‘American Horror Story’ Season 6: Six Things That Already Have Us Hooked

We’re only two episodes into American Horror Story Season 7, and already there is so much to talk about. Symbolism, possible foreshadowing, references to prior seasons, and real-life horror brought to the screen as only Ryan Murphy can – they’re all there. And they all will keep us tuning in for future episodes of American Horror Story: Roanoke. Let’s take a look at six of them.

1. Parallels Between Ben/Viviene and Matt/Shelby

In American Horror Story: Roanoke, Shelby and Matt moved across the country after Shelby suffered a miscarriage just like Viviene and Ben did in Murder House. The difference is how the miscarriage affected each couple. It was the beginning of the end for Ben and Viviene, but brought Matt and Shelby closer together. Both couples also moved into a house they got for a great price, discovered it was haunted, wanted to move, but couldn’t. And Ben and Viviene’s daughter is named Violet while Lee’s daughter is named Flora.

2. Pig Connection to Murder House’s Piggy Man

Then there’s the pig element to both seasons. In American Horror Story: Murder House, Ben had a patient, played by Eric Stonestreet, who had a fear of the urban legend Piggy Man. This season we’ve seen a man with a pig head in the video that Shelby and Lee watched, saw Kathy Bates turn a betrayer into a sort of pigman before burning him alive, a wild hog running through the woods, a burning structure with pig guts and heads… you get the point. Is there a connection between the Piggy Man of American Horror Story: Murder House and all the pigs in Roanoke? Well, probably not to the actual urban legend because it says that Piggy Man came to be following the World Fair of 1893, and the real-life Roanoke mystery happened in the late 1500s. But could there be some connection between the Eric Stonestreet character and the Kathy Bates character? Anything is possible in the AHS world.

3. Or Pigs as Foreshadowing

One more theory about pigs in this season of American Horror Story – it foreshadows Shelby getting pregnant again. TV Guide did a great video about the latest episode of AHS Season 6, and in it they say that pigs were once a symbol of fertility. (I did some poking around on the internet and confirmed this.) So maybe all of the pig references mean that Shelby will get pregnant again. Will it be some demon inside her, like with Viviene in Season 1?

4. Theory About Lady Gaga’s Role

Now a question about American Horror Story: Roanoke – how did someone get Flora’s jacket hundreds of feet in the air in the top of a tree? There’s a theory that could explain that. Glamour reported about an appearance Lady Gaga made on BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show and said this about her character,

“The character I’m playing this year on Horror Story, she’s quite grounded. That might sound ridiculous once you see who she is, but she’s very ‘in the earth.'”

Maybe Lady Gaga is literally a tree! Maybe she’s the tree where Flora’s jacket ended up. And maybe her roots run throughout the ground surrounding the house where Shelby and Matt live. That could also explain the earth moving beneath Shelby’s feet.

5. Another Real-Life Horror Story

The murderous nurses in American Horror Story: Roanoke are based on a real-life occurrence in which two nurses killed elderly people whose first names spelled out the word murder. It happened in the 80s, and the two were caught before they got the “r” for the end of the word. Ryan Murphy seems to have a thing for nurses and murder as he also had a storyline based on real-life murders that involved a nurse in American Horror Story: Murder House. Remember the cult members who tried to kill Viviene and Violet while Ben was away with Hayden? They were followers of someone named R. Franklin who killed a nurse then had a girl put on the dead nurse’s uniform before killing her. Well R. Franklin was based on real-life mass murderer Richard Speck who tortured, raped, and murdered eight nursing students in 1966. Interesting side note: One of the girls who is part of the serial-killer cult is named Bianca, which is reminiscent of the name of one of the families murdered by the Charles Manson family – the LaBiancas.

6. Theory About The Documentary Style – There’s More Than Meets the Eye

With all of these layers already present in American Horror Story: Roanoke, and given Ryan Murphy’s talent for misleading and surprising us, many viewers suspect that there is more to this documentary presentation than we think. I mean, really, could it possibly be so straightforward? Here’s another theory on what we’re really watching, and, surprise, it connects back to American Horror Story: Murder House.

Sarah Paulson plays the re-enactment version of Shelby this season. She also played Billie Dean Howard in Season 1. Billie Dean had an obsession with the Roanoke mystery. She explained it to Constance, and she also talked about wanting to do a television show. What if what we’re watching so far is Billie Dean’s attempt at a television show? And what if she’s using the American Horror Story: Murder House story as the basis for her show? We can continue in this vein of thought and ask: What if Lily Rabe, Andre Holland, and Adina Porter aren’t the real people like we’ve been thinking? What if they are the actors and Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Sarah Paulson are the real people? And maybe the big surprise that Ryan Murphy has said will come in episode six is a revelation of this. After all, he did say this to Entertainment Weekly about the beginning of the American Horror Story: Roanoke season.

“You’ll see starting in episode 6, the show has a huge turn and the thing that you think you’re watching is not what you’re watching.”

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. All the intertwining of American Horror Story seasons, all the foreshadowing and real-life stories put on the screen, all the symbolism – it’s what keeps us coming back and talking about this one-of-a-kind show. In case you need more to ponder, here are just a few of the questions we’re anxious to be answered at someone point in the American Horror Story: Roanoke season.

• As soon as Shelby touched Matt, he came out of his coma. Was this coincidence or does Shelby have some kind of magical power?
• Shelby lost the baby when Matt woke. Was this coincidence or did she sacrifice the baby for Matt’s life? Is she a witch?
• If Shelby is a witch, is she connected to the witches in Coven?

Earlier I mentioned a video by TV Guide. You can check it out below. Enjoy!

[Image via FX]