The Name Game

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Happy New Year from American Horror Story! With its first episode back from Christmas vacation, AHS has a present for us, in the form of the brand new jukebox Devil Eunice has brought to the common room to replace dearly departed "Dominique." This comes into play most spectacularly when, after Eunice and Dr. Arden have subjected our friend Judy Martin to a particularly severe bout of electroshock, Jude breaks into a Technicolor reverie and leads a fully choreographed performance of "The Name Game." Sorry, Glee, you had a good run.

In other, less amazing news, Dr. Arden is having a rough go of it. He's keeping pregnant Grace in his lab, sure, but Pepper makes sure he knows -- in the harshest terms possible -- that their alien overlords will not allow him to operate on her. Later, Arden comes across the unfortunate sight of his lady love Sister Eunice straddling atop Monsignor Howard.

About that... so the good Monsignor survived his crucifixion and as an added bonus, our Angel of Death did him a solid by informing him that Sister Eunice is possessed by the devil. But Howard's first attempt to get the jump on her backfires -- he's still very weak, after all -- and she ends up, essentially, raping him. Arden sees it and is so distraught that he heads out to the woods and shoots all the Creatures, ending his experiment with extreme prejudice. He then makes to off himself, but he can't follow through with it. Devil Eunice, as you can imagine, finds it all rather pathetic.

Monsignor Howard, for his part, is deeply ashamed for losing his virtue and for having not believed Sister Jude about the whole "Eunice is the Devil" business. Hey, great! So he can get the ball rolling on Jude's release, then… right? Uh, I guess we're putting a pin in that, as Jude manages to croak out instructions for Howard to kill the bitch. He tries, of course, but he's weak. Devil Eunice stares him down and then tempts him with advancement, with glory and with Rome. Monsignor Howard takes it all in ... and then shoves her over a third-story railing anyway. Good night, sweet demon. The man who slayed you was unfit to hold your wimple.

She's actually dead, too. The Angel of Death even assures us that she's taking both woman and demon out of this world for us. Dr. Arden is devastated at the news and he insists on cremating her body. Which he does... and himself along with it.

Just in case you were worried we'd be out of villains, however, Dr. Thredson is back working at Briarcliff. He manages to bribe Kit with his own son (by Grace, who gives birth) to tell him where his recorded confession is hiding. Only by the time he gets to the tub room, Lana has gotten the jump on him. She's a slippery one!

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Previously: Sister Jude went from the penthouse to the outhouse, Lana and Kit were keeping Ollie Thredson locked up until suddenly he wasn't and Dr. Arden decided killing Kit Walker for a minute or two would bring the aliens back, which it did... along with pregnant Grace and erudite Pepper.

Currently: Dr. Arden is back with the rapidly cooling body of Kit, trying to pound his heart back to normal function. Four blows to the chest and a dramatic pause later, and Kit is back. He asks Arden if the aliens even came and Arden says no. Which is a lie, but what would you expect? We're treated to a flashback of Arden following the alien breadcrumbs to find that Pepper and Grace and baby makes three.

The scene then cuts to later on, when Arden has already set Grace up in his lab. She's either sleeping or drugged, but either way it looks like Dr. Arden is going to be doing some exploratory surgery in the name of science. He's particularly impressed that the aliens seem to have repaired all the bullet wounds that killed her. And also gestated a baby inside her to full term within a couple of days. Both are pretty impressive. Before he can cut into her though, Pepper interrupts. New Erudite Pepper is a lot of fun and in possession of the clear confidence of someone who has been tasked by higher beings to guard another person, which Pepper has been for Grace. Arden sneers at her, saying that they may have taught her to speak correctly, but she's still an imbecile. So Pepper proceeds to read Arden as thoroughly as any drag queen ever has. She first informs him that any X-rays on Grace won't work, stupid, because the X-rays would harm the baby and the aliens don't allow harm to come to those they've protected. Pepper continues that while Arden fancies himself on the same level as the aliens with his clumsy experimenting, they all sit up in their flying saucer and laugh at him. Like, make actual jokes at his expense. "Knock-knock." "Who's there?" "Arden." "Arden who?" "Arden you the quack who'd make a better duck?"

