American Horror Story: Coven Photos Show Kathy Bates And Angela Bassett All Dressed Up

As October inches closer, we're getting more and more looks at the upcoming third season of American Horror Story. Following up on the cast teaser for American Horror Story: Coven are two photos from the new season, one of which shows us Kathy Bates in her role as Madame Delphine DeLaurie, a woman who doesn't sound like she's nearly as sweet as Bates looks in that photo. Based on a historical figure known to torture slaves, EW says AHS: Coven's LaLaurie is just as terrible, and even likes to use slave blood as wrinkle cream. Think that's what she's holding in the above photo?

Know who's not a fan of LaLaurie? Voodoo queen Marie Laveau, who's played by Angela Bassett. Check her out below:

EW quotes executive producer Tim Minear as saying that LaLaurie's history and the history of voodoo and Salem witches are "entangled throughout the ages."

Bigger spoilers ahead!

And we know history plays its part in this series, which is set in different time periods. EW adds some exciting details about that, mentioning that the 1970s will be involved, as well as the present day and the 1830s, during LaLaurie and Laveau's day. In the present day, Supreme witch Fiona (Jessica Lange) leaves her comfortable life in Los Angeles behind and heads back to New Orleans to assist her daughter Cordelia (Sarah Paulson), the headmistress of Miss Robichaux'a Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, a school for young witches. EW describes it as an all-girls Hogwarts. This school is a safe haven for young witches, and while it was once brimming with powerful young females (the 70s factor in there), its current student body consists of a meager four students, "troubled teen star Madison (Emma Roberts), tough girl Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe), enigmatic Nan (Jamie Brewer), and shy Zoe (Taissa Farmiga)." Evan Peters plays Kyle, a Tulane frat boy who takes a liking to Zoe. Peters and Farmiga back together?! Love it. But this Tulane frat situation sounds like it's one of the issues the coven is dealing with.

The mentioned reason the witches' numbers are dwindling is a combination of older witches not reproducing because they're scared to pass on their powers, and some kind of outside force or forces that are destroying the lineage. There's also the ongoing feud with the Voodoo witches. Fiona and Cordelia's ideas on how to handle these challenges differ.

So that's a lot of information to process, and while it does lay out a lot more plot than we had previously, we know there's got to be more to the story. And it's going to be very exciting to see how it all plays out!

Here's that mentioned cast teaser:

American Horror Story: Coven premieres October 9 on FX.