waiting for her. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly?) Judy greets her like an old adversary. "You jumped the gun again," Jude tells her. "It was a passing thought. Nothing but a passing thought." They proceed to have a captivating conversation about all the times the Angel has visited her. Jude calls herself the little girl who cried wolf. The Angel says her "song" was more piercing and plaintive this time. Jude, crying, wonders what was so different than the first time, when her fiancé left her after he'd given her syphilis and left her barren and despairing. All she ever wanted was a family of her own, she says. "Why didn't I die that night?" The Angel tells her she was still young and holding on to hope. And the night she ran over that little girl? "That was the night God revealed his plan for you," the Angel says. He gave her a calling. Jude despairs that He's now taken that calling away. She figures He figured out that she never quite rose to His challenge. She calls herself a drunken whore and a murderer. Hey now! Only Devil Eunice gets to talk to you like that! She takes a swig of her bourbon as the Angel tells her she deserves some peace, a peace befitting her "extraordinary tireless efforts to find meaning in this life." Okay, true. She's also exhibited extraordinary tireless efforts to inflict pain and torture on her patients. That too. The Angel wonders how Jude plans to ride out the long, cold winters, subsisting on crackers and coffee and bourbon. "Peace is so close, sister." Okay, this seems like proselytizing. No fair for Death to go for the hard sell. Alas, Jude tells her she's ready. She just has to do one last thing. Over by the counter, two waitresses look over at Jude, dining alone, and cluck sympathetically: maybe they should call Briarcliff. At least there she could get a bed for the night. Aw. Maybe Jude can subsist on coffee, crackers, whiskey and irony.
After the break, it's the day, and we see what one last thing Sister Jude was talking about. She's sitting in the living room of some nice, upper-middle-class, older-middle-aged couple and she's looking very nervous. The wife of the couple has a tiny baby in her arms, which only exacerbates whatever Jude's feeling. It's guilt, of course. These are the parents of the girl she ran down. Missy was her name and Sister Jude is pretending she was one of her teachers way back when. The parents are asking her specifics of what classes she taught Missy in, but Jude gets distracted by a framed photograph of the family. She starts blubbering about how she remembers Missy's little blue coat. The parents are being very cheerful right now. Jude gathers herself and begins to explain her story when the door opens and a twenty-something woman in a nurse's uniform walks in. Still has those cat's eye glasses, though. It's Missy! That baby is hers! Sister Jude takes a few moments to process everything. She starts crying in the meantime. Missy and her mom look at her kind of cross-eyed, but the father is stern. The father maybe suspects what's really happening here, though he never says it. Sister Jude covers for herself with what is basically the truth, or a version of it: Missy's accident was a contributing factor to her decision to become a nun, which is why she's reacting so emotionally. And lately, she's been having something of a crisis of faith, so Missy turning up alive right now seems like a sign. The mother talks about how her husband, Hank, used to struggle with this too. He wanted revenge with the "bastard" who did this to her. Hank is still silently staring a hole through Sister Jude. "We get to live with our daughter," the mother says, pleasantly enough. "The monster who left her there has to live with himself." Sister Jude lets that one sink in.
Back at Briarcliff, Lana is resisting her meds and demanding to speak to Sister Jude. Devil Eunice intervenes and explains that Sister Jude is gone. Nearly hyperventilating, Lana explains that Thredson is a murderer. He killed Wendy, he killed ALL those people. They've got to call the police. Sister Eunice looks shocked, but tells Lana she has to get in bed or she'll have to get Frank to restrain her. That's one threat that gets to Lana -- she can't be chained down again. She tells Lana that she's confused, but Lana is resolute: Kit Walker is innocent. Oliver Thredson is Bloody Face. Devil Eunice flashes back to when it was inside the boy, and -- heretofore unseen by us -- it whispered into Thredson's ear, "I love your work, Bloody Face!" Think of all the time we could have saved if the Devil had said that louder! Anyway, Eunice tells Lana she believes her and feigns like she's going to take this information to the police. Lana says all of the evidence they need is in Thredson's basement, so expect that basement to be ship-shape as soon as Eunice is off shift. Devil likes a tidy house. She assures Lana that she's "safe now." Man, where's a sad trombone sound when you need it?
Outside Lana's cell, Devil Eunice relays her "crazy" claims to Frank, who scoffs at the accusations against Thredson. Eunice says Lana insists Kit Walker is innocent, which causes Frank to mention that Kit escaped from jail and there are shoot-to-kill orders out on him.
Speaking of whom, we pan down to the tunnels, where Kit is running back into the asylum to rescue his lady love. That makes the count at five times that free persons have willingly entered the tunnels and subjected themselves to Briarcliff this season. Unbeknownst to Kit, one of the Creatures from the woods is following close behind him.
In the kitchen, Grace is still bumming about how Dr. Arden saved her life and she didn't die. She begs the nun not to make her go back to her room quite so soon. The nun takes pity on her and tells her she can stay until she's done cleaning. She heads to a different room, in time for Kit to show up to save Grace. He goes to lead her back to the tunnels, but the cleaning nun returns. She's barely able to call for help before the Creature appears out of nowhere and tears her throat out with its teeth in one swift motion. It throws Kit across the room and begins menacing Grace, so Kit calls its attention back to him. It lunges at Kit, but Kit catches it with a meat hook and yanks upwards. All of the creature's guts spill out onto the floor. Go, go, basic cable! Of course, Frank shows up just in time to see Kit killing this "person," and with those shoot-to-kill orders, he draws his gun and fires. As he does, Grace screams and lunges herself in front of Kit. She takes the bullet right in the chest. In the distance, getting farther away, Frank backs Kit away from Grace. Right now, all Grace can see is the Angel, bending down over her. "Are you ready for me?" the Angel asks. She is. The great black wings unfurl, and Death delivers its kiss to sweet Grace. "I'm free," she says. Now don't go running back down the tunnel this time.
Joe R will miss Grace and her unfortunate haircuts. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.
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