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This week gave us another brutal episode of American Horror Story: Asylum. “Dark Cousin” brought us the return of someone many fans were waiting for, along with stunning visual imagery, a surprising amount of kissing, and a bit of a comeuppance for someone that was long overdue. A nasty creature is someplace it shouldn’t be while Frank continues to nod his head and believe absolutely anything he’s told. What is it with that guy anyway? One of our favorite nuns asserts herself, and another picks up an old habit. Ha! Nun? Habit? Thank you…I’ll be here all week.

Let’s get right into it. Frances Conroy is back, with both eyes intact. Woot! Ms Conroy was delightful last season as the modern day version of the Harmon’s sexy maid. She cut a striking figure this week as the Angel of Death, and purported cousin to whatever the hell is sharing a body with Sister Mary Eunice. The episode opens with a few nuns discussing Lilies of the Field, because apparently nuns only see movies about Jesus, Moses, or other nuns. The pair notice that Grace is hemorrhaging after her hysterectomy by Dr Arden. The Dark Angel appears to Grace, but the nuns bring her back before the Kiss of Death can be administered.

Dr Arden and Sister Mary Eunice have a wonderful scene wherein she asserts her dominance on the ward. He denies botching the hysterectomy. In fact, he denies performing it at all. Is Mary Eunice messing with him? Or is he lying? Either scenario is as likely as the other. Arden intends to restore Grace back to health if only to prove what a good doctor he is. What a prince! The good doctor goes so far as to strike the young nun. She strikes back. I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed Arden flying into the far wall and slumping to the ground like a sack of spuds. But I did.

That’s Sister Mary Eunice’s last happy moment of the episode, however. When disposable inmate character Miles calls the Angel of Death by writing her name in Aramaic (and blood) on the bakery wall, Mary Eunice is none too pleased. She angrily questions Miles, who swears he has no idea what it says or why he wrote it. While the Angel of Death does say her own name in the episode, I’m damned if I can figure it out. It sounds like J’hath, which to me sounds more like Dothraki than anything from the Christian bible.

The brutality continues at Chez Thredson. Thredson and Lana’s opening scene tonight felt like it went on forever. That disturbing, horrifying, gut-wrenching rape scene was just under one minute long. I’m not entirely sure where the sex fits in to the whole Mommy equation, but I think we can safely assume Thredson is a fan of Sophocles. The Dark Angel appeared to Lana, just before the commercial break.

Kit Walker has a meeting with his lawyer, who tells him that the confession looks very, very bad. The lawyer also says that Grace will not make a good witness since she’s a mental patient; and besides, she’s deathly ill. Upon hearing this, Kit smashes his lawyer in the head and escapes. Wouldn’t you know it? He’s actually breaking IN to Briarcliff to save her. Chivalry makes people do dumb things.

Back at Casa del Bloody Face, Lana declines the kiss from the Angel of Death. Thredson trots back to the basement, fully dressed and asking if Lana is “decent.” Rather a grotesque question to pose your rape victim. But see, Oliver Thredson is batshit crazy. He is now angry with Lana for making him rape her, and thereby changing the dynamics of their relationship. According to him, they are at an impasse. He offers her the option of a slit throat or a strangling before deciding that it won’t matter once he drugs her. She struggles, bashes, and steals the keys as she manages to make a spectacular escape. She fights and runs and kicks and runs some more, until she’s saved by a passing motorist in the form of one William Mapother. LOST fans may remember him as the hapless Ethan. We’re so excited and happy for Lana’s escape that we barely notice that something is very wrong with the driver of this car.

Mapother’s character, whose name we never get, is not having a very good day. Even though he’s not in an asylum, he’s pretty nuts. Suicidal, full of bile against women, and we learn that he was recently given the horns of a cuckold. Sucks to be him. And it sucks to be Lana, because the pissed-off driver blows his own head off, causing a horrible collision. Lana wakes up in…that’s right…Briarcliff. Worst. Luck. EVER.

We flash back to the night Jude discovered the murdered body of Goodwin the Nazi hunter. Jude calls for police, but flees when she realizes that Mary Eunice has set her up to take the fall for the murder. The motive comes in the form of newspaper clippings of Missy Stone, the girl in the blue coat that Jude hit and ran when she was drunk years earlier. We get more wonderful scenes with Jessica Lange and her descent into alcoholism, her horrible betrayal by her fiancé, and her attempted suicide in the restroom of a cheap diner. Jude is having such a bad night that not only is the Angel of Death checking up on her, but the waitresses actually contemplate calling Briarcliff to pick up Jude! The Dark Angel also visits Jude, but Jude insists that she has one more thing to do before she’s ready to die.

Lana wakes up and frantically insists on seeing Sister Jude. Sister Mary Eunice explains that Jude is gone, Thredson is not there, and that no one knows Lana is back at Briarcliff. Mary Eunice assures Lana that she’s safe now. Somehow, I don’t think she is.

Jude pays a visit to the parents of Missy Stone, the girl from the hit-and-run. After Jude tries for several embarrassing minutes to explain why she was there, Missy returns home from her shift as a nurse. See, Jude only assumed the girl was dead. Had she actually done the right thing at the time, she could have saved herself years of guilt.

Kit succeeds in breaking back in to Briarcliff. He finds Grace, but is also followed by one of Arden’s medical experiments, who kills a nun before Kit kills it. Walking into the chaos, Frank takes a shot at Kit that is received by Grace—right in the heart. Grace falls, and is visited by the Dark Angel again. This time, she finally gives Grace the Kiss of Death, and the gift of peace. Another fantastic episode!

See you’s next week!

–Wednes