While American Horror Story didn’t have a panel at San Diego Comic-Con, much news about the show’s upcoming seventh season was revealed over the course of the weekend. For starters, FX finally revealed the show’s official subtitle: American Horror Story: Cult. Despite early rumors, the season won’t be called American Horror Story: Election, although the cult angle will somehow all still be tied into the 2016 presidential race.
The AHS activation at SDCC sent fans to AHS7.com, where viewers are invited to join the cult and play along for eight weeks’ worth of clues. You can view the creepy-as-heck new teaser down below:
Now series creator Ryan Murphy has dropped another big hint about AHS season seven: there will be an epic love story between the characters played by Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters, who fans might remember had a brief love story last year on the Roanoke season, playing two actors who fall in love while on set. Paulson and Peters have been in every single season of AHS going back to the beginning with Murder House, and are arguably the series’ most valuable players outside of Jessica Lange.
Ryan Murphy recently took to his Instagram account to share a sketch of Paulson and Peters’ characters, who are revealed to be named Ally and Kai, respectively. The drawing features Peters’ character with blue hair, which pretty much guarantees that the previous tease of a man with blue hair was in fact Evan Peters himself. You can check out the sketch of Ally and Kai in Murphy’s post down below:
So what else have we learned about AHS: Cult? Recently, Murphy dropped a hint that the cult would somehow be tied to the Freak Show season, and that there would be a connection to that year’s signature player, Twisty the Clown. Could the cult be one that worships/idolized Twisty? (Murphy recently dropped the hint that Twisty actor John Carroll Lynch’s is back.)
If so, what does a clown-related cult have to do with the 2016 election? (Hmm, maybe I should rephrase that). Kidding aside, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Ryan Murphy said he planned to use Cult to highlight “people who donât have a voice in our culture â people who are ignored by the current administration and who are afraid and feel terrorized that their lives are going to be taken away.” The season will take place in Michigan, a key state in the 2016 election.
Murphy says the series will begin on election night 2016, and will use Trump and Clinton as the characters who will be kicking everything off. But none of the actors won’t be playing the roles of Clinton or Trump. “You’ll see them on television. The first 10 minutes of the season takes place in a very eerie macabre way on election night and there’s something terrible that happens in the lives of our characters on election night as they’re watching it all go down.”
Along with Paulson and Peters, also returning for season seven are longtime AHS  players Frances Conroy, Mare Winningham, Adina Porter and Cheyenne Jackson. Joining them will be newcomers to the series Colton Haynes, Billie Lourd, Billy Eichner, Leslie Grossman and Alison Pill. Lena Dunham will also be appearing in one episode.
The eleven episode season of American Horror Story: Cult premieres on Tuesday, Sept. 5.
Are you excited for this particularly timely installment of AHS? Be sure to let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.
Images: FX Networks