Episode 4: I Am Anne Frank, Pt. 1
By Christine Petralia





Images courtesy of FX Networks
November 8, 2012
Episode 4: I Am Anne Frank, Pt. 1 (Aired November 7, 2012)
No present day in this episode. And no mention of Bloody Face. It drives right in with the admission of a new patient who claims to be Anne Frank (Franka Potente). She tells Sister Jude that she was at Auschwitz and Dr. Arden was a Nazi guard there. She claims that he experimented and tortured women at the concentration camp.
Sister Jude gets wind that two homicide detectives are interviewing Dr. Arden about his ‘incident’ with the prostitute. They tell Sister Jude he is accused of attacking the woman and having Nazi memorabilia. He denies all claims and storms out. Sister Jude calls Msgnr. Howard to let him know about the claims, but he just expresses concern about her recent binge drinking and dismisses the accusations against Dr. Arden. He later makes a phone call to Arden warning him ‘they are on to you,’ get rid of evidence.
Meanwhile, around the asylum, Dr. Thredson tells Lana Winters that if he can ‘cure’ her, she can leave Briarcliff. She begrudgingly agrees to try his therapy if it means leaving. Later on, he tries aversion/conversion therapy with her, first trying to program her body to be repulsed by women and then by bringing in a man to see if she can get herself off while in his presence. It doesn’t work. Dr. Thredson still assures her that when he leaves in a week, she will be leaving with him, he just has to figure out a way how. I’m not really sure if he’s taken a liking to her, or if he genuinely feels the same way she does about the asylum and is helping her leave so she can expose its ways.
And over in another section, Kit and Grace get closer. She reveals to him why she was committed, saying that she was set up by her step-sister and her lover who claimed she killed her father and step-mother. They consummate their relationship in the kitchen and are caught. Sister Jude suggests sterilization as a punishment for both of them. When Sister Jude gets called away, Grace is brought to her cell, while Sister Mary leaves out Grace’s file for Kit to read why she is actually inside the asylum. Kit later confronts Grace about the truth, where she reveals that she did, in fact, kill her father and step-mother, only because he raped her as a child and her step-mother ‘gave her candy to keep quiet.’ Kit then visits Sister Jude and tells her he wants to find God so he can figure out if he did kill those women and his wife.
And lastly, Dr. Arden continues to work on his latest patient, Shelley. When Anne Frank confronts and shoots Arden, she finds Shelley, disfigured, in a locked room outside Arden’s lab.
I really want to get to the bottom of Arden’s storyline. And why was Msgnr. Howard warning him. What are they really up to? Is he in on the ‘experimentation’ too? I know Sister Mary is. But with her possessed, who knows what the hell is going on. And Sister Jude is just plain losing it and, it seems, control of her asylum.
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