Pepper's really amused by this joke and outright laughs in Arden's face. He then decides to forego the X-rays and simply perform an emergency C-section, but Pepper's pretty certain that's not going to work either and she's proved correct when the scalpel flies out of his hand before he can begin. Arden sits down out of fear, which gives Pepper a chance to lecture him on the life of The Other. She says he still sees her as microcephalic, a "pinhead," as the parlance goes. She says that when her sister's husband killed his child and sliced its ears off, he blamed her, and the judge took one look at her freakish appearance and locked her up. That's how it goes. She says if any harm comes to Grace, the aliens will have no one to blame but him. "They'll take you, open up your head and stir your brain with a fork." Evocative! Then, she says, he'll get to learn firsthand how freaks get treated. Arden is speechless. "Go to your whore-nun," she encourages him. "Have her soothe your deflated ego." DAAAAANG, PEPPER! The library is CLOSED!

After the credits and commercials, we return to a most unpleasant sight: Monsignor Howard somehow survived his crucifixion at the hands of Leigh Emerson. His hands are bandaged at the moment, keeping him from writing "Howard: 1; Jesus: 0" in his journal. Anyway, Devil Eunice wheels him into his sick bed and tells him about the five-state manhunt currently underway to find Emerson. Howard, for his part, has the sense to be embarrassed about his "blindness" in the face of Emerson's blatantly false penitence. Devil Eunice, as is her way, gets all weirdly sexual as she gets down on her knees and takes off his slippers. "If you need something, I'm close by" and all. Meanwhile, Howard is getting really serious about his rosary beads and we soon see why, as he flashes back to being up on that cross and Angel Conroy comes for him. She tells him that it's not his time yet, as the Devil walks among them in the person of Sister Eunice, and it is his task to cast her out. She tells him to guard his thoughts against her, using the rosary to help him focus on God instead. "This is your moment, Timothy," she says proving that our Angel knows how to play the Monsignor juuust right. Back in the now, he thanks Eunice, who leaves him to go oversee a delivery, promising "exciting new things" for Briarcliff. I love how she's genuinely enthused about whatever this is.

And with good reason, since this development is apparently a jukebox for the common room. While Devil Eunice supervises its installation, Judy sits on the couches with Lana drawing off her cig with a posture that's simultaneously contemptuous and not giving a fuck. She tells Lana that Eunice is doing this to taunt her. And indeed, when Eunice makes her speech to the gathered crazies, she laments the loss of their dear "Dominique" record (may she rest in peace) at the hands of an inmate she'll only refer to as "G2573." Oh, how very Javert of Devil Eunice. And how timely! Jude kind of rolls her eyes, but doesn't give Eunice the satisfaction of a response. Eunice proceeds to unveil the jukebox, though one of the crazies mistakes it for a cigarette machine. That's okay, because Eunice is excited enough for everyone: "IT'S A GREAT BIG MUSIC BOX!" she exclaims. And she dedicates the first song to Miss Judy Martin: "I Put a Spell on You." Lana kind of goggles at the revelation of Jude's real name, although Judy says it's not anymore. "We're all just numbers here," she says and she pushes past Kit on her way out.

Lana runs up to hug Kit and then pulls him away to talk. He's like, "Thredson's loose," which Lana takes as a really great guess until Kit points across the room at ol' Ollie, dressed back up in his doctor's duds, very much back in business at Briarcliff. He makes a beeline for Lana and Kit and joins them. He notices Lana eyeing the ashtray on the table, so he pulls it away. "Wise move," she says. "I was about to bash your face in." Well, there goes the element of surprise. "I know you were," he sneers at her. "I admire your pluck. It's a quality I hope you'll pass on to our child." This talk of a child is news to Kit, so Thredson informs him -- and Lana, as it happens -- that the baby is the only thing keeping Lana alive. Lana's like, "Then what, you'll kill me?" Thredson tells her she's being ridiculous. He's going to keep her alive at least long enough to breastfeed, as "the health benefits are myriad." Kit calls him a sick, twisted fuck and it's hard to disagree with him, though I like the idea that Kit is just coming to this realization right now. Thredson gets all explain about how he can't turn Kit in with his taped confession and all, so he'll just have to put up with his continues presence and resume treatment tomorrow. Both Lana and Kit drop their jaws at the revelation that Thredson is now full-time staff. He gives all due credit to Sister Eunice for his promotion, adding that the good nun is "surprisingly adept at untying slipknots."

