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"Spilt Milk" is the eleventh episode of Asylum. It premiered January 9, 2013.

Synopsis[]

Grace brings Kit devastating news about the extraterrestrials' experiments on AlmaDr. Thredson receives an unexpected visitor. The Monsignor goes to extreme lengths to silence Sister Jude.[1]

Plot[]

2012 or 2013[]

Johnny Morgan relaxes in his home (once the home of Dr. Thredson, his father), smoking from a hash pipe. Pandora, a postpartum prostitute, knocks on his door. He has prepared a hefty amount of cash in return for a specific service - his desire to suckle from her lactating breasts. To add to the sensation, she engages in an enticing conversation with him beforehand. In the midst of their foreplay, he whispers that he'd kill for the chance to suckle on her.

Johnny finishes his "meal". Pandora says she thinks he has a "Mommy fixation," but he clarifies that his fixation is specific: he feels abandoned by his estranged mother, Lana Winters.

Disturbed by Johnny's violent emotional outbursts at the recollection of his mother's actions - i.e., supposedly refusing to breastfeed him and murdering his father - Pandora tries to console him, but only increases his anger. She offers both her other breast and sexual intercourse in an attempt to defuse him, but at her innocent claim that she is "bursting out of her skin" he snaps and begins to strangle her.

1965[]

Thredson and Carl get Kit from his cell in solitary and bring him to the common room to see his baby. Pepper defends Grace and her baby from onlookers in the common room. Smiling, Grace tells Kit she intends to name the baby Thomas, after her grandfather. Thredson redirects Pepper to be taken for hydrotherapy. All the other patients leave the family alone in the common room, and Kit holds him. He asks Grace for answers from her disjointed memories.

She recalls implantation of a fetus that had developed outside her. She also remembers that despite their good intentions, the extraterrestrials make mistakes, including one involving Alma's death. She tells Kit that he is the link between the human and otherworldly life and that their baby is special and will change the way people think. He responds by asking Grace to marry him.

The Monsignor enters with some staff members and Sister Collette, an elderly nun who intends to take the baby to St. Ursula's Home for Lost Children. Kit and Grace protest, since Thomas is not 'lost' but the Monsignor and Sister Collette point out that the child is not safe within an insane asylum with two patients as his parents. Carl restrains Kit while they take the baby away and Thredson says he may be able to help.

Sister Claudia, the Mother Superior, pulls Lana aside and tells her that she is will help her get out of Briarcliff with her patient file as evidence. Mother Claudia wants her to write her exposé and dismantle Briarcliff. Before Lana exits, she retrieves the hidden confession tape and thanks the catatonic Judy before leaving, promising to come back for her.

As the disguised Lana makes her way down Sr. Jude's "Stairway To Heaven," Thredson tries to convince Kit to get Lana to turn over the tape. Lana sees this and Kit, distracting Thredson, makes sure she overhears Thredson's plan. Thredson, suspecting something, follows her outside where she's already entered a waiting taxi. Looking back at him, she holds the tape up to the window and gives him her middle finger before the taxi drives away.

When Thredson returns home to his apartment, Lana confronts him with a gun. She says she has given the tape to the police and that they'll be coming for him soon. He responds that he is relieved and tired of living with his murderous secrets. While they're waiting he makes a martini, as Lana keeps her gun trained on him.

Lana wants to know what happened to Wendy's body, and what Dr. Thredson did to her. Turning on the gas fireplace, he admits he was going to dispose of the body following her murder, but kept it on ice "for practice." Inexperienced in the sexual act, he attempted intercourse with the corpse in a variety of ways until, after turning her dead gaze away from him, he was finally able to climax. He disposed of the dismembered body after Lana escaped, cremating part and scattering what remained across the state.

When Thredson refills his drink, flashing police lights show through the windows. He guesses that Lana will never keep the baby now that she is out of Briarcliff, so he can't expect to ever see his child. She agrees with him, reveling in the fact that he will go to the electric chair even if the baby is born. Contradicting her, he insists that he will be institutionalized as a "clearly insane" killer, and live a long life under care. Reaching casually for a gun hidden in his drinks cabinet, he over-confidently states that Lana can be of no more use to him, except as his final victim - only for Lana to preempt him, shooting him in the head. 

Months later, at a mausoleum, Lana, joined by their friends, Lois and Barb, lays white roses next to Wendy's crypt. Despite Lois' offer to be her roommate, Lana tells them of her plans to move to New York. Though her friends lay the blame for Lana's trouble on Sr. Jude, Lana blames her instinct as a reporter; had she not so doggedly pursued the Bloody Face, the Briarcliff story, none of her misfortunes might have happened. When paparazzi arrive to capture the "Sapphic" reporter mourning for her lover, her friends reluctantly leave, especially as Lois does not want to be outed as lesbian herself. As she is driven away her only comment to the reporters is "Read my book."

