The Sanatorium
The sanatorium in freak show isn’t something I have many people talking about and I just want explain my thoughts on it in the context of the series .
The very existence of the sanatorium feels like a way to get rid of the “undesirables“ within kade. A school built for monsters to rehabilitate those into human society mind you. And as the episodes go on the school feels more like a place for monsters like mark. Monsters who are ignorant about human society rather then those actively dealing with a more destructive nature. I mean the school has a whole class dedicated to rehabilitation but from what we’ve seen of the class it’s either going over human concepts like empathy or things like forks. It’s more like a social studies class rather than a place being used to help students change their behavior or even their thinking. Sera has been at this school for a 100+ years and nothing changed until she met rev. Same with Bella as she was dealing with severe guilt over the massacre of her classmates and nobody stepped in. It got so bad that she was about to allow the ghosts of her past (pun intended) take her life until rev again stepped in. And it’s wild to think that a suicidal teen has done more for his classmates than the adults that are supposed too be responsible for them. Clubs like the house is just one of the main examples of how Kade is just letting their students slip through the cracks. As both Mary and Roman have fallen under the influence of Nayarla, a being bent on destroying Viviana. During episode three of season two we saw first hand how chaotic the sanatorium is and it just shows just how little Viviana cares about those she deems as unfixable as she doesn’t even have people down there except for the banshee making sure that the students aren’t harming each other or themselves. Mary quite literally killed several people down there and the adult in charge didn’t even show up and was kind of just absent during it.( though this might be do to Nayarla’s ability).However, in-fact many of the other students down there are shown to be not only dangers to themselves but to others and nothing is seen being done about it. And the inclusion of the isolation ward only further proves how horrible this place is as it is a fact that being put into isolation is a proven method of torture. Wendy who was down there for a few weeks at most came out of it way worse than she was in the first place. And rev‘s comment about being put in the isolation ward doesn’t help as he’s canonically very suicidal and just has very destructive tendencies. Being sent here wouldn’t make him better it would just worsen the main problem. It also isn’t very clear if students can be discharged from this place but that feels highly unlikely. Also are these students guardians if they have any aware of their students situation or is she just institutionalizing children with out contacting them.
I know that this is a place for monsters of which she couldn’t rehabilitate but what she is doing seems to be making these monsters worse. I hope the series makes this a point of conflict in future episodes now that Wendy is back. Because, despite being monsters she couldn’t redeem the students of the sanatorium don’t deserve to be forgotten and they sure don’t deserve to be neglected. As we’ve seen in the series in characters like Bell and Sera their is still room for growth and all that they need is someone to care enough to take the first step in helping them. I hope that they are setting up rev bringing Kade‘s issues with Rehabilitation to light and that rev brings about a positive change for those who are slipping through the cracks of Viviana‘s faulty logic. But those are just my thoughts on this issue.
