End of the asylum on 'American Horror Story

Well, it was definitely a season.

Wednesday night's finale of "American Horror Story: Asylum" (really, the last two episodes) served as an epic epilogue to the story of Briarcliff.

We saw the opening scene of the season in Johnny's eyes (though honestly, it wasn't all that necessary), and we saw what became of Lana up until the present day. She was a celebrated author and journalist, on the eve of receiving a Kennedy Center Honor.

She sat down for an interview and spoke about how she returned to the asylum, searching for Judy. She was too late, as Kit took her in years earlier.

He told her the story of how he saw traces of life left in her, despite how the asylum broke her down. His children soon saw her as their "Nana," and she whispered words of advice to them on her deathbed. She told the angel of death that she was finally ready to go.

Kit would get remarried, and then get pancreatic cancer years later, before he suddenly disappeared. (The aliens came for him, and no, we still don't know any more about them. But who knows, they could return next season.)

Lana told the reporter about cornering Monsignor Howard, who refused to speak to her and committed suicide shortly afterward.

At one point, they took a break, and the crew member bringing her water was Johnny. She recognized him right away but said nothing.

Lana confessed for the first time that Johnny didn't die at childbirth. He was adopted, and she visited him just once in school, never telling him who she was.

After the reporter left, Lana told Johnny he could come out. "Let's get this over with," she said.

She asked Johnny how he got on the crew, and he explained that he slit the throat of a crew member, having heard about the interview. He told her he was going to kill her, simply by shooting her in the head. (And this being Dylan McDermott, he more yelled that than said it.) He wanted her to pay for abandoning him, and he wanted his father to be proud of him.

She slowly talked him down: "It’s not your fault, baby. It’s mine."

She helped him lower the gun from her head, as he started to weep. She then took the gun, and shot him in the head.

She then remembered the moment she first met Sister Jude all those years ago. Jude told her, "If you look in the face of evil, evil's gonna look right back at you."

And that's it! Was it all a bit anticlimactic? Did it not make much sense which characters got a happy ending and which ones didn't? Yes and yes. But that's "American Horror Story."

I will say that Tim Minear's writing really helped this finale work. Many individual scenes were good, no doubt. And this was a vast improvement over the first season.

So we'll just have to see what the next installment has in store for us. We know we'll see Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters again (good), and quite possiblyTaissa Farmiga from the first season. The rest is a mystery, but we're told the last few episodes contained clues to the next season.

So what are your thoughts on "Asylum" as a whole? Were you satisfied with the ending? Let us know on video or post a comment.