For a long time, there seemed to be very little to connect the different seasons of American Horror Story. Each individual season is set in a different time period and location, and each follows a very different type of horrifying story. While the actors that showrunner Ryan Murphy likes to work with tend to repeat, there hasn't been a ton of connectivity between the seasons. Yet, this week, Ryan Murphy announced that despite time and location hops, every season of American Horror Story is connected in some way or another.
We’ll be seeing a big sign of blatant connectivity soon. Earlier this week, it was announced that Lily Rabe will be heading to American Horror Story: Freak Show in order to reprise a role she played in Asylum a couple of years ago. Another character from Asylum, Pepper, is also on the show and will be the catalyst for Rabe’s return. Recently Ryan Murphy spoke with EW explaining how the crossover will work and effect the AHS storyline moving forward.
“This is the first year where we begin to tell you that Season 2 is connected to Season 4 which is connected to Season 1. People have started to write articles about that. A lot of their hypotheses have been completely right on. That’s the fun of the show. Hopefully by the end of the run, be it 10 years or 15 years, people will be able to stand back and be able to say, ‘Oh that was connected to x.’”
While it’s a little obnoxious for Murphy to just assume FX is going to give him 15 years to tell his story, it will be interesting to see how the show incorporates references and characters moving forward. The prolific producer also says the show is just “beginning” to explain all of the connectivity between seasons, and the connections will become more apparent.
“There’s definitely a rhyme or a reason and a connectedness to all of these seasons, but in the same way, they’re standalones, which is the fun of it. But it is a puzzle. And Lily coming back and dealing with Pepper is sort of the first unveiling of that connectedness.”
So, there you have it. American Horror Story will apparently continue to connect back to past seasons for as long as it moves forward, which Ryan hopes will be for a decade or longer (the drama is currently popular enough to stick around for a while). I’m not exactly sure how all of these connections will manifest, but you can be damn sure I’ll be checking every picture frame and knick knack cabinet that appears on the show from here on forward. Because you never know.
Rabe is expected to appear on American Horror Story: Freak Show during Episode 10. In the meantime, you can catch new episodes of FX’s drama on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. ET.
