It’s the Booze Talkin’, We can’t wait to see AHS tie it all together!

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

I love American Horror Story. Like many relationships of course, there are rough patches and perhaps a disagreement or so. Throughout the series’ six seasons, there are certainly times that have frustrated this viewer. Yet I always come back. When they technically replaced Jessica Lange with Lady Gaga, it didn’t sit well with me. I mean seriously, Gaga has nothing on the Academy Award, Tony and Emmy winning actress. Yet still, the fifth season entitled Hotel had enough stylized horror to keep me entertained. Plus, you still have the amazing Sarah Paulson, Angela Bassett and Kathy Bates classing up the hyper-sexual and bloody horrors that Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have crafted.

Like many of you, I was patiently waiting for the latest season of AHS. Shrouded in mystery, we had no real idea of what to expect. And frankly, after watching the first episode, I’m still unsure. Did I enjoy the hour? Yes I did. Hell, I tend to adore television shows like My Haunted House or what have you so the context was not lost on me. I dug for the most part the talking heads telling their personal scary tales while actors recreate their paranormal accounts. It’s a fascinating move for a series that has fully embraced the wild and the weird – something that has turned some viewers off. So far, this season takes on the subtle terrors of a couple living in a haunted house. Subtitled “My Roanoke Nightmare,” there are a few implications as to where this season will go, notably the 1590’s Roanoke Colony disappearance.

This season, the cast includes regulars Bates, Paulson, Bassett, Lily Rabe, Denis O’Hare, Evan Peters and Wes Bentley. There are a couple of new cast members with Cuba Gooding Jr. and André Holland joining in the nightmarish fun. What I’ve always appreciated about the series is  how they treat the cast like season players. It’s thrilling to see what the creators have in store for Paulson or Bates, or what kind of brooding will the talented Peters get to do this year. And while Roanoke seems to be a very different take on the series, with actors literally playing different versions of the same characters, will we be seeing more of a connection to the previous AHS entries? 

From a Murder House to a creepy Hotel, the series has gone to a number of strange places. Some of them terrifying, others have been overtly bizarre as opposed to scary. Every season different, the monsters and the mayhem are all unique to the specifics of each particular story. However, we’ve had a rare glimpse of characters appearing in one season, who have an encounter later on. We saw Paulson’s Billie Dean Williams, Dr. Charles Montgomery (Matt Ross), Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe), Sister Mary Eunice McKee (Rabe), Pepper (Naomi Grossman) and a small handful of others appear in later episodes. The most powerful was probably the heartbreaking backstory of why Pepper landed in Season 2 Asylum – one of the best moments from Freak Show.

The thing is, seeing these recurring characters pop up one or two seasons is an enticing idea for this viewer. Watching the actors stretch themselves and play such varied roles is great, but I also love the idea of the worlds colliding. What happened to Jessica Lange’s psychotic child in Season 1 is an example – you know that one will come up later. Perhaps the Roanoke story is a way to bring some of the previous stories to life, but my guess is that this is not the season where we will be playing connect the dots. Judging from the first episode, it feels as though this will be a very specific timeline, yet perhaps it will somehow bleed into what we’ve seen before. As much as I love the singular pattern of each season, you just know that they will try like hell to bring it all together – most likely in the final season.

Maybe it’s the booze talkin’, but we can’t wait to see American Horror Story tie it all together. I enjoy the structure of the series quite a bit. However, every single time I run into a previous character on a new season, I get even more excited. The series, for me at least, has been an entertaining ride that could bring the whole damn thing crashing down in a glorious way. Maybe you could only really achieve a merging of the past, present and future in the series mythology for the final decent into darkness. If that’s the case, here is hoping when they do, they can give us one hell of a final horror story. All I ask is that they bring back Ms. Lange. It won’t be the same without her.