• Network: FX
  • Series Premiere Date: Oct 5, 2011
Season #: 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Metascore
65

Generally favorable reviews - based on 23 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 23
  2. Negative: 2 out of 23
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Critic Reviews

  1. Reviewed by: Willa Paskin
    Oct 17, 2012
    80
    Asylum dives right in on racism, homophobia and sexism, and wrings something emotional out of them.
  2. Reviewed by: James Poniewozik
    Oct 17, 2012
    80
    So far it works.... Asylum feels like a more focused, if equally frenetic, screamfest. It's also gorgeously realized.
  3. Reviewed by: Matt Roush
    Oct 17, 2012
    80
    Asylum delivers a much more evocative nightmare gallery without losing any of the franchise's provocative, look-ma-I'm-screaming bravado.
  4. Reviewed by: Jen Chaney
    Oct 16, 2012
    80
    This new Horror Story is nearly as depraved, unapologetically over the top and engrossing as the first season was.
  5. Reviewed by: Maureen Ryan
    Oct 16, 2012
    80
    It's to the credit of Asylum's writers, directors and cast that the emotional pain of the characters often feels as real as their uncertainty and terror.
  6. Reviewed by: Rob Owen
    Oct 15, 2012
    80
    In its first two episodes, AHS returns as a creepy, spooky jolt of unpredictable storytelling.
  7. Reviewed by: Ken Tucker
    Nov 1, 2012
    75
    Does it add up to a coherent whole? Impossible to say so far. Asylum is, in its opening episodes, more energetic and impishly funny than its predecessor.
  8. Reviewed by: Gail Pennington
    Oct 17, 2012
    75
    Like a good scare? How about a bad scare? Or a thousand scares, good and bad and crazy? Season 2 of "American Horror Story," subtitled Asylum, is for you.
  9. Reviewed by: Curt Wagner
    Oct 17, 2012
    75
    It's truly troubling to watch as helpless, restrained patients are treated against their wills. Yet despite mumbling over and over during the first episode, "I'm done with this already," I had to see the second.
  10. Reviewed by: Mark A. Perigard
    Oct 17, 2012
    75
    The first episode teases an exciting dynamic, with the possibility of forcing viewers to root for one monster over another.
  11. Reviewed by: David Wiegand
    Oct 16, 2012
    75
    Occasional PSA breaks aside, Asylum is all in great and occasionally gory fun, and the cast members deliver the over-the-top dialogue with a heaping topping of relish.
  12. Reviewed by: Zeba Blay
    Oct 16, 2012
    75
    The most interesting thing here is the show's willingness to take risks: killing off major characters, running about 18 different plot lines at once, incorporating racy psycho-sexual and religious undertones, asking more questions than it intends to answer.
  13. Reviewed by: Troy Patterson
    Oct 17, 2012
    70
    Less scary than freaky, it's deliberately unhinged-light horror about low camp, a showcase for scenery chewing and giddy blasphemy, an exploitation chamber piece.
  14. 70
    This is still a cheeky, trashy, nasty series, one that'll do or show pretty much anything if it thinks it'll get a rise out of you. But its sense of itself has become more refined.
  15. Reviewed by: Ellen Gray
    Oct 17, 2012
    70
    Not everyone's going to like this or other aspects of Sister Jude's story, which essentially does for nuns what the first season did for real estate agents. But it's the kind of cliché meant to appeal to parochial-school survivors of a certain age of which, yes, I'm one. And Murphy another.
  16. People Weekly
    Reviewed by: Tom Gliatto
    Oct 25, 2012
    63
    It's dark, big-top sadism, and we wait for a story to emerge. [5 Nov 2012, p.41]
User Score
8.3

Universal acclaim- based on 749 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 51 out of 749
  1. Oct 18, 2012
    10
    What
  2. Oct 18, 2012
    10
    This season is going to be a very fun ride! Jessica Lange is fabulous as always, the other returning cast members seem to be doing well withThis season is going to be a very fun ride! Jessica Lange is fabulous as always, the other returning cast members seem to be doing well with their new roles, and while after the premiere it does seem like a hodgepodge of different spooky story lines, there is no doubt that the show won't stop being one of the most entertaining things on television. Full Review »
  3. Jun 26, 2013
    10
    Asylum is scary and disturbing, walking on the same tone of complex and fantasy, mixes science fiction with horror which is great, it is tenAsylum is scary and disturbing, walking on the same tone of complex and fantasy, mixes science fiction with horror which is great, it is ten times scarier than the first, but less funnier, and short on the slow parts. Full Review »