In the common room, Judy rejects daily medication, recalling that she had personally signed for horse tranquilizer in order to keep the patients docile. When the nuns caring for her insist, she overturns the tray with the rest of the pills.

Newspaper headlines claim Msgr. Howard refuses to comment about the hiring of Thredson, now publicly known as Bloody Face. Brother James asks the Monsignor to help with Judy's disturbance in the common room. When he attempting to calm her down she vindictively reminds him of his deflowering by the Devil. She questions if he will renounce his vows, but he will not, preferring to "stay the course," as he has recently been appointed Cardinal of New York. Unsurprised by his dishonesty, she admits the sordid sexual nature of her fixation with him, along with her blind devotion. As he turns to leave, she voices loudly her pity and disgust for his single-minded Papal ambitions. She claims she is now saner than she ever was before treatment. He bids the orderlies to take her to solitary.

Kit is presented with his release papers. Carl informs him that he no longer has any reason to be here, now that Thredson has been exposed and killed by Lana. Kit signs, and goes to see Msgr. Howard regarding his family. Kit leverages his knowledge of Briarcliff's secrets for Thomas' release and mentions that a death certificate is in the file for Grace Bertrand, creating a loophole for her release - all the Monsignor will have to do is release her "body" to him. Together, with the baby, they take a taxi home to Kit's old house. The abandoned house is still damaged from the initial abduction. Despite the happy atmosphere, a surprising discovery awaits: Alma is sitting on the bed inside their old bedroom. She is alive and holding a second baby.

Elsewhere, Lana explains the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy to a female doctor who performs secret, illegal abortions. Despite performing the procedure with actual medical tools smuggled out of a hospital, the procedure is still dangerous.  The instruments being sterilized only in boiling water. As the procedure begins, Lana thinks of the numerous horrors she has seen and undergone in the past year. At the last moment, she grabs the hand of the elderly woman, stopping the abortion; she does not want to add another death to those she has witnessed.

A few months later, a still-pregnant Lana discusses missing patients with detectives. Mother Claudia has been transferred to Puerto Rico, and the only remaining witness is Judy. They present a court order to Msgr. Howard, giving them access to Judy. He claims that she is dead, and shows them a death certificate saying she hanged herself, and the number for the canister containing her ashes in the Asylum's crypt. After the frustrated Lana and detectives leave, the rest of the facility is shown to be as chaotic as ever, except in one solitary cell. Judy, kept in a dilapidated room far from the other patients, sits praying furtively to Saint Jude for delivery.

Lana eventually gives birth, but refuses to be around the baby or let it pattern itself on her. The nurse brings in the crying infant, who is found to have an allergy to formula. She hopes that Lana would agree to let the ailing baby suckle to calm him down. Lana at first rejects the baby entirely, but then changes her mind, affected by his screams. As the baby, calming, begins to nurse from her, she sits back, allowing her gaze to travel to the crucifix above her bed. From her point of view, it appears inverted.

Featured Characters[]

Quotes[]

  • Pandora
    Are you hungry, baby? How bad do you wanna taste this?
    Johnny Morgan
    I'd kill for it.
  • Pandora: "Not once these triple D's come out to play, and trust me, I haven't had one complaint yet."
  • Dr. Thredson: "Living with secrets is not healthy."
  • Dr. Thredson
    Now that you're out of Briarcliff, you'll never keep that baby, will you?
    Lana Winters
    Not a chance in hell.
    Dr. Thredson
    So I shouldn't expect a little Oliver to come visit every few months?
    Lana Winters
    Oh, even if I had this thing, you'd never see him. You're gonna fry in that chair.
    Dr. Thredson
    I hardly think so, Lana... I'm clearly insane.
  • Johnny Morgan: "It's my mother. She's the one. The only one that can make me feel this way. Every time I think about her, it makes me wanna do things... Bad things!"
  • Lana Winters (on journalists): "We are vultures, attracted to the scent of rotting meat."
  • Detective
    You're one tough cookie, Ms. Winters.
    Lana Winters
    I'm tough. But I'm no cookie.
  • Sister Jude: "You will not prevail, Timothy...my God would never allow it!"

Notes[]

  • James Cromwell ("Arthur Arden") and Lily Rabe "(Sister Mary Eunice") are credited but do not appear.
  • The music played in the background during Lana's escape from Briarcliff is Helen's Theme composed by Philip Glass from the 1992 horror film Candyman.
  • According to Ryan Murphy, the intentional irony of the episode is that Johnny Morgan's ire against his mother and her supposed refusal to suckle him is unjustified - "he’s so full of remorse and hatred and bile for things he thought he didn’t get that he actually did get." [2]
    • In the same interview, Murphy confirmed that the fate of Pandora was deliberately not shown, but that "people should just presume she did not have a happy ending."

Raised Questions[]

Gallery[]

References[]

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