Here we are, one week away from the Season 2 finale of AHS…and what amounts to the series finale for the ASYLUM storyline. Things wound down quite a bit last episode, and this penultimate outing also proved a much quieter affair than most, maneuvering all the characters into position for what will undoubtedly be an epic closing chapter.

Tonight’s episode was presented as a series of short stories, with each major surviving character getting a whole section focused on them. First up…

Kit Walker
Last we saw Kit, he was returning home with Grace and infant baby in tow, only to find Alma already there with another baby. Tonight’s episode opens a couple of years later in 1967 with shots of the lovely home Kit, Grace and Alma have built for themselves, including a portrait of their very modern family. However, things aren’t so idyllic in the living room, where Kit is covered in blood and pulling an axe out of a dead body. *record scratch*

Next we go back in time to see how things arrived at such a bloody conclusion. Alma is busy in the kitchen talking about planting vegetables while Grace absentmindedly completes a charcoal portait of an alien. When Kit comes home, Alma tells him she’s worried about Grace — she’s afraid that Grace is dwelling on the past because she’s unhappy in the present. She tells Kit that Grace needs him, so he goes to her.

Grace tells Kit that she’s drawing the sketches for the kids because they need to know where they came from. She tells him she’s worried about Alma — she’s afraid that Alma wants to forget the past and pretend it never happened. (It’s fascinating to watch these two women have such wildly opposite reactions to the exact same event.) Kit comforts Grace and they end up having sex while his wife listens from the other side of the wall. Super awkward…