That night, the women's ward gets raided. Devil Eunice "find[s] it keeps our charges honest." Judy acknowledges that she's being mocked, but that's not important right now, because Lana lurches out and grabs Eunice, accusing her of letting a monster go free. "When he murders me," she says, "you will be responsible." Yeah, I'm gonna bet that's not going to weigh too heavily on Eunice's conscience. Eunice sings Thredson's praises, how he will whip this place into shape and how he's so concerned for Lana's baby, too. She sends Lana to the hydrotherapy room (what I've been calling the tub room) to be "boiled" for 20 minutes. Now for Judy, who volunteers a bone to pick with Eunice. Unfortunately, Eunice has all the power and she emerges from Jude's room with a cucumber, which is a rather crude joke at Judy's expense. "Bet you got the idea from Shelley," Eunice gloats, then wonders if Jude thinks about the Monsignor when she uses it. Jude calls Eunice a "vile thing," but Eunice disingenuously goes on about how they can't have Judy "diddling [her]self all night long." Jude's still defiant, daring Eunice to punish her.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what Eunice does. We cut to Dr. Arden and the orderlies strapping her down on a gurney, in the same room we were all in back when Lana got her electroshock. Jude knows what's coming and she's panicking. The idea of poetic justice seems to cruel now, as Jude's on the business end of Arden's cruelty now. Jude's been on the other end of this before, with Lana. Eunice, in fact, brings up how ECT cured Lana of her "gynephilia." Jude makes a plea to Mary Eunice -- the woman inside -- screaming, "THIS IS WRONG!" Devil Eunice just gags her, then promises to "burn those bad memories" right out of her. Arden applies the instruments to Jude's temples and instructs Eunice not to go higher than 50%... so Eunice of course cranks it. The lights flicker when the juice gets put into Jude. "I Put a Spell on You," indeed.

After the break, Devil Eunice is back to suggestively dressing Monsignor Howard's wounds, this time the stigmata on his hands. She starts talking about how wounds such as these befit a "future saint" like him, but she can barely get the thought out before he gets the jump on her. He places the crucifix from his rosary on her forehead (it sizzles) and attempts to cast the demon out. Unsurprisingly, he is not at all up to the task. She throws him off and counters his Vatican-approved spells with a dirty limerick about a man whose dick was "inches thick." Sticking with the theme, she pins the Monsignor down to the bed and proceeds to investigate whether his is inches thick as well. She climbs atop him, straddling him, keeping his arms pinned back through magical devil hoodoo. He begs her to stop, despite his "body disagree[ing] with [him]," and she reaches in and pulls him out. Would you be even a little bit surprised if I told you Eunice was wearing Jude's red negligee underneath her habit? Anyway, despite Howard's "No! Yes! No!" reactions, Eunice is clearly raping him. Not that this should be a surprise -- she's the Devil and all. It's rather unsettling, even before Eunice gets to the part where she describes the sensation as a "warm, wet hug." I'm calling the adjective police on this woman; she has officially abused the privilege. And when she's done, when they're done, when he's done, Eunice turns to the door to find Dr. Arden there, looking wounded. If anybody was going to be raped by a nun around here, he really had his heart set on it.

