Episode Report Card Joe R: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Kennedy Center Honors Miss Lana Banana
By Joe R | Season 2 | Episode 13 | Aired on 01.23.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.There is closure to be found everywhere this week, all told through the framing story of a present-day Lana Winters granting an interview (Lana having become something of a tougher version of Barbara Walters). We find out that Lana gave up the written word for television, and her groundbreaking story was that takedown of Briarcliff that Kit lectured her about last week. She tried to find Jude, but Jude was nowhere to be found. Because it turned out Kit smuggled her out! After last week's encounter had turned into weeks and months of him visiting her, Kit broke Jude out and took her home to live with/terrify his children. He detoxed her and tried to help her work through the crazy, but ultimately, it was his freaky alien babies with their supernatural calming powers who took Jude out into the woods and made her better. For six months anyway -- six wonderful, idyllic months that might be the most beautiful thing this show has ever produced. Then she got sick, and the Angel Conroy came to retrieve her, and she was finally ready. Kit's children would grow up to be doctors and lawyers and perfect little half-alien role models to the rest of us. Kit got pancreatic cancer at age 40 and was alien'd up to heaven.
Lana, meanwhile, managed to take down Cardinal Timothy Howard, uncovering Dr. Arden's human experiments and hounding the Cardinal into a bathtub suicide that was far too dignified for what he deserved. Lana then comes clean to the reporter about the child she gave up at birth. She says she tracked him down once, rescued him from a schoolyard bully, even. This story isn't news to Dylan Face, who managed to impersonate a crew member and sneak into Lana's house.
After the interview wraps, Dylan Face emerges from the shadows. Lana's been ready for him -- turns out the FBI is a bit better at the whole investigation thing that pathetic mama's boy Dylan Face. They had already put the pieces together about Bloody Face 2.0's identity and questioned Lana about her biological son. So Mom and Kid have at it, Dylan Face once again whining about how Mommy didn't love him, and how she killed Daddy who DID love him. Lana sets him straight on his father-worship, not that he's listening to her. He pulls out his gun and puts it to her forehead, but with a few precise motherly words, Lana manages to talk him out of it. She even absolves him of his guilt ... right before taking the gun herself and shooting her son through the head. Boom. Done.
The season ends with a flash back to the beginning, moments after Sister Jude christened her "Lana Banana." She warned Lana about digging too deep into murder and mayhem. "You stare into the face of evil, evil stares right back." And how.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Season finale time already! It seems like just yesterday that we were following Adam Levine and Mrs. Channing T into that broken-down Briarcliff Manor and waiting for them to get their various appendages ripped off. And actually... we're back there again for the cold open. Dylan Face breaks into present-day Briarcliff, boarded up and crumbling, with a machete in one hand. He puts on headphones and listens to Tales from Briarcliff, an audiobook read by its author, Lana Winters. So it looks like she did go back and write about Briarcliff after all.
Dylan Face walks the halls, smokes some crack and listens to his mother describe the hellish conditions therein. In the hydrotherapy room, he imagines her in one of the tubs, telling him that he's an abomination who was conceived not in love, but in hate. Later, on the staircase, he imagines his dad, Ollie Thredson, who puts a kind hand on his shoulder and assures Dylan Face that he loved him even before he was born and it was Lana who took that love away from him. Dylan's nearly in tears. This all comes together later on in the episode, but for now it's hilariously simplistic, the workings of a mind that only operates on the most childish of levels. I know Dylan Face kills people and that's super scary and all, but for real: what a whiny wet noodle of a bad guy he is.
From outside, Dylan hears the familiar (to us) voices of Adam Levine and Mrs. Channing T, who are still on their honeymoon thrill tour, about to enter its last stop. It's "Four months ago" per the title card. Hey, remember when Adam and Mrs. Channing were having sex on one of the gurneys and heard a noise? That was Dylan Face. Remember when Adam went sticking his arm into slats in doors that he shouldn't have? That was Dylan Face inside. Remember when Adam then got his arm hacked off by the monster inside? That was Dylan Face, too. Hilariously, watching his end of it, all Dylan Face wanted was a place to be quiet, smoke his crack and listen to his book on tape. He really only donned the mask and picked up his machete when Adam started shining his obnoxious phone all around. Lesson to be learned, kids. With the same scream that closed the first episode of our season, we head into our final scary-ass opening credits.
After the break, we're still in the present day, only this time at what looks like a chichi New York penthouse apartment, with a generously stocked wet bar and photos of one miss Lana Winters adorning the walls. Lana is being prepped for an on-camera interview, and her interviewer is gawking at all the photos of Lana with various celebrities. Bono drew a drawing of her on a cocktail napkin! The interviewer -- who IMDb tells me is named April Mayfield, so okay -- reminds Lana of her own reputation, which is awfully convenient for the rest of us. "Six best-sellers, a reputation as the only one that men will open up to -- world leaders, stars, disgraced politicians..." So she's Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters, but with teeth. And I should note that while old-lady makeup still looks awkward on just about anyone, the hair/make-up/wardrobe work on Lana throughout this episode across all time periods is a wonder to behold. April asks about any "one that got away" interviews, and the question is answered ("Mao and Rielle Hunter") by Lana's partner, a grande dame Broadway type played by Joan Severance. Her name's Marian, and while she and Lana are open, you can tell they don't want their personal life to be the focus of the interview, so Marian jets. After Lana coaxes the lighting guy to move his key light ever higher -- gotta light those old gals as flatteringly as possible -- she and April prepare to get down to business. Lana doesn't want this career retrospective at the Kennedy Center to feel like a eulogy. April assures her she'll spend plenty of time on Lana's "nail-to-the-cross interview with Madoff," but she does want to start by spending some time on the "Bloody Face years." Lana says in no uncertain terms that she will no longer speak of Bloody Face. He's become a "goddamn household name," like some kind of "Heath Ledger Hollywood villain." She refuses to participate in that narrative any longer. April decides that discretion is the better part of valor and instead suggests with the exposé that made her reputation. Sarah Paulson gives the most fantastic, business-y reaction to this, throwing a thumbs-up while taking a sip of wine, perfectly semi-interested.