Like a tweet sent at 4 a.m. by the president,American Horror Storyusually leaves us with far more questions than answers. Each week, we’re going to take a deeper look into every question the anthology gore-a-palooza needs to A.
InCult’s debut episode, we finally learned that the seventh installment ofAmerican Horror Story—the cornerstone of FX’s “American [BAD THING] Story” franchise—involvesRyan Murphytaking every “what if the real American Horror Story is…us?” joke ever made and copy-pasting it into a script, positing the theory that in the wake of the 2016 Presidential Election, the United States has devolved into a society of vigorously masturbating circus clowns. It isn’t 100 percent accurate, but it’s notnot100 percent accurate. It’s also a bit overwhelming, and we do have some questions:
What Is This Season Really About?
If it’s one thing you can count onAmerican Horror Storyto do—besides drastically decline in quality somewhere around episode 4 each season—it is pull the old magician’s trick of showing you one thing while doing another.Murder Housewas the story of a family fighting ghosts the entire time, until it was about them becoming ghosts themselves.Freak Showwas about a killer clown, until Professor Quirrell from the first Harry Potter book arrived to murder that killer clown in episode 3.Roanokewas about a documentary, but then I thinkKathy Batesactually showed up to set on bath salts and tried to killAngela Bassettwith a meat cleaver. Or something like that. There was a lot going on inRoanoke.
Mypointis that The Election = Bad, America = Horror Story, Voters = Cult Members are some grade school-easy layups. This show may consistently deliver its point of view with the subtly of Sarah Paulson personally coming to your home and nailing Ryan Murphy’s script notes to your door, but it’s never been boring.
Who Exactly Is the “Cult” In Cult?
Again, this really all depends on if this season ofAmerican Horror Storyhas something clever up its sleeve, or if it genuinely thinks the idea that the people who voted a sentient sack of bigoted potatoes into the White House are just as deluded as cult members is a clever enough analogy to carry an entire season of TV. That’s an idea your least interesting Twitter follower pitched, like, two years ago. That’s like making a zombie movie in 2017 where the twist is the zombies were office workersthe entire time.
Maybe I’m putting too much faith in a show that once heavily featured a character that had lobster hands, whose entire arc was “kind of wishes he didn’t have lobster hands.” But it’s actuallyEvan Peters’ blue-haired Kai Anderson that most intrigues here, a character planted somewhere between a Joker origin story and the more realistic sequel to CBS’Young Sheldon. His pinkie-finger rituals and apparent indoctrination ofBillie Lourd’s Winter Anderson are cult-like, yes, but if this show wants to take a path that is both realisticandunderexplored, look no further than the wannabe Mansions very much like Kai Anderson who haunt the internet forums of the world. America is a shit-show, we know that; but how many people really know the surreal, bone-chilling experience of something like spending more than a minute on r/The_Donald?
Are These Clowns Real Or What?
In my limited but nonetheless expert experience, when something arrives in an ice cream truck to murder your neighbors and draw a smiley face in blood on the walls, that “something” is no longer a figment of your imagination. I don’t care how many irrational phobias you have, or how long it’s been since you made your wife played byAlison Pillorgasm.
ButAHS: Cultis sure enjoying playing with whether or not the clowns scooting around town and banging in the frozen food aisle actually exist outside the head of Paulson’s Ally Mayfair-Richards. Keep in mind, the only two people who actually “saw” the clown crew murder the couple across the street are Winter—someone that did not immediately question why her housemate’s face was covered in pureed Cheetos—and Ally and Ivy’s son, Oz. I’m not saying Oz committed the murders himself, but I am saying that one of the top ten causes of death across all of horror movie history is innocent-looking little boys with curly hair and glasses.
What Is Twisty’s Role In All This?
It’s entirely possible that Ryan Murphy is simply utilizing the gift that isJohn Carroll Lynchwhile also apologizing for wiping out the only interesting part ofFreak Showless than a quarter of the way throughFreak Show.
Or—and bear with me—the first non-paranormal, based-on-a-true-story of American Horror Story is going to be Murphy’s way of combining and consolidating all of the paranormal seasons that came before it, all within the head of Ally Mayfair-Richards. She’s deathly afraid of clowns (Freak Show), but also mentions to her psychiatrist Election Night has “triggered all the old phobias.” She goes on to list them, each corresponding in imagery or theme to a pastAHS: Confined spaces (Murder House), blood (Hotel), particles in the air (Coven), the dark (Roanoke), that “coral thing that’s been staring at me since I came in here.” While there hasn’t been an underwater season ofAmerican Horror Storyheavy on coral imagery (not yet), there was an abusive orderly inAsylumnamed “Carl.”
Separate but somewhat related theory: That psychiatrist, played by Cheyenne Jackson, is either a part of whatever evil is occurring in this small town or an aggressively terrible psychiatrist. “I do worry that she’s exhibiting signs of agoraphobia,” he says in the episode two preview, referring to the woman who can’t go into public without brandishing a Rose bottle at imaginary clowns. Very astute observation. Hope that medical school debt was worth it.
