Season Analysis: AHS: Asylum had enough intriguing setpieces, probing philosophical quandaries, and stellar acting to offset the (relatively little) nonsense.

AHS_S02E05_Shelley_Mutated

“I Am Anne Frank, Pt. 2”
The Anne Frank storyline – like much of American Horror Story – seemed extraneous by season’s end, though it was fun while it lasted.  But the storyline that gives this episode its title wasn’t even what made it a great episode.  Rather, it was a series of moments that established how the rest of the season was going to spiral outward and forward: Dr. Arden threatens Sister Jude, who falls back to her old alcoholic ways; Dr. Thredson reveals himself as Bloody Face as he traps Lana in his basement; and in the scariest shot of the season, Shelley is discovered hiding in the stairwell by a school playground, a grotesque, mangled abomination of her former self.

Honorable Mention: “Unholy Night,” thanks to the immortal line, “There is no god, but there is a Santa Claus.”