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When I saw that the title of this week’s episode was “Tricks and Treats,” I wondered why they were doing Halloween a week early. I mean, next Wednesday is Halloween, so why get ahead of ourselves? Come to find out, Tricks and Treats takes place the day before Halloween. So it’s odd that it should feature some rather nervy kids ringing doorbells to get candy a whole day early. As a side note, I’d like to complain that I had to watch the end of some Twilight movie two weeks in a row now. Ugh.

We begin the ep with fair Theresa running for her life from the mysterious and grotesque Bloody Face. The chase concludes with poor Leo getting killed via the best TV stabbing since Citizen X. It was gruesome and impressive, unlike a lot of those silly quick cuts and CGI blood you see so much of.

From there we’re forced to endure the whining of Lana’s girlfriend. She is just so sad that she has to go through the pain of knowing she put her partner in a corrupt mental hospital. Even as she met her fate, I just could not bring myself to care about someone so weak and easily manipulated. The friend who offered to spend the night with the distraught girlfriend? Gross. It was maddening to hear her proclaim gallantly that she’d “recant tomorrow.” Yeah, you’re a real gem for giving them only a brief permission to torture your partner.

Lana is not being treated; she’s being tortured—even by the clueless standards of 1964. I chuckled sadly when Doctor Thredson admonished Sister Jude, mortified at “Electroshock therapy for homosexuality—it’s barbaric.” He went on to say, “Behavior modification is the current standard.” Not even close, 1960’s medicine! To me, nothing is scarier than the idea of being restrained and given ECT while you struggle and scream. Yikes!

Sarah Paulson’s performance conveyed every drop of the fear I was feeling. It was intense, cringeworthy horror, and exactly what I expect from American Horror Story. Solid writing passionately acted and masterfully produced.

Lana behaves like a woman who’s never read a comic book or seen a movie. NEVER tell your nemesis that you won’t rest until they pay. Villains hate that! Still, I was excited that she was planning an escape.

Fans were beside themselves with delight at the entrance of Zachary Quinto as one Doctor Oliver Thredson. He’s a handsome fellow, and so morally upright that I fear for his safety. It’s his first appearance and he already seems a bit intimidated by Sister Jude; then he gets talked into assisting an exorcism he doesn’t support morally or professionally. Let’s hope he grows a backbone or it will be his undoing. I don’t know a lot about the evolution of mental health diagnosis, but Acute Clinical Insanity sounds like so much bullshit to me.

Doctor Arden was some kinda crazy this week. Administering the ECT to Lana while she screamed and struggled should have been the worst. But no, he lent still more mystery to the ravenous creatures Sister Mary Eunice has been feeding…and hiding…and lying about. There’s something vaguely blasphemous about Arden pushing the candy apple (I maintain that it was a caramel apple, and that a candy apple is coated with hard cooked sugar.) on the resisting nun. Do sweets really lead to sin? I guess we’ll find out.

After that creepiness, Arden has a truly disturbing scene with Shelly. It’s clear that he enjoys berating and shaming her with the word “whore.” Arden doesn’t like whores, you see. Shelly tells us her sad story that leaves Arden unmoved. Watching her plead for five minutes in the sun is crushing. It’s infuriating to see sane people in the asylum; but it’s heartbreaking to see truly ill people at Briarcliff. It’s also pretty scary to think of a time when a person could be committed just because someone else said they should be.

Jed. It sucked to be Jed. One might expect that because Thredson is on the scene, anything that looks like demonic possession would be easily explained by hard science. No dice. Ten minutes into the exorcism, I was convinced that there was a demon afoot. Demons know things, like what color knickers you’re wearing, how many children you’ve drunkenly run over, and how your daddy didn’t like you, and the number 53. Nobody wants to be confronted with that if they’re already having a bad day.

But you know, if you’re going to die during an exorcism, it really should be on AHS. They treated this onscreen exorcism with the reverence and references it deserved. Homage to the original Freidkin film and the Blatty-directed second sequel flowed through the intense scenes that explored the back-stories of Jude and Thredson. If I may say so, Jude’s flashback scene didn’t look like it was very long ago. If it were, we’d have seen thick camera filters and soft subtle lighting. We’re clearly meant to understand that Jude’s arrival at Briarcliff is recent.

Before the episode ends, Arden get’s crazier still. The scenes with him and the bizarre nun-fantasy were suspenseful and disturbing. We begin to fear for her when we realize that Doctor Arthur Arden has given her the name “Stanley.” Going through the photo array with her, I was unnerved, then horrified…then kinda stoked. I presumed Arden was Bloody Face, though I guess it’s too early to say that for certain. I was thrilled when the happy hooker got away, but then…yikes! You know the next unfortunate call girl won’t be so lucky. As for the call girl, I had to cringe when she said, “I can be classy if you want.” No dear, I’m not sure that you can. If I ever hear the phrase “mossy bank” again, it will be too damn soon.

Tricks and Treats culminates with the brutal end of Jed’s exorcism, and Lana foiling an escape attempt because it included Kit. Get that? Lana foiled her own escape. She could have left and she didn’t. Sister Jude was not impressed. The dénouement was gruesome, as we learned that Jude is ghastlier than we realized, taking clear pleasure in administering an ungodly 40 whacks with those freaky scourges they keep around. Screw you, Lana. Seriously.

This week focused on Jude and her frustration with her terrible past and current inability to bust through the holy glass ceiling. We met Doctor Thredson and began to get a sense of him. And we learned some new and horrifying things about Doctor Arden. We know that Kit really does believe he saw “men from space,” and that a hospital full of professionals didn’t quite notice Sister Mary Eunice get possessed by a demon right before their eyes. Can’t wait to see where that goes.

See you next week!

–Wednes