Set in 1964, the season follows the patients and staff members of the church-owned mental asylum Briarcliff Manor, located in an undisclosed town in Massachusetts, which was founded to treat and house the criminally insane. Kit Walker, accused of being a prolific serial killer named “Bloody Face” after the disappearance of his wife Alma is incarcerated at Briarcliff. This piques the interest of ambitious journalist Lana Winters, who is yearning to find a story for her big break in Briarcliff, where many other patients claim to be unjustly institutionalized. The institution is run under the watchful eye of the stern Sister Jude, as well as her second-in-command, the naïve Sister Mary Eunice, and the founder of the institution, Monsignor Timothy Howard. Briarcliff's inhabitants are routinely subject to supernatural and scientific influences, including demonic possession and extraterrestrial abduction.