AHS Gets Real: What Should We Expect Next?

With its season-changing twist revealed, we know where American Horror Story will end up, but how will it get there?

Courtesy: twitter.com/AHSFX

In a rare, bold, and anxiety-inducing move, AHS: Roanoke’s Chapter 6 not only turned the tables on the show we thought we were watching and changed our perspective on the first half of the season, but essentially told us how the next half would end: with everyone dead except ONE. I am very excited to see where this is headed, but also I’m fairly terrified and incredibly skeptical. So I’m dealing with this the best way I know how: assessing the situation through Hamilton lyrics.

Who lives?

It seems as though we’ve met most of our key players already, but #1 they’re dropping like flies and #2 there are still a few missing characters, about whom I have some q’s. With the season’s new format, we’re getting to know all the “actors” who “played” the “real people” whose story was featured in My Roanoke Nightmare, and it’s all already so convoluted that I feel the need to put most terms in quotes because WHAT IS REAL EVEN?!?! And as aforementioned #1 states, we’re going to run out of people to pay attention to sooner than later, so perhaps #2 will solve this issue by introducing us to the missing players. Like Lady Gaga. And the Polk brothers and their Mama. And the “fake” Dr. Elias Cunningham. All I’m saying is that just because we’re already deep into the first episode of the SECOND show-within-a-show doesn’t mean we’ve no surprises left to endure. And if these surprises include being introduced to and delving into more new fake “real” actors being played by actual real-life actors, I wouldn’t complain. I would maybe continue to be supes confused about and unsure how to process the many different version of reality we’re dealing with. But complain, I would not!

Who dies?

Everyone! They all die! Except one person. This revelation was honestly as shocking as (if not MORE shocking than) the initial twist, because it’s not often in a television series we get to know the ending right at the beginning. And this tricky little plot device doesn’t just work to shock us; it actually makes the prospect of the rest of the season WAY more intriguing. We’re going to spend the next 4 episodes invested in the lives of these people, all the while know they’re soon-to-be goners. And while we’re now prepared for the deaths of our main cast, knowing AHS, we’re likely not prepared for the ways in which our actors will be knocked off. The revealing of major plot information to come forces the writers to be creative as they fill in the blanks, and subsequently gives the audience reason to be majorly invested and paying close attention as we piece together what we know has happened with what we know will happen. Good move, AHS. Now reinvigorate your four-seasons-long tradition and keep Sarah Paulson alive, mmmkay??

Who tells your story?

As we know, this season is not-so-gracefully but really-intriguingly taking on a Truman Show-esque “We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented” premise. And the ringmaster of the circus we’re getting to not only watch unfold but witness the orchestration of is Ryan Murphy stand-in Sidney James. In the single episode we’ve seen him in, he’s said at least 4 times and in 4 different ways, essentially, “I control the ‘reality’ of this reality show.” He’s insisted upon rigging the house in order to scare the cast at his will, and as such, I am now incredibly untrusting of any “scary” thing that happens. When “Agnes” burst through the window with her cleaver….was that Agnes, or a Sid set-up?! When the Pigman scares Audrey in the bathroom…Pigman or Sid?!?!? A perhaps damning piece of evidence that Sid is the answer to it all is the terrifying bloody man who follows Lee through the foyer…but not without stopping to look directly into the hidden(ish?) camera. How many undead demons have YOU experienced who know how to play to the audience??!?! I don’t know what’s fake-reality-show real and what’s fake-reality-show fake, but I DO know that for the rest of the season, we should be questioning the validity of every scare we encounter.

Courtesy: twitter.com/tinawargz

Tune in to find out who lives, who dies, and whether or not it’s Sid who’s telling our story Wednesdays at 10PM E.T. on FX.