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Last night's American Horror Story went where even 1984's notorious, depraved and once-protested Santa slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night wouldn't: It featured a man in a Santa costume assaulting a nun, punching and whipping her in the ultimate S&M roleplay of secular and religious reasons for the season. The full scene, in which Deadwood's Ian McShane plays a maniac exacting his revenge to Jessica Lange's Sister Jude for keeping him in solitary confinement, is above. Usually American Horror Story, which is so fucking great and trashy this season, merely goes over the top: here it goes over the top and through the chimney.

American Horror Story: Asylum's Christmas episode was the sickest holiday special I've seen since The Anna Nicole Show's Christmas episode. (Nothing, though, even approached the terror of Cousin Shelly's rendition of "The First Noel.") AHS also featured a (different) Santa getting shot and a kind of alien-induced, swapped-identity dream that took place in front of a Christmas tree. This episode is a new classic in the making. Angry parents, do you see what I see?