Dr. Rawlings' asylum Santa Barbara

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In May, 1986, further to the shock that Dylan Hartley's death caused her, Kelly Capwell is interned in a mental home managed with an iron hand by Dr. Rawlings. This latter limiting, or even forbidding the visits of her family, only her friends Justin Moore, then Pearl Bradford will defy prohibitions to look after her, as being interned as patients.

Dr. Rawlings' asylum seems to be only a succession of corridors and quite undifferentiated rooms, in pale colors and often empty of furniture and of decoration. Such a labyrinth, the corridors, corners and hidden recesses, create a feeling of confinement and breathlessness which, it only, could lead to madness.

The doors of the rooms, such of doors of prison, are full and always closed. A simple window with wire netting lets think that an exit is always allowed, that an escape is always possible.

Some doors hide specific places : file room, treatment room (by electric shocks !), isolation room, laundry...

Some others hide the bedrooms, sad and with Spartan comfort. Even the windows, if they throw a little of light, do not seem to give onto the outside.

The room the most appreciated by the residents is the ward, where they can finally reunite and talk to each other, at least when their pathology allows them to do it (patient Owen Coyle is afraid of foreigners, Alice Jackson is dumb...). It is in this room that Pearl receives several times the visit of Courtney Capwell who, come disguised, worries to know him locked. It is even since this room that Pearl will lead Kelly and his new friends through air ducts to escape from the establishment for one simple night of freedom.

The tour of the asylum would not be complete without Dr. Rawlings' office. This latter hides there his secrets, in a set more pleasant and richer than the rest of the place. The office also gives access to the file room, where Pearl will find information about his brother Brian, formerly treated by Dr. Rawlings.

The sets of the asylum, very successfully done, will disappear as from the end of Dr. Rawlings' storyline, without we really know, except for Kelly and Alice, what will happen to the other patients so often crossed in these corridors which we would like not to have to know ever...