2.4 I Am Anne Frank (Part 1) There’s a new addition to the liar’s club that is Briarcliff this week, and she’s gleefully throwing haymakers at Sister Jude and Doctor Arden throughout the episode. Brought in by the police for stabbing a couple of strangers for making anti-Semitic remarks (racism is another one of the show’s favorite talking points), a pretty Jewish woman is brought before Sister Jude and interrogated. When queried about her identity, she says she’s the most famous Holocaust death in America: Anne Frank (Franka Potente). Turns out she didn’t really die in the concentration camp after all, but after her father published her journals, she says the lie was more powerful than the truth. Anne Frank – the 15-year-old who hid in an attic to avoid the death camps – had to be dead. Other members of the ensemble cast tell lies for less altruistic reasons. During a very interesting reveal of her back story, this week the audience was revealed the truth and depth of Grace’s fiction in one of the show’s gorier moments from this season. We get two versions of what happened, Grace’s version and the version in Grace’s files, in two segments that seem inspired by Franka Potente’s breakout role in Run Lola Run. They’re basically the same scene, but with minor differences that add up to a completely different story. In the case of the show this week, I have to say that a wider focus across the whole of the cast – as everyone gets involved in some way – is a positive move for a back story show because there’s just such a strong cast of actors involved. Franka Potente was a wonderful addition to the cast and an extra catalyst for conflict between Arden, Timothy, and Jude, three of the strongest veteran actors on the show. Potente is no slouch herself as she sells a pretty hard character; she may or may not be the actual Anne Frank, but her story is good and her explanation for staying “dead” seems downright reasonable and uncharacteristically tastefully done, by AHS standards. Thredson’s attempts to cure Lana were a nice, sleazy counterpoint to the show’s classy handling of a Holocaust plot, though handled very well by Quinto and Sarah Paulson. Even considering the show’s reliance on horror elements, the strongest point of American Horror Story has been its actors. Tonight we got to speed up the action while watching them ply their trade with the various dreams, delusions, and fantasies of their characters, from Lana’s daydreamed journalism awards and Grace’s various lies to Anne Frank’s memories of a very young Dr. Arden in Auschwitz (they uncovered a great young James Cromwell lookalike). It wasn’t the most cohesive of episodes, but I think Sharzer and director Michael Uppendahl did a good job of giving the show a consistency of theme, if nothing else. Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, Noreaster, here. US Correspondent Ron Hogan finds himself strangely sympathetic to every character in the show, save perhaps Doctor Arden. Even Sister Jude is kind of sad! Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
