With three episodes left in its third season American Horror Story: Coven is leaving no stone or decapitated head unturned in telling this female-driven narrative of witches, voodoo and the troublesome passage of authority. But that doesn’t mean we can’t already start thinking about the series’ fourth season and what kind of a horrific mash-up creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have coming. After a recent rumor surfaced that it would be another period piece, Murphy himself has come out saying the fourth season will be “set in 1950.” Can we assume that it will focus on Charles Schulz and the crafting of his classic Peanuts comic strip? Probably not.
In sharing this reveal with EW, Murphy also dropped the news that lead actress and multi-award winner Jessica Lange is already working on a German accent for this next role. I’m pretty confident Lange could learn how to speak Klingon backwards and still be able to deliver a winning slice of heightened drama. And now comes the guessing game about what kind of a story this German Lange would find herself in. Murphy offers vague non-clue by saying, “If you look historically at what happened in the year 1950, there’s some clues in that year.” Even though it’s only
1950 involved quite a lot of WWII aftermath, with populations shifting in and out of Germany. But that seems like the glaringly easy choice, and Asylum already had quite a few nods to WWII, what with James Cromwell’s Nazi mad scientist and a character who thought she was Anne Frank. This was also the time when the Korean War and Cold War began heating up, and the subject of nuclear weapons loomed large over the entire country. But none of that is inherently tied into the world of horror.
The only real thing I can think of at the moment is this was right around the time serial killer Ed Gein was heavy into grave-digging and making skull-cap cereal bowls and his woman-suit. But Gein has served as the basis for such classic horror films as The Silence of the Lambs and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so I’m hoping Murphy picks something we haven’t seen before to focus on. That said, American Horror Story has no problem skipping through time in flashbacks and flash-forwards, and has also been known to allow all manner of real life cameos to appear and disappear without rhyme or reason. (Remember Sal Mineo’s death in the first season?)
What do you guys think they’ll use as the backdrop for next season? Let us know in the comments after checking out the promo for tonight’s episode “Protect the Coven.”