Judy Martin makes for a horrifying sight as she stumbles back into the common room after her electroshock. Everybody turns to look at the horrorshow she's become. Lana allows more and more pity for this poor creature creep into her face every time she sees Jude. She can tell just from looking at her that they "turned up the juice extra high" on her. She wonders aloud to Kit why the sight of her former tormentor brought low doesn't make her feel any better. And what happened just then well, in Whoville, they say that Lana Winters' appreciation of institutional evil as opposed to individual villainy grew three sizes that day. Dazed Judy looks at the jukebox and becomes fixated. She staggers over to it and starts whacking it with her arm. Kit, whose expression has not changed from "Whaaaa?" this entire scene, looks on as Lana heads over to intervene. "It's me," she tells Jude. "Lana. Lana Banana?" Okay, first of all: who knew back in Episode 1 that "Lana Banana" would be such an enduring moniker? Second of all, good for Lana for adopting it proudly. If they had blogs in the '60s, Lana's would obviously be called "Lana Banana" and her fans would be called Peels. Actually, if there are slashfic communities out there shipping Jude/Lana (are there still shippers? is there still slashfic?), I also hope they're called Peels for this very reason. "Do you know your name?" Lana asks, not having the first clue what that question is about to unleash.

I'm going to describe to you the sequence of events that happen . Whether they happened in the real world, a dream world or a wonderful alternate dimension that peekaboo'd its way into ours for a few minutes, I cannot say. All I know is that Judy proceeds to select a song from the juke: "The Name Game," by Shirley Ellis. A few quick things about "The Name Game": even if you don't think you've heard it, you've heard it -- it's the "Tony, Tony, Bo-Bony, Banana-Fana-Fo-Fony" song. It went to #3 on the Billboard charts back in 1964, before America had fully grasped the concept of music. Also, in its attempts to put the rules of a child's rhyming game to song, it is remarkably convoluted and hard to follow. A better version of the song would just be "Hey dummies, copy what I do," and then launch right into the banana-fana-fo stuff, but I'm not going to tell Shirley Ellis how to do her job. ANYWAY, Jude selects the song and then turns around. Suddenly, the Briarcliff common room has become a Technicolor wonderland, with Judy herself dressed up like an extra from Promises, Promises. The star of her own fantasia, Judy performs the song to her increasingly jubilant fellow patients (Lana and Kit are weirded out by things at first, but soon they're as wildly, uncomfortably into it as everybody else. Judy gives all her pals a chance in the spotlight, from Lana to Pepper (who, tellingly, is behaving like the old pre-Algernon-effect Pepper in this fantasy) to Kit. I'm even pretty sure I saw the ill-fated Mexican lady dancing around. The whole sequence is decidedly joyous, with not even a hint of dread at the edges, which of course makes it even more effective, both as an oasis of fun on an increasingly grim show, but also in making the return to dark reality seem that much darker. But mostly, it's a goddamn hoot to watch Jessica Lange and everybody else Glee it up for a few moments of bliss.

Back in the awful real world, Lana can only repeat her question to Jude: "Do you know your name?" Jude isn't really able to respond to anything at the moment, so Lana has to tell her: "Your name is Judy Martin." Poor, poor Judy Judy Bo-Bootie.

Devil Eunice catches up with Dr. Arden out in the woods as he's wheel barrowing some godforsaken food or other to the Creatures out there. I should add that the woods in wintertime look really lovely. She's all blithely happy and bouncy and calling him "Hans," but Arden is bumming hardcore after what he saw. She assures him breezily that Howard meant nothing to her, which is of zero comfort to Arden. He starts tossing out meat chunks for the Creatures, who come venturing out of the woods to feed. Eunice has already changed the subject at this point to how she wants to perform a trans-orbital lobotomy on Judy, just for kicks. He refuses, solely on the basis that Eunice wants to do it. Not that I'm clamoring for Judy to get lobotomized, but relative to how he's behaved all season, that is a coldblooded shutting down of Eunice on Arden's part. Not as cold-blooded as what he does though, as he pulls out a pistol and starts shooting all the creatures in the head. He even manages to shock the Devil with this one, though she's not exactly displeased. "The experiment is over," he declares, putting them all down. "It's a farce," he tells her, before pointing the pistol to the crook of his eye, right where a lobotomy needle might go. He can't bring himself to pull the trigger though, instead just breaking down in tears. He tries to explain to Eunice how crushing it's been to lose her as a symbol of innocence he could always reach for. Eunice, of course, is horrified and calls him pitiful. "Then take pity on me," he cries, clutching at her waist like a frightened child. She, of course, throws him off her, disgusted, and leaves him to cry alone in the woods among the corpses of the mutants he just killed. Boy, portrait of myself at sixteen, am I right?

After the break, a spaced-out Judy is trying to figure out how to knead break in the bakery when Monsignor Howard shows up, still wearing his robe of recovery and clears the room. He's all full of apologies for how he, you know, stood idly by while Jude was accused of murder, locked up without so much as a hearing and subjected to torturous medical procedures. His bad. He's probably lucky that Jude can barely speak at the moment, much less move. Particularly when he leans into her and conspiratorially whispers that the Devil resides in Sister Mary Eunice. It's really too bad she can't slap him right now. He goes on and on, feeling sorry for himself, telling Jude about how Eunice took his virtue from him. You can't tell me he doesn't know what he's doing at least a little when he reaches his hand out to Jude's for "counsel." He's hoping a glimmer of her is still in there that is still on a string for him. To Jude's credit, even in her weakened state, she doesn't lift a finger for him. Instead, she's going to make him do it himself: "Kill her," she groans at him. I'm so torn! I want Sister Jude to win, but is a world worth living in without Devil Eunice?

Elsewhere, Dr. Thredson is looking for Dr. Arden and knocks on his office door. There's no answer, so Thredson just goes barging right in. Why of all the terrible things this man has done... okay, it's probably not as bad as the killing and the skinning and the raping. But that doesn't give him an excuse to just barge into a man's office. He's looking for sodium pentothal to use on Kit (like Kit isn't dumb enough to just volunteer the location of the tapes on his own), but what he ends up finding is Grace. On a slab. With labor pains. And Pepper, whose head pops up from between Grace's legs and announces, "She's crowning." And Bloody Face himself looks at them like, "That's fucked up."

Monsignor Howard is fiercely praying in his corner when Eunice pays him a visit and finishes his prayer for him. She offers him a second shot at nailing her, but she quickly figures out that he means not to screw her, but to kill her. She taunts him for a bit about how he might do it: letter opener to the heart? Too messy. Bludgeon her with the statue of St. Francis? Too ironic, since Francis renounced his debauchery after living a life of sin, while Howard has done the opposite. She offers her throat to him to strangle, revealing that she knows that's how he killed the Shelley Thing. He's too jittery to try anything at the moment, which only emboldens Eunice. She offers him a deal wherein they will partner up and rise throughout the Catholic ranks, all the way to Pope. It's what he wants, after all. He meekly refuses, but she tells him he's weak and she knows it. "You're mine now," she taunts, "body and soul." He follows her out to the stairwell, refusing to bend to her will. He says that he can tell there's still a glimmer of Mary Eunice inside her, which only makes the Devil angrier. She pushes him up against the bannister and warns him not to enrage her further. She rages that she's done with him and is about to "devour the last morsel" of Mary Eunice's soul. But this angry outburst seems to have left an opening for Mary Eunice to peek through again. Surprise, she's crying. "I'm sorry, Monsignor," she begs. "I'm tired of fighting." She says she wants to let go and he tells her to let go of him, then. She does, at which point Howard finally sacks up and tosses her over the bannister, down about three stories to the floor. Mary Eunice looks up at him with a kind of gratitude on her face. And as our Angel Conroy bends down to take both Mary Eunice and her demon tormentor out of Briarcliff, I'm staring at my TV with tears on my face. Oh sweet, sweet demon. Your wickedness was too pure for this equivocating world. You didn't deserve to have your vulgar light snuffed out by such an unworthy adversary. Take a few weeks off, haunt a beach house, watch the Golden Globes, then come back to torment some self-satisfied Orange County trophy wife or something. You'll be back on your cloven feet in no time.

