'American Horror Story: Asylum' - A Look Back at Bloody Face

“American Horror Story” is unique in that it acts as a stand-alone show and storyline each season, while reshuffling your favorite actors into new characters.

Season 2 of “American Horror Story” has about three major plotlines, but for the sake of brevity, I will focus on the plotline that opened and ended the season: Bloody Face.

In 1964, Kit Walker is arrested for allegedly killing his wife and two other Jane Does. The media rejoices, as they believe the elusive “Bloody Face” has been captured. He is brought into the Briarcliff  Asylum.

While Kit Walker is institutionalized, Bloody Face abducts and kills Wendy Peyser: Lana Winters’ girlfriend.

Kit Walker confides in the new doctor, Dr. Thredson, that he is innocent and wants to get out. Dr. Thredson believes him, but if he were to tell the judge that Kit was not insane, Kit would get the death sentence. So Dr. Thredson tells him the only way for Kit to be saved is to plead insanity, but he would have to admit the truth of killing his wife and those two women. Dr. Thredson assures him that if Kit listened to his own voice admitting the crimes, then he would believe it.

Dr. Thredson records Kit admitting to be the murders and to being Bloody Face.

Shortly after, Dr. Thredson helps Lana escape the corrupted asylum, believing her to be perfectly sane. He hides her at his house, because the police would be looking for her.

Inside Thredson’s home, Lana noticed several macabre objects like a lampshade made from skin, and a bowl carved from a skull. She excuses herself to go to the restroom and manages to find a room filled with bloody tools and body parts.

Thredson finds her and admits that he likes constructing furniture from human remains, but mainly human skin lampshades. He presses a button, and the floor underneath Lana opens, and she falls down into the basement.

When she comes to, she finds herself chained to a bed. Next to her was the frozen corpse of her girlfriend Wendy. Thredson appears and puts on his Bloody Face mask, which now include teeth from Wendy’s corpse.

Kit Walker was now framed, admitting to be Bloody Face, giving Thredson a free pass on his crimes.

The next morning, Dr. Thredson explains why he has to kill these people to Lana. He was abandoned by his mother as a child, and was forced to grow up in an orphanage. He longed for a mother figure his entire life. When he was in med school, and they were working on cadavers, the woman’s body he was assigned reminded him of his mother.

In attempts to feel comforted, he laid with the corpse but eventually got disgusted because her skin was cold and she reeked of formaldehyde.

He sought out other women after that, longing for a motherly touch. He concluded the secret of the magic touch was due to the woman’s skin, so he hunted women whose skin could potentially fill that void. However, if their skin did not do the trick, he would skin them alive and behead them. He firmly believed that Lana was “the One”.

Kit Walker calls Dr. Thredson, enraged that his taped confession was given to the police.

Thredson returns to the basement to take out his anger on Lana, but finds her trying to escape. He is not happy, feeling that his new mother Lana is abandoning him again. He dons the Bloody Face mask once again and prepares to kill her, but he begins to cry. He reveals that he heard Lana saying that even Bloody Face was once someone’s baby, which is why he believed she was the only one who could ever understand him.

Realizing his weakness and the only way to save her life, Lana calls him “my baby”, which prompts him to take off the mask and begin trying to nurse from her.

Thredson soon rapes Lana while she’s in a comatose state of emotion. He feels disgusted with himself and tells her that they are now at an impasse, and he has to kill her. As he tries, she struggles loose, and stabs him in the crotch with a needle, and makes her escape. She gets in a car crash and is returned to Briarcliff.

Thredson returns as well, and immediately finds her. He tells her he is going to use her skin to make a new Bloody Face mask, but he is knocked out by Kit. He and Lana drag Thredson into a rarely visited room and tie him up.

Lana discovers that she’s pregnant as a result of the rape, and she cannot have an abortion. She reveals to the bound Thredson that she plans to put the baby up for adoption, but, fearing the baby would have the same experiences he did, he begs Lana to give him a chance to be honest. He confesses that he is Bloody Face, and explains why he committed each murder.

Lana reveals that Kit was recording his confession the entire time. Then, as a double-whammy, she informs Thredson that she already aborted the baby.

Later on, Lana sneaks back into Thredson’s room to find that he has been discovered and released, and also learns that her abortion didn’t work.

Thredson now has free-reign of Briarcliff and tells Lana he is only keeping her alive to breastfeed the baby, and afterwards, she will be killed. He also tortures Kit in efforts to get the recording of his confession. Kit tells him where it is, but Lana had already moved it.

Thredson goes after Kit again, but Kit stalls him as Lana escapes Briarcliff, tape in hand, thanks to the help of one of the nuns.

When Thredson returned home that night, he finds Lana waiting for him with a loaded gun. The police were on their way. Lana wanted to know where Wendy’s body was now, but Thredson admits he used her body as practice, trying many times to have sex with it, and once Lana escaped him, he dismembered it, burned it, and scattered the ashes in various places.

Lana tells him he’ll never see their baby, but he disagrees saying that he’s mentally ill and will only have to live under care rather than get executed in a prison. Having heard enough, Lana pulls the trigger and kills Thredson.

In 2012, Johnny Morgan, son of Lana and Dr. Thredson, dons the Bloody Face mask and kills a couple visiting the abandoned and decaying Briarcliff.

Johnny seeks out a therapist and explains his trouble of bouncing around foster homes as a kid. He picked up a hobby of skinning animals, and soon developed urges to hurt and skin women. When he was later imprisoned, he traced his roots and found that he was the son of Bloody Face, though he was nowhere near as good as his predecessor. He eventually kills her after admitting who he was.

Johnny later hires a prostitute; one he makes sure is lactating, and breastfeeds from her, hoping to get some kind of motherly affection. He reveals to her how much he hates his mother, and what the prostitute tries to comfort him, he grows angry and strangles her.

After that, Johnny hunts down his mother’s novel (describing her experiences at Briarcliff and with Bloody Face). It’s the only first edition signed copy still available. The clerk refuses to sell it to him, so he asks to see the signature. He tells the clerk his plans of confronting Lana and then killing her in order to complete his father’s work. The clerk gives him the book.

In 2013, Johnny kills a crewmember on set of an interview with Lana. He lurks in the shadows until her interview is over. She is acutely aware of his presence, and surprises him when she calls him out and tells him she knows who he is, and, more importantly, why he’s there.

She tells Johnny that she never loved him, and neither did his father, despite what he wanted to believe. He puts a gun to her head, stating he just wants his father to be proud of him. She points out that his father was a monster, and since he comes from Lana as well, he can never be like his father.

She cradles his face, taking the gun from him. This causes him to break down and start crying, suddenly feeling guilty for all that he has done. She tells him it’s not his fault, and takes the gun and shoots him square in the forehead, before finally admitting that it was her fault.

So there you have it, the story of Bloody Face. While season 3 promises a new storyline with all new characters, what kind of plot do you think is in store?