Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for season 6 of American Horror Story.
Let's be honest: The best part of any American Horror Story season is the suspense. Nobody knows that better than Ryan Murphy, who provided us with no less than 15 teasers to throw us off the scent of the latest season's true theme.
Told through the lens of a mock documentary, we now know that season 6 will focus around the events plaguing the lost colony of Roanoke, where 117 men, women, and children mysteriously disappeared in 1590.
But what we don't know could fill a very long book. Who built the house that Shelby and Matt Miller move into? Why does the ground appear to be breathing? What is that strange creature we see in the home video? What's with all the pigs? Why do I keep thinking about Murder House?
Join us as we embark on a journey through the rabbit hole of American Horror Story theories, where only the bravest dare venture. After all, as Shelby tells us in the premiere: "Humans respond to fear in two simple ways: fight or flight.”
Let's talk about the trees.
At the end of episode 2, Lee discovers her missing daughter's yellow hoodie hanging from the very top of a tree. It seems like a coincidence, but I doubt it. We've had a lot of tree imagery so far.
Exhibit A: The Roanoke logo, which features a tree with bloody roots.
Exhibit B: Both the Murder House and Roanoke's opening shots feature a camera moving through trees.
Exhibit C: Lady Gaga's comments about her character suggest something earthy: “The character I’m playing this year in Horror Story, she’s quite grounded," she said. “That might sound ridiculous once you see who she is, but she’s very ‘in the earth.'” Could she literally be a tree?
All this tree imagery also suggests that something grotesque is lurking beneath the surface, poisoning the land, the house and its roots.
Photo: FX/Youtube.
"The Twilight Zone."
Ryan Murphy has repeatedly hinted at the fact that this season of AHS will feature a major twist. The documentary gimmick, while cool, doesn't really deliver on that promise, which has led some fans to speculate that something bigger will happen.
Cuba Gooding Jr, only raised expectations when he hinted that the season reminded him of The Twilight Zone. “When you see this season, you’ll realize how to interpret that Twilight Zone idea to an entire other level," he told Vanity Fair. "When your head goes ‘boom’ and you’ve got brains all over the wall, you’re going to be like, ‘Motherf---ing Cuba Gooding Jr.‘ I wish I could tell you when it happens, but I can’t.”
So the good folks at Vanity Fair came up with a possible outcome: What if the IRL Matt, Shelby, and Lee are filming this whole documentary back at the haunted house? That means that the actor-versions of Matt, Shelby and Lee are there with them. Will we see them interacting, thereby breaking the fourth wall? Will whatever terrorized the real characters come back to haunt everyone?
The promo for the third episode seems to suggest just that.
Photo: FX/Youtube.
Everything is fake.
Continuing in the vain of the "Fourth Wall" theory — what if the documentary format is fake? All the Matt, Shelby and Lees could turn out to be actors, starring in a documentary-style show within the show. It's not impossible. With the rise in popularity of true crime documentaries, it's not a stretch to believe that producers would want in, even if it means fictionalizing some details.
I could totally foresee a plot twist in which we find out that everything leading up to this point has been scripted, only to have the real shit go down.
What if the hauntings are only beginning?
Photo: FX/Youtube.
Shelby sacrificed her baby's life for Matt's life.
All credit goes to Reddit user SweetBaconTater, who points out that it might not be a coincidence that Shelby loses her baby right as Matt regains consciousness after being seriously injured in a "knockout" game.
According to this theory, Shelby is a witch who could have used a spell called "Vitalum Vitalis" (you might remember it from AHS: Coven), which gives whoever casts it the power to balance one life against another.
The Roanoke creature is Piggy Man from Murder House.
If you recall, in episode 6 of AHS season 1, Ben gets a new patient who is terrified of Piggy Man, a monstrous urban legend who slaughters all those who repeat the words, "Here piggy piggy, pig pig," while staring into a mirror.
One redditor claims that the pig-like creature we catch a glimpse of in the home video found in the basement is the same monster. According to Murder House lore, Piggy Man was supposedly a hog butcher in Chicago during the 1903 World's Fair. After a mysterious disappearance, he allegedly returned for his victims wearing a mask made from one of his kills.
Who says he didn't make a little North Carolina pit stop in-between?
Photo: FX/Youtube.
At first glance, it seems as though Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr. are actors in a dramatic reenactment of Shelby and Matt Miller's life. But what if Lily Rabe and Andre Holland are actually acting out fake dialogue describing the events which eventually lead to the REAL Millers' deaths?
Photo: FX/Youtube.
Lee also has ties to Murder House.
Adina Porter, who plays real-life Lee (as opposed to Angela Bassett, depicted here) also appeared in Murder House as a patient of Ben's. She kills herself after finding out her husband is leaving her after 23 years of marriage because of how boring she is.
Photo: FX/Youtube.
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We've heard about Roanoke before.
Not so much a theory as a reminder, but given how many Murder House callbacks we've already explored, it's worth remembering how we first came to know about it.
In episode 11 of Murder House, "Birth," Tate and Violet learn about the 117 Roanoke citizens who were mysteriously wiped out and later haunted a nearby Native American tribe. Known as the "Ghost Colony," Roanoke was the site of the first successful exorcism as a tribe elder banished the evil spirits with one word: "Croatoan." Rumors that we would return to Roanoke started buzzing after TMZ released set photos showing that same word carved into a tree.
It's also worth noting that the person giving out all this information is none other than Billie Dean Howard, the medium played by Sarah Paulson.
Photo: FX/Youtube.
Shelby has gone back in time.
When Shelby falls on the forest ground at the end of the first episode, she feels it moving under her, almost like a breath. Could this warping mean she's going back in time? That would explain the mob's strange Puritan attire — they could also be coming and going through the forest's fabric of time. Will she be blamed for whatever befell the citizens of Roanoke?
Photo: FX/Youtube.
Ryan Murphy has already confirmed that every season of AHS is connected. But how? This popular theory posits that every season represents one of the circles of hell described in Dante's "Inferno," an iconic chapter from his 14th-century poem, The Divine Comedy.
According to Jacqueline Bircher, the TV critic at Red Herry who first came up with the idea, the seasons break down as follows:
Murder House: lust
Think about it: Who gets through this season without cheating on their significant other? No one, that's who.
Asylum: fraud
Lana Winters gets into Briarcliff under false pretense — and then gets a taste of her own medicine when she is held there as a fake inmate.
Coven: treachery
No one stabs you in the back like a group of angry witches.
Freak Show: greed
Elsa's quest for fame and fortune leads to the downfall of her family of freaks.
Hotel: gluttony
The residents of the Hotel Cortez all have their own addiction, be it sex, heroin, or blood.
That leaves four sins (limbo, anger, heresy, and violence) unaccounted for — Roanoke Nightmare has yet to be categorized — although there's a good case to be made for limbo as an overarching theme encompassing all the seasons. But the good news is, if this theory pans out, we've still got three more seasons of AHS to look forward to. Fingers crossed!
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