Next 'American Horror Story' to focus on US election

SERIES COLLABORATOR: Sarah Paulson in American Horror Story: Roanoke. The Emmy-winning actress will return in Season 7 of American Horror Story. Picture: FX

SERIES COLLABORATOR: Sarah Paulson in American Horror Story: Roanoke. The Emmy-winning actress will return in Season 7 of American Horror Story. Picture: FX

Published Feb 23, 2017

Share

Ryan Murphy said on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live that the upcoming season of his critically acclaimed FX anthology series American Horror Story will focus on the 2016 presidential election.

“I don’t have a title, but the season that we begin shooting in June is going to be about the election that we just went through, so I think that will be interesting for a lot of people,” he told host Andy Cohen.

“Wow,” Cohen said. “Will there be, like, a Trump?” It appeared that Murphy wasn’t ready to talk specifics: “Uh, maybe,” he said.

Murphy is the prolific producer behind Nip/Tuck, Glee and another anthology series, American Crime Story, which revisited the OJ Simpson trial in its first season and won the Golden Globe for best limited series.

Murphy’s American Horror Story comments come as a surprise because the show’s past seasons have been about fictional events, usually of the supernatural variety. Viewers knew almost nothing about the show’s most recent season before it premiered in September. The move certainly fuelled fan theories.

All we know about Season 7 is that two of Murphy’s frequent collaborators – Evan Peters and Sarah Paulson – will return to the franchise. Paulson won an Emmy for her portrayal of beleaguered prosecutor Marcia Clark in The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story and has logged four nominations for her various American Horror Story roles.

Paulson pulled triple duty in Roanoke, playing the actress who helped re-enact the couple’s horrific ordeal in the documentary before experiencing her own frightening series of events.

Paulson also reprised her role as journalist Lana Winters, who first appeared in the anthology’s second season, American Horror Story: Asylum.

Lana is one of several American Horror Story characters to appear in different instalments. In 2014, Murphy confirmed long-standing fan theories that the seasons were somehow connected, which makes the prospect of an election-themed season even more alluring.

How would American Horror Story connect President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton ,to tales of haunted mansions, an insane asylum, witches, a troupe of so-called freaks and a creepy hotel? We’ll have to wait and see. But if anyone can do it, it’s Murphy. - The Washington Post

Related Topics: