American Horror Story: Asylum premiere review: Crazy, crazier, grossed out!

American Horror Story is back! I don’t know if the premiere was just so good, or just utterly crazy. But it certainly left me impressed. I think the amount of different angles in the episode was a bit too much. Aliens, a serial killer, a crazy nun, a crazy doctor, an armless horny guy and the thing that took his arm. Am I forgetting anything else? Anyway, I think the main storyline has the potential to be great, but there was too much going on to enjoy the main storyline.

I’m not trying to gross anyone out, but you know that face you had while watching this picture (to the right). Yeah, that was my face for most of the episode. So now we’re on the same page!

I think the “lovers” storyline wasn’t really necessary. It wouldn’t really have made any difference. Yeah okay, now we know that thousands of people died in there. So what? I think they’re aiming for the reverse-storytelling of last year. (Flashbacks to the past and then the main storyline, with now flashforwards to the future and then the main storyline.) Adam Levine got to play his dream role of a horny husband, so everybody’s happy!

Almost everybody’s back for the second season, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Lange flourishes as the head bitch/nun in charge, with the ’60s timeframe as her best accessory. It was clever thinking, for tackling the issues like the gay couple in this specific time frame. I’m not sure how I feel about the alien storyline. That was the “this is too much” part from the episode.

For the most part, this episode was about setting up the whole world of the Briarcliff. We’ve got to see a glimpse of everything really. Even though the head nun seems kind of crazy for locking up a gay journalist or an innocent who’s being accused of being a serial killer (who happens to be married to a coloured girl.). For now, it seems like she’s doing this for her faith in the Lord and not because she’s not right in the mind. That’s the difference between her and the loony doctor. She’s doing this for ‘God’ and he’s doing it in the name of science. That’s the part I’m excited for, to see that dualism!

I didn’t know what to expect from American Horror Story: Asylum, and I’m left with mixed feelings. Do I want to keep watching a season with more than a dozen different storylines? Probably not, but I’m confident that this was just a bad case of pilot-itis.