AHS: The True Story Behind Asylum's Weird Name Game Scene
American Horror Story has a dark sense of humor, and while the series mostly focuses on a horror vibe, it has had some lighthearted and comedic scenes – but one of its weirdest ones was the “Name Game” musical number in American Horror Story: Asylum, and here’s the story behind it. The horror genre has regained popularity in recent years both on the big screen and on television, and one of the most successful titles from the latter is American Horror Story, an anthology series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk.
Each season serves as a self-contained miniseries with a different horror theme at the core, though over the years, all seasons have created an American Horror Story universe thanks to references to characters and events from other seasons. It all began in 2011 with the season retroactively subtitled Murder House, and since then, AHS has explored a variety of horror themes and settings like witchcraft (Coven), circuses (Freak Show), different types of vampires, and more. AHS has been quite successful, but the season widely regarded as the show’s best is Asylum, which even though lived up to the series’ name and was terrifying, also had a very weird musical scene that doesn’t fit with the rest of the season.
AHS: Asylum took the audience back to 1964, to the fictional mental institution Briarcliff Manor. There, it followed the stories of some of the staff and its most notable inmates, such as Sister Jude Martin (Jessica Lange), Sister Mary Eunice (Lily Rabe), Dr. Arthur Arden (James Cromwell), Dr. Oliver Thredson (Zachary Quinto), and Kit Walker (Evan Peters). Asylum was full of twists and turns, such as the revelation of the true identity of Bloodyface and Sister Jude going from antagonist to victim, and during her time as an inmate at Briarcliff, she was at the front and center of a musical scene where she sang “The Name Game”. This was far from the horror vibe of the series, and as it turns out, this scene was Jessica Lange’s idea precisely to shake off Asylum’s grim vibe for a while.
The scene sees Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) approaching a drugged Jude and asking her if she remembers her, telling her she’s “Lana Banana”, as she used to call her. Lana asks Jude if she knows her own name, and Jude turns to the jukebox and plays “The Name Game”. Jude then envisions herself in a blue dress, singing to the rest of the inmates, who quickly join her, dancing around her. “The Name Game” scene in Asylum was Jessica Lange’s idea, and Ryan Murphy explained to EW in 2013 that Lange asked if she could have one song, as Jude used to be a lounge singer before becoming a nun. Murphy added that he “had always loved that song” and they found a way to make it work, and it mostly did because, at that moment, Jude was in the middle of a psychotic break. Speaking to Vulture that same year, Lange shared she asked Murphy for the musical number not only because of Jude’s past but because “everything we do is so grim”.
“The Name Game” scene in AHS: Asylum definitely stood out, as this was a particularly depressing season, but it also felt kinda off precisely because its tone was the complete opposite of that of the rest of the season. Asylum’s “The Name Game” number has been praised for bringing some lightness to Briarcliff and the season in general, but it also makes Jude’s story a lot sadder, as it’s a strong reminder of the person she used to be and the person she became through the horrors the Briarcliff staff put her through. “The Name Game” will be remembered as one of the most lighthearted moments in American Horror Story, even if it felt like a strange addition at first.