Ryan Murphy has finally unleashed on Instagram the final clue as to what the title of the upcoming season of American Horror Story will be. Like everything Murphy does, the collection of assorted clues is inscrutable and slightly frustrating, but will probably make us all feel very stupid for overthinking things in the end.
Per a 2016 interview, Murphy confirmed that the upcoming season of the horror anthology series will be based around the aftermath of the election. Entertainment Weekly reports that Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters will be joining the cast again along with Billy Eichner, Billie Lourd, Colton Haynes, Alison Pill, Cheyenne Jackson, Adina Porter and Leslie Grossman. Somehow, Twisty the Clown, the only character that has truly frightened me in this entire franchise, will make an appearance. Those are the solid facts. Everything else is speculation, based around a series of Instagrams that, when examined together, make not an awful lot of sense.
Here’s a dude on set covered in bees.
Here are some “holes” that look like the third-runner up in a Deviantart competition illustrating trypophobia.
There’s also this tattered American flag hanging on a very nice front porch, a creepy black and white shot of some woods and then this nightmare, which looks to be the result of a tryst between Twisty the Clown and the Republican Party’s mascot.
There you have it! Those are your hints! I hate puzzles and am occasionally obtuse in a way that is more frustrating than anything else, but I’m ready and raring to figure out what in the hell this man is trying to communicate via these incscrutable images. Jezebel’s Julianne Escobedo Shepherd posited that, because of the bees and perhaps the woods, that this season would be about climate change—not a bad guess. I’ll take it. But what of the holes? The stately home with the American flag hanging out front? The horrible elephant/clown hybrid that could stand in as a symbol for the rotting inside core of the Republican Party finally showing its ass?
What if the season is about the election by tracing, say, the origin story of a buffoon who is not only dumb but also evil , deathly allergic to bees and afraid of and inspired by clowns? What if that person becomes President? What if the world ends as a result? What if this picture of a very adorable Bernese Mountain Dog puppy gamboling with unchecked joy on Murphy’s Insta is actually a clue that we’re also supposed to weave into this narrative?
I can’t figure this out, but I bet it’s climate change. Really. I do. Your guess is as good as mine.