Emily VanDerWerff of "The A.V. Club" thought the episode "embrace[d] all that's wondrous and all that's awful about this season of "American Horror Story", occasionally within the same scene or line of dialogue." She added, "This is a horribly messy piece of work that somehow gets to the heart of madness, and it's occasionally a starkly beautiful piece about survivor's guilt." About the episode, Matt Fowler of IGN stated, "Not that anything was overtly awful, but the pacing was such that you could just never get a hold on what was going on." He added, "I also don't want to fully penalize a show for pulling out all the stops and taking me on a completely unexpected journey."