After the break, Monsignor Howard is praying at the bedside of Mary Eunice's corpse when Dr. Arden walks in. Arden seems to be resigned to the fact that Mary Eunice had to be put out of her misery, but he's still awfully resentful of the Monsignor for being the one to do it. But he doesn't exactly refute the Monsignor's claims that her soul has been released. I guess all these encounters with aliens and demons have really opened up Dr. Arden's mind to the spiritual. Good for him. If this show can't take a Nazi on a journey of spiritual awakening, what's it good for? Arden does end up insisting that Mary Eunice be cremated -- on the grounds that there could be latent demon lying dormant in her mitochondria or something -- and that he be the one to carry out this assignment, alone. As ever, Monsignor Howard doesn't feel like being all that suspicious of very suspicious people. He then rambles something about dead saints smelling like flowers and how Mary Eunice smells only like decay, which seems awfully uncharitable to the poor girl. Go clean your stigmata wounds, you simpering phony.

Dr. Thredson has had Kit brought to him in a straitjacket and while Kit is defiant in his refusal to tell Dr. Ollie where the recordings are, Thredson does have his number. Referencing Kit's twin martyr-and-savior complexes, he's pretty sure Kit will give him what he wants in order to save a damsel in distress. So he opens the door of his office to reveal Grace and her baby, alive and well. Pepper's there too, though I do have to wonder why the protective and newly worldly Pepper would allow Grace to be co-opted by someone such as Thredson. Clearly, the aliens must know what he's up to as well. Anyway. Kit's as credulous about this whole scenario as you would expect him to be, spending about three seconds goggling at the site of his deceased ladyfriend before wholeheartedly accepting both her return and her claim that the baby is his. Grace, by the way, continues to be blissed out and vague in that post-alien way that makes me think she may not be fully "alive" in the human sense of it. Thredson's quid pro quo for Kit is pretty obvious: tell him where the recordings are and he gets to stay with his lady and child.

Did you think for one second that Kit wouldn't give up those recordings? You idiot. thing we know, Thredson's storming the hydrotherapy room and checking underneath the tell-tale tub. What he finds wrapped up in that towel, however, isn't a reel but a children's book: "See Spot Jump." Clever, Lana. Poetic. I have no idea if this scheme was a Lana/Kit co-production or if Lana ultimately figured Kit couldn't be trusted not to give the farm away (either is plausible), but either way, she shows up in the hydrotherapy room to gloat. "Where is the tape, you bitch?" Thredson demands, with all the Quinto-esque unintentional hilarity he can muster. He rounds back to strike her, but she's got a whole mess of trump cards. She tells him only she knows where the recording is now and if any harm comes to Kit or anyone else, she'll find a way to get it to the police. "You know I can do it," she tells him, gaze unblinking. "I'm goddamn plucky." God, compare the backspin Sarah Paulson puts on that line to Quinto's shrill "you bitch" line. She's blowing him out of the water.

Still in her electroshock haze, Judy sits in the common room, trying to remember the names of the various crazies. To her great relief, she sees Mother Claudia before her. Poor Claudia is greatly troubled to see what's become of poor Jude. "Wanted to say goodbye," Jude tells her. For she's going to Rome, you see. With the Monsignor. "We're going to be Pope." Oh GIRL. "We're getting married," she continues. "He likes my cooking." This is bad news. The babbling continues, all about how "she" tried to steal him away from her, with her naked body and her "Ravish-Me Red." The way Jude repeats "Ravish-Me Red" makes her sound like Drunk Uncle, by the way. Anyway, Mother Claudia looks at her with an infuriating amount of pity, but I'm not sure if Jude even sees it. Instead, she points out Lana, smoking her cigarette across the room. "See her?" Jude asks, and Claudia seems incredibly relieved to find that Jude is pointing at someone who's actually there. "She doesn't belong here," Jude confesses. "I put her here." She then begs Claudia: "HELP HER GET OUT." Oh, PLEASE tell me Mother Claudia gets in the mix week.

Finally, the sad end to our Eunice is made complete, as Dr. Arden fires up the incinerator, says his last wordless goodbyes to her shrouded corpse and then ... well, he climbs on top of her and hits the load button. He's silent as they're both fed into the fire pit, but once the door closes, he starts screaming. Way to go out with a flourish, you old Nazi rapist monster doctor.

Joe R has learned to accept that the Devil was his favorite character this season, why can't you? He